Tag: 30s

Intro: I love the way the Em6 here gives the song a heavy, brooding feel. There are a couple of challenging bits here. First, the slide up to the 7th fret in bar 6. Second, the fast picking on the triplets in bar 10.

Verse: The verses are nice and simple. If you like, you can use the Em6 here as well in place of the Em. I chose the Em here to make the harmony clearer to the listener.

Chorus: It’s important to create as much contrast as possible between the call and the response here. So this arrangement has the call in single notes high on the neck. And the response is low on the neck and in a chord.

Double Time Chorus: This section is a burst of anarchy in the song. It’s also the most difficult to play. So I embraced the chaos and did whatever I felt like in this section.

Outro: A very effective descending chord run to end on.

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As Time Goes By is most famous for its inclusion in Casablanca. But the song was written a decade earlier by Herman Hupfeld for the long forgotten musical Everybody’s Welcome.

Intro: A quick campanella intro. There are a million things you could do here.

Verse: The slow pace of the song make this fairly simple to play. Just a trip up the fretboard in bar 7 to deal with. Another opportunity for your own spin at the end of each verse. I went jazzy in the first verse and bluesy in the second.

Bridge: Bringing out the strums for the bridge.

Solo: The solo is based on the melody shifted up an octave. With a few passing notes, a pre-bend (i.e. bending the note before plucking it then releasing) and a descending-ascending run in bars 23-24.

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Why Don’t You Do Right? has a colourful history. The tune started out as Weed Smoker’s Dream in 1936. It was adapted and released in 1941 by Lil Green (with guitar by Big Bill Broonzy). The most famous version was the Peggy Lee’s uptempo take. At least it was until Jessica Rabbit’s sultry version in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Tempo-wise, this version is most similar to the Lil Green version. But I took inspiration from all three versions. 

There are a heap of places in the song for little licks, and I’ve included a solo as well. As always, I recommend using the tab as inspiration for your own ideas rather than slavishly following each lick. 

When soloing, I mostly thought in terms of the D blues scale (D – F – G – Ab – A – C – D). In addition to that, I threw in a few notes that crop up in the chords: Db and Bb. And a couple of chromatic runs (in bars 31-32 and the blues turnaround in bars 35-36). 

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