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Pick’s Transcription Workshop: John McLaughlin’s Incredible Line on Mr. D.C.
This tune is a dedication to the band’s amazing drummer Dennis Chambers. This tune is from the 1997 CD by John McLaughlin called “The Heart of Things”. It features a close friend and amazing bass player Matthew Garrison along with Jim Beard on keys, and Gary Thomas on tenor sax. The band plays the melody line in unison and the play it FAST! If you think the recorded version is fast, the live You Tube clip is played even FASTER!
The line at letter {A} is 16 bars long and is more or less centered around the D Symmetric Diminished Scale with a lot of chromatics thrown in for good measure. The D Symmetric Diminished Scale looks like this:
D-Eb-F-F#-G#-A-B-C-D As always I leave the fingerings up to you. One tip for you though, don’t be afraid to use the open D string in measures #7,and #12 of the {A} section. The {B} section squeezes the melody into just 12 bars so look to use that open D string in bars #5 & #6. Work this one up so that you can play along with the live or recorded versions and you’ll get an idea of just what kind of command and control (aka chops) are required to play with a musical master like John McLaughlin. Good luck.
-Pick
