Pick’s Transcription Workshop: Que Alegria Played by Bassist Dominique Di Piazza

Meet Lucas Pickford –

This tune “Que Alegria” by John McLaughlin from the CD of the same name is a terrific bass feature. The bassist is the great Frenchman Dominique Di Piazza. Dominique plays the melody after a long percussion intro that happens between McLaughlin and master Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu. I chose to write the melody in treble clef to avoid excessive ledger lines in bass clef. The chord changes are pretty challenging and you really better have all your chord scales super together before you attempt to improvise on this tune. I am in the middle of transcribing the bass solo from the CD version and will post that in a later article. There is one mistake in bar 12. The chord change for the second two beats should be Gmaj7 not Amaj7 and the G# on the “and” of beat 3 should be a G natural. Sorry about that, I did this a long time ago. (See actual transcription at the end of this page)

The You Tube video will give a good idea of just how incredible Dominique’s playing is. His right hand is just insane!

OK, as always, be well, do good work, and stay in touch.

Pick
www.lucaspickford.com