The Sunday Song: Alice
I wrote this song quite a long time ago, for one of my favorite webcomics, entitled Alice! The comic hasn’t updated since 2006, but I actually own the print collection that was available for a while. The vibe of it was somewhere between Peanuts and Calvin & Hobbes — except it was about an overimaginative teen or tween girl. Glancing at it now, it makes me think of my daughter, who similarly dives into roleplaying and doesn’t come out for days.
– download
The tablature and sheet music have actually been posted up for ages and ages in the Music section of the site. It’s in standard tuning, but uses a partial capo on the 4th fret covering only three of the strings — strings 3, 4, and 5, numbered from the high E as the first string.
Hope you like it!
I’m a newbie on guitar, still trying to figure out how to contort my fret hand to get the chords that seem to have been invented by medieval torturers. “Partial capo” sent me into a scramble of research. Wow! Isn’t that a potentially pain-saving piece of hardware!
A capo is usually just used to change key, but there are specific variants designed to get you into specific tunings and fingerings. There is a lot of material in the contemporary singer-songwriter and New Agey vein that uses the latter.
If you are just starting out, a plain capo will open up tons of songs and keys to you. You should get one!
I’ve got one, and I’m using it to try and tackle Colbie Callet’s “I Do” (at the behest of my favorite Second Life vocalist, who has some pull since she’s my wife).
But there’s a B minor suspended something or other in the mix that I think maybe I can hit if I just dislocate my pinky a little bit…
I just glanced over here: http://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/c/colbie_caillat/i_do_crd.htm and it looks to me like a regular Bm… several barre chords in there though, which I am guessing is what you are struggling with. 90% of the time, you can get away with a “four-finger cheat” version of a barre and only play the top four strings…
You’re right. It’s the D that’s suspended, and that one’s easy. I’ll try the Bm on the top 4. Thanks, Raph.
Oh, alice is a rather nice web comic! Artsy even. http://alice.alicecomics.com/1999/07/20/07201999/
Squeeze a ball to get up the left hand strength, Yukon. You need the grande barre to properly walk the bass line from bm to E, which comes in very handy. 🙂 Try a bm grande barre and extend the pinkie finger to the c# (on the G string). Lovely spooky chord a la David Crosby, a hippie dysfunction or existential mystery thing.
Something of a home made Christmas card for ya, good folkies! Composed for a women’s chorus, but never recorded so I did it myself. Usual cheap video. Merry Christmas!
Crap. It embedded. Apologies Raph. Delete it at will.