Jeepney Joyride rightly call themselves the Ska-influenced band from hell — but in a good way, as indicated by their recent success: they’ve just released their second album, Let’s Get Party, a 14-track masterpiece of humor and good skankin’ fun, and is out now under Sony BMG on all major Odyssey and Music One record bars, with an official album launch on August 29 at the new Club Dredd in Eastwood, Libis. And FMD’ll be there to play with them, so yeah, good vibes!

I was lucky enough to snag a copy the night it had its soft launch on July 6 at the Purple Haze Bar in Tomas Morato, and had it autographed by most of the band members. My favorite track is Paano kung ‘di ka na matawa?, a poignant (but not emo-ish, thank goodness) song about insecurity, and Lab, asan ka na?, an innuendo-filled laugh-a-minute little ditty.

You can stop wondering if the album can capture the sheer energy of the band’s live performances, which is, I daresay, among the best in the business. Truth is, of course it can’t. Joyride, like grub worms, are best served live. And I can’t believe I just compared one of my most favorite bands to a bunch of foul pests. But there you go. The album is good — “very” would’nt even begin to do it justice — but nothing beats their live performances.

You can catch Joyride, as well as FMD (that’s us ), at Purple Haze every first Friday of the month as part of Big TT (Big Time Tado) productions, which is run by the man himself, Tado. Or as I call him, Arvin. Yes, mahilig ako mag pakapal mukha. Also on these locations:

Aug 11 2007 10:00A, Muntinlupa City Jail Muntinlupa
Aug 11 2007 8:00P Vida de Malate Manila
Aug 13 2007 12:00P NU 107 New Album Review Pasig City
Aug 24 2007 8:00P SM Megatrade Hall Mandaluyong City
Aug 25 2007 9:00A NU 107 guesting Pasig City
Aug 29 2007 8:00P Club Dredd Libis Quezon City
Aug 31 2007 9:00P Club Dredd Libis Quezon City

Shameless plug aside, if there’s one album you’re gonna buy this year, this has got to be it. Seriously. This, and The Chongkey’s upcoming album. Okay, so that’s two. But still. You gotta buy this album. You won’t regret it. Ika nga ni Ramon Bautista: it’s a laht of fahhhhn.

I’ve gotten a few emails asking me to explain the SSB songs in further detail — particularly the tablature parts — that I decided to write an introduction to reading tablature here.

According to Wikipedia, Tablature (or tabulature) is a form of musical notation, which tells players where to place their fingers on a particular instrument rather than which pitches to play. That is, in contrast to musical notation, which is more a visual representation of the aurally perceived pitch/note, tablature merely tells you where to place your fingers in the fretboard, indicating where and when a finger should be depressed to generate a note, so pitch is denoted implicitly rather than explicitly.

Tabs, as they are colloquially known, are an easy way to learn how to play songs because there is pretty much no learning curve. You play it as you see it, and don’t have to worry about rhythm, tempo, feel and such just yet. Of course, that can be a drawback later on when you need more information from the piece, but for those just starting out or in a hurry, tabs are gold.

Here’s an example, based on my latest SSB, Tatsulok by Bamboo:

      ~sweep~          p.  p.       b/r    p. h. p.    ph.
e |-------------------------------------------------------
B |------7-10----8--7--9-7-9-7----------------------------
G |-----9-----------------------9--9(11)9--7--9--7-----7--
D |----9------9-------------------------------------9-----
A |---9---------------------------------------------------
E |-------------------------------------------------------

Guitar tab consists of a series of horizontal lines forming a staff (or stave,) similar to standard notation. Each line represents one of the instrument’s strings therefore standard guitar tab has a six-line staff and bass guitar tab has four lines. The top line of the tablature represents the highest pitched string of the guitar. By writing tablature with the lowest pitched notes on the bottom line and the highest pitched notes on the top line of the tablature follows the same basic structure and layout of Western Standard Notation.

The following examples are labeled with letters on the left denoting the string names, with a lower-case “e” for the high E string. Tab lines may be numbered 1-6 instead, representing standard string numbering, where “1″ is the high E string, “2″ is the B string etc.

The numbers are written on the lines represent the fret used to obtain the desired pitch. For example, the number 3 written on the top line of the staff indicates that the player should press down at the third fret on the high E (first string). Number 0 denotes the nut - that is, an open string.

