Steve's Spinal Column #20

There's also a rumor that I will have a new CD out real soon. That soon is Dec. 23, 2006.

Adventures In Stickology features 9 really special guest guitar players in various styles. I'm excited to have this music finally come to life.

I thought for this month I would offer an analysis of one the tunes that features guitar master Dean Brown. Dean has played on over 200 recordings from Billy Cobham and David Sanborn to Roberta Flack, Marcus Miller and more. He's a special player. Here's the progression as presented in The Spinal Column (cue Rod Serling).

"And On Blue Guitar" (Adelson and Brown)

ll: Em9 l Em9 l CMaj7 l CMaj7 :ll
: C#m7 l BMaj7 l AMaj7 l G#Maj7 :ll

On Stick, I play a thumping quarter note bass line with the left hand while playing chords with the right through a Roland VG88 harmony setting in fifths. But alas, my thumb is free and actually plays the melody on the bass strings, resulting in 3 simultaneous parts on the Stick. Cool.

The solo section which Dean tears up is a bit different.

ll: Em9 l Em9 l CMaj7 l CMaj7 :ll
: D l D l CMaj7 l CMaj7 :ll

This section all fits into the key of GMajor or Eminor. But again remember I'm running the chords through a harmonizer a 5th up. Everything still works in G but the D chord presents a situation. When I play this D triad, the harmonizer also plays an A chord. The result is DF#A + AC#E yielding DMaj7/9. Cool chord but the C# is not in the key of G. So we have to adjust our solos accordingly to compensate for this note. The easiest way is to just change solo options to a D scale which has F# and C#. Otherwise everything is pretty straight forward.

Try the progression out with solos. And of course you might wanna' hear our almost 9 minute jam on this. Did I mention I'll have a CD out just before Christmas?

You can keep up with Steve's activities at his website: www.steveadelson.com/