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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on August 10, 2017 at 7:00pm

As a huge fan of 1980's new age music. Groups like Jean Michel Jarre, Shadofax, Kitaro and more. I'm a bit perplexed. This is way beyond what you can expect out of any one instrument. Let alone one with only three strings. What your hearing is a multiple layered synthesizers.  I've counted at least seven. 

The two main chords are an E played on a bar at your ninth fret. The other chord is heavily overlaid with the first. The best i can get is 5,7,5. The soloing is in Em. Until the 6:30 mark. Then it changes to a major. You cold play 9,10,12 or bar at the at the fifth fret. Second chord 4, 5, 4. then it changes again at the 9+ mark. There doesn't appear to be an on going melody at any time. 

Sorry for being a bit of a stick on this one. I don't really see a way to pull this off with a guitar of any kind. Other than soloing in Em over the first two chords. 

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 11, 2017 at 12:17pm

Shadowfax used to live 4 doors down the street from my best friend from college. We'd go down and listen to them rehearse.

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on August 12, 2017 at 9:09am

Totally AWESOME! And I'm completely jealous. 

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 12, 2017 at 4:44pm

It was weird; they were renting a house only for about a month or so. This would have been in 1978. I remember them saying they were working on their second or third album...

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on August 13, 2017 at 6:08am

I follow a jazz bass player on line. He and the band  recently renting a loft in NY city. I've also had friends in touring bands that rented places to work on albums wile they toured. Kind of a time to rest, work and then get back on the job. 

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Hunter on August 11, 2017 at 2:29am

couldnt find anything except video similar to the one you linked..  i did find a cordify site that gave the ambient backing and played the "bluesy" bit on a trumpet type sound...  this had the chords F#m and D the timing on this is very tricky as watching it the chords sometimes change mid bar  

https://chordify.net/chords/blade-runner-blues-vangelis-1982-hd-pia...

now that link has extra chords then the first time i looked??  drops in some A and B and Bm , trouble is you dont hear them ?? 

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on August 13, 2017 at 6:16am

Ambient and some new age music takes cues from jazz. They layer dissonant sounds to create a 'feel' you don't get from normal classical notation. Those chords are there. Just played under the  Em. Without the rest of the music they would sound completely off. The white noise hiss you hear helps to bring all this together. Cuts down on the perception of off key notes. There is an art to ambient music. 

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 12, 2017 at 11:36pm

Dustin,
I have to agree with Rat on this one. Short of just noodling atmospherically over some looped chord changes, I don't see how you're gonna pull this off with one 3 string guitar. There's just not enough dynamic range in three strings tuned GDG for a piece that has so many things going on at once. Yes, you might be able to hack a simplistic version together, by just listening to the melody Vangelis is playing, and if you have a looper you can get some of the dreamy chord atmosphere behind it...but I just don't think it's worth your time investment right now. You've got plenty of other issues to sort out in your playing first, as discussed on another thread.

To be honest, I keep wondering if the guy was just winding you up, trying to play a mean version of "stump the band," because of the word "blues" in the song's title...

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on August 13, 2017 at 6:04am

Sorry Dustin. There's a host of us who do our best to help fellow CGB players. This however is a bit beyond what can be reasonably done. I agree with Oily on this one. But it would be cool if you could play the first few minutes of the solo. Just to make the guy eat crow. I have sat down and played note for note some of the beginning improvisation. Unfortunately I'm in the middle of some projects. Possibly for the next month and a half. Really can't take the time to make a tab for it. 

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