~ Wikipedia

Basing from that, we know know to put our fingers over the 9th fret of the A, D and G strings to execute the lick, and so forth. Great, so now you know where to put your fingers! What about those other stuff in there, you ask? Well, I’m not sure if there’s an actual convention as to how to write ASCII tabs, but this is how I annotate mine:

~sweep~   - arpeggiate
p.             - pull off
h.             - hammer on
b/r            - bend/release
ph.            - pinch harmonic

That’s just a small sampling, of course, but it covers the techniques I illustrated in the tab above. For more information, check these other resources out:

• Learning Guitar
• How To Read Guitar Tab - A Detailed Explanation of How To Read Guitar Tab

It’s been a while since my last Single Song Breakdown — hell, my last post — so I’m trying my hand on the new single by Bamboo that some folks have been bugging me to do a take on.

Truth be told, I haven’t heard the original Tatsulok by Buklod prior to Bamboo’s, which irks me to no end. And while I honestly prefer the original, Bamboo has done well to put their stamp on their version. Bamboo’s distinct style of rock-influenced alternative pop has changed little over the years, and what comes out is, sans lyrics, a Bamboo song.

The Intro

The intro is handled mostly by the bass, but I’ve seen performances where the guitar player follows along with simple arpeggios and letting the last note ring out and feed back, kinda like this:

	 ~~~~~~~~~~
e |-------------------------------------------------------
B |-------------------------------------------------------
G |-----10------------------------------------------------
D |---7---------------------------------------------------
A |-9-----------------------------------------------------
E |-------------------------------------------------------

If that sounds/looks at all familiar, that’s probably because Hallelujah uses much the same lick, just a step lower.

The Verse

The verse follows a pretty standard progression over Bm: Bm-A, Bm-G, Bm-A-G-F#m. Listen to the song to figure out when to change chords, which goes like this:

Bm                A
Totoy bilisan mo, bilisan mo ang takbo
Bm                            G
Ilagan ang mga bombang nakatutok sa ulo mo
Bm                A
Totoy tumalon ka, dumapa kung kailangan
G                        F#m
At baka tamaan pa ng mga balang ligaw

The Pre-Chorus

The pre-chorus chords are G-F#m twice, then Bm-A-G-F#m:

G		   F#m
Hindi pula’t dilaw tunay na magkalaban
G		   F#m
Ang kulay at tatak ay di syang dahilan
Bm		        A
Hangga’t marami ang lugmok sa kahirapan
G		        F#m
At ang hustisya ay para lang sa mayaman

The Chorus

The chorus reminds of the charismatic song “Sole Salvation”, because of the progression (with different strum patterns, of course): it’s in Bm-F#m-G-A. Play along to the song, you’ll see how the chord changes come along better when you do.

Bm		       F#m
Habang may tatsulok at sila ang nasa tuktok
G          A         Bm
Di matatapos itong gulo

The Guitar Solo

Here’s where it gets tricky, because the timing’s a bit off. Using the same beat we have with the chorus, we have:

Bm - F#m - G - Em (replacing A - Bm in the chorus)
Em (extended) - A - F#m - Bm
Em - F#m (palm muted)

That’s what I meant by the tricky timing: the last measure only has two bars compared to the previous two, which had four apeice. After that palm-muted F#m, the song shifts into the pre-chorus, then chorus, and ends. Listen to the song closely and you’ll get it.

Lead Ideas

The following videos are pretty much identical in how I approached the phrasing, with minor differences: the first video I stuck exclusively to playing over the B minor and B minor pentatonic scales. In the second video I threw in passing licks over B Dorian whenever I slowed down, and B Phrygian whenever I did a scale run, B minor (aeolian) for everything else, and always looking to resolve in D.

B-Minor
e |----------------------------------------------7--9--10-
B |------------------------------------7--8--10-----------
G |---------------------------6--7--9---------------------
D |---------------------7--9------------------------------
A |-----------7--9--10------------------------------------
E |-7--9--10----------------------------------------------

B-Phrygian
e |----------------------------------------------7--8--10-
B |-------------------------------------7--8--10----------
G |-------------------------------7--9--------------------
D |---------------------7--9--10--------------------------
A |-----------7--9--10------------------------------------
E |-7--8--10----------------------------------------------

B-Dorian
e |----------------------------------------------7--9--10-
B |------------------------------------7--9--10-----------
G |---------------------------6--7--9---------------------
D |-----------------6--7--9-------------------------------
A |-----------7--9----------------------------------------
E |-7--9--10----------------------------------------------

sample lick, as seen in the second video

~sweep~ - arpeggiate
p.      - pull off
h.      - hammer on
b/r     - bend/release
ph.     - pinch harmonic

      ~sweep~          p.  p.       b/r    p. h. p.    ph.
e |-------------------------------------------------------
B |------7-10----8--7--9-7-9-7----------------------------
G |-----9-----------------------9--9(11)9--7--9--7-----7--
D |----9------9-------------------------------------9-----
A |---9---------------------------------------------------
