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Higher Ground


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A new group I was just asked to play with includes "Higher Ground" in the repertoire. I think they want me to play the clav part as close as possible to a live version (which may or may not be identical to the studio version). Here is a link I was sent:

 

Anyway, I have a commercial chart which has a simplified keyboard line. In fact, I suspect that the original version may have more than 1 clav track going on.

 

Anyone have a chart that more accurately conveys the clav part? I'll settle for any general suggestions.

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Stevie doubled a lot of his clav parts on those 70's studio recordings. My advice would be to go back to the original and find a part that lands in your hands the best.

 

The great thing about Stevie's clav stuff is that as complex as it may sounds, it's deceptively simple. I wouldn't worry about totally copping the line as much as finding the feel.

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There are two overdubbed Clav parts on the recording, and you can find them isolated if you search on YouTube.

 

Years ago I nerded out pretty hard over figuring out what he played live, comparing all the live recordings I could find. (The most useful turned out to be one from the early '80s, during the unfortunate "DX7 phase." Sounded pretty bad, but that brittle digital sound made it really easy to pick out the notes.) Here's what he does for the main line (with variations, of course). Unexpected part: first chord is an Eb major before it goes to minor. Also note that he anticipates the Gb and Ab chords by playing the 7th on the upbeat before the change, which is a crucial part of the sound. Apply that same approach to the rest of the chord changes and you'll get something very close.

 

Higher-Ground-clav-part.jpg

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Wonder if he played anything close to that live...I find it odd that so many cover bands care more about this than the artists themselves do. Get the feel right, have fun and the audience will be happy IMO!

 

I have this same issue on Superstition though--there are multiple clav parts, all pretty simple, but the overall result is complex. So I try to make a "distillation" of how it ends up sounding...no doubt what I'm playing doesn't match any single one of the originals nor the result (since that would be impossible) but nobody has thrown anything me so far :)

 

Guitarists deal with this all the time too, unfortunately one "solution" seems to be to run tracks when people worry that they can't do all the parts.

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Wonder if he played anything close to that live...I find it odd that so many cover bands care more about this than the artists themselves do. Get the feel right, have fun and the audience will be happy IMO!

 

Totally agree. This is a new project so I don't know the expectations really. But I'm personally not interested in perfect duplication. If that's what they want, then I'm not the right guy.

 

I just wanted a little guidance - which has been provided now - and confirmation that there were 2 clav parts happening.

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At the end of the day, Stevies just groovin, and you should be too! A lot of that complexity just comes from inconsistency and variation, which isnt really planned. I agree with the rest, just find the basic feel and groove on it, trying to channel your inner groove-bot, and dont overthink it.

 

Listen to live recordings to get rid of the studio magic and see how the artist really translates it to a performance setting... often times its better and more starkly defines the hooks.

 

Speaking of R&B: this is doubly true for Hall & Oates. Ive always liked them, but I dont think I fully got it until I saw them live.

Puck Funk! :)

 

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Cool guys, never knew that about the double clav parts. Any music books that do a decent version of these songs? I found one for the Doors that layed it out beautifully for keys. Looked around, never found one for Ray Charles, and now I'm wondering about Stevie.

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Suggest transcribing it by ear, man. You'll really get it in your fingers and head better that way. Takes more time, I know, but more you do it, you'll get really fast and it'll be easier than reading it! Plus you get to the soul of it quicker. MHO

Puck Funk! :)

 

Equipment: Laptop running lots of nerdy software, some keyboards, noise makersâ¦yada yada yadaâ¦maybe a cat?

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Suggest transcribing it by ear, man. You'll really get it in your fingers and head better that way. Takes more time, I know, but more you do it, you'll get really fast and it'll be easier than reading it! Plus you get to the soul of it quicker. MHO

 

Sounds like an interesting project, but even with a songbook of his popular songs transcribed for the key parts it'd still be a lot of work for me to learn these songs, I'm not as good as many of you here. Perhaps having the written version and then learning more of the feel from listening would be a good combo.

 

With the Doors book, they laid out the ryhthms in a way that I would probably never have gotten, it's good to have a starting point!

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

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We do it with a Booker T. Green Onion kind of feel and it sounds better to me than the recording which personally I never liked.

Same goes for Superstition too.

Stevies Clavs always sound good by themselves as intros then the overdubs come in and just walkover each other.

But by that time his voice is the focus so only guys like us are concerned.

 

Dont Worry about a thing has a great Piano part and thankfully doesnt have a bunch of other crap going on, and all of these tunes are really fun to play if you just avoid copying the imperfections that for some reason managed to work.

 

 

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Good job on the transcription, Josh. Should the D in the first bar, left hand, be Db?

 

Yes it should! Good catch. Corrected version:

 

Higher-Ground-clav.jpg

 

Nice.

 

I learned your Superstition transcription, but discovered the paradoxical truth that unless you play it wrong, people think you're playing it wrong.

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I got the individual tracks somewhere, and I switch back and forth on occasion. No-one notices or cares. Especially when wah guitar drowns it out!

Barry

 

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