🌎💨🔥EWF’s September

(Must-Know November)

RIFFS:

Alright, let’s do this.

Last week we looked at How Sweet It Is:

🍰 How Sweet It Is

It’s a song every wedding/corporate band does.

If you take those kind of gigs, you’re expected to know it.

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There’s a whole bunch of these modern standards, so…

Let’s make this into a whole series:

Must-Know November

(make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss one!)

(and maybe if y’all like this, we can do must-knows for solo shows and bar bands too?)

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This week we’ll learn the most-requested, most-danced-to song ever:

Earth, Wind, & Fire’s September.

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RECS:

Here’s a whole YT playlist of September-related vids:

• Dead Wax on its “impossible” melody

• Digging The Greats
  on its creation

• this chill acoustic rendition

• this insane fingerstyle instrumental

• and 1 2 3 4 tutorials worth checking out

  • (we’ll come back to this in a second)

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CHARTS:

Here’s a Dropbox folder with my PDF, Sibelius, & musicXML files

(full-res PDF here)

SoundSlice w/TAB is here.

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SMARTS:

1

You won’t get it “right.”

And that’s ok.

Like The Beatles’ Blackbird, this is one of those songs that everyone plays a little differently.

Why is this?

Probably because there are multiple guitars on the original.

When you’re condensing two parts into one, you gotta pick & choose which ingredients to stir into your own personal stew.

(And this is why I linked four other tutorials above.)

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2

Give that cool line to the bassist?

In the INTRO, one guitar plays the cool single note line, and the other plays funky octaves:

The bass player is “tacet”—he’s not playing.

I like to give that line to the bassist while I take the octaves.

(There’s still plenty of chances to play that line in other sections.)

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3

Mind the form, part 1

For the most part, this song is one repeated vamp.

You can absolutely play one part for the whole song.

Lots of players will only do that single note line we just talked about:

But I like to work with dynamics & textures to shade in the subtleties:

TAB for all this here.

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4

Mind the form, part two

Because all of the sections are so similar, it’s easy to get lost.

(And even if you read it perfectly, there’s no guarantee the singers will keep the form straight—you really gotta pay attention.)

And if the dance floor is packed, you might choose to play the last choruses again.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:

1. put your guitar down

2. pick the chart up

3. listen to the song while following along

• There, now you understand what each section is called.

• Now you hear how the horn part changes on the repeat.

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5

Don’t make this common mistake

When you’re playing the single note line, it happens three times:

It gives you the impression that the chords are the same each time.

But they’re not.

If you listen carefully, you’ll hear that the third time there’s a C#7.

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6

This is the end

It’s a repeat & fade on the record.

Obviously that’s not gonna work when playing it live.

When Earth Wind & Fire play it live, they end on those hits:

keep your head up & watch for the cue!

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That’s all I got this week.

See you next Wednesday,

Josh

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