E |-------------------------------------------------------

Full Lyrics

Someday I wish I could honestly say that Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits was an influence in my playing, because he’s just amazing. He doesn’t use a pick, so his tone and lines are a tad difficult for me, so as usual, I went my own way with this one. I kept in mind that Knopfler likes to use Pentatonic string skips and open-string licks, so I incorporated some of that.

A minor pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five pitches per octave, derived by removing the 2nd and 6th notes from the parent minor scale. Using the song Money for Nothing as a reference (which is in G minor), the minor scale is composed of the following notes: G, A, B-flat, C, D, E-flat and F sharp, as illustrated below:

The minor pentatonic would then be A, B-flat, C, D and F sharp, and has the following pattern:

Try this lick slow, and experiment with variants like slides instead of bends, try doing it all in one string, or change the timing. The really great thing about using a pentatonic scale is you can even just do a scale run and add a bend here, a double-stop there, and it won’t sound mechanical.

Try to add a little spice to your licks by playing a C minor pentatonic lick where the song shifts from B-flat to C, instead of playing it in G. A fun thing that I do when I’m stuck in a rut is to shred the full minor scale, going up and down the fretboard; it’s useful in transitions where you want to emphasize a sudden shift in attitude, like say when the song is building to a head, changing time signatures or as an exclamation point.

That’s it for now; try to experiment going up and down that scale til next time! \m/

To kick off this relaunch, I’m letting everybody get a sneak listen to my favorite FMD song, Ding. Or, as most people know it by, the Nora song.

Ding is upbeat, quirky and hilarious — pretty much what FMD is all about, really. The song is in D major, playing around with the oh-so-familiar D-A-G progression. The intro may sound familiar, as it’s a nod to the old X-Men cartoons’ theme:

Ding, intro riff

           D                                G
                      ~                                 ~
e |-------------------------------------------------------
B |---5-6-5-----5-6-5-6---------10-11-10---------10-11--11
G |--7-----7---7-----7---//---12--------12-----12-----12--
D |-7-------7-7-------------12------------12-12-----------
A |-------------------------------------------------------
E |-------------------------------------------------------

In the intro, I’m playing that lick over implied Dm and Gm chords. The trick to making this lick flow is to use sweep, or economy picking, instead of the normal up-down-up-down strokes in alternate picking. This is handy if you have two or more successive notes on adjacent strings; it means you can get away with a single staggered downstroke for three notes, and reverting to alternate picking on the fourth note. The overall effect is a smoother transition than would otherwise have been possible with alternate picking.

The verse and chorus chords vary only on how the chords are strummed; apart from that, they’re both D-G, D-A-G. The verse has a more subdued, tension-building feel, owing to palm-muted downstrokes. The chorus is more lively, as by this time I’m playing it more vigorously, the accents coming from both the left and right hand mutings on certain beats. Think Crazy Train with a bluesy feel.

Between chords I embellish with a few pentatonic licks both in D major and B minor, which are virtually interchangeable. The key, however, is to always resolve in D for these fill-ins, so as to give a sense of closure between licks. Further down the song, I experiment increasingly with modal tonalities: the first real guitar solo, I switch from a B blues scale to a B minor pentatonic to B minor to B phrygian (while over G) and D lydian (again, while over G), albeit as passing licks, while keeping the Rock ‘n Roll/Funk feel throughout with a double stop every so often. The final tapping solo is a nod to Randy Rhoades’ leadwork in Crazy Train, and is in B dorian, finally resolving in D major pentatonic.

Here’s a partial tab of that tapping solo:

e----------------------------------------------------------------|
B---14p7h10po7h10-14p7-14p7h10p7h10--14p7--14p7h10p7h10--14p7----|
G----------------------------------------------------------------|
D----------------------------------------------------------------|
A----------------------------------------------------------------|
E----------------------------------------------------------------|

e----------------------------------------------------------------|
B-14p7h10p7h10--15p7--15p7h10p7h10--15p7--15p7h10p7h10--15p7-----|
G----------------------------------------------------------------|
D----------------------------------------------------------------|
A----------------------------------------------------------------|
E----------------------------------------------------------------|

e---------------------------(w/bar-----------------)-------------|
B-15p7h10p7h10--15p10p7-----9h12p9--7h10p7--9h10p9-------------10|
G---------------------------------------------------9s7-9bu(11)--|
D----------------------------------------------------------------|
A----------------------------------------------------------------|
E----------------------------------------------------------------|

Anyway, stay tuned for more FMD, and catch our gigs: we’ll be at Purple Haze and Kolumn pretty soon, and hopefully back at Mag:Net!