🕶Signed Sealed Delivered
(Must-Know November)
RIFFS:
Thank you.
Truly, I’m thankful for y’all.
It’s such a gift just knowing you’re out there reading the things I write.
Thank you.
RECS:
Are you hip to The Fearless Flyers?
It’s a one-off supergroup made up of:
Nate Smith
Joe Dart
Cory Wong
Mark Lettieri
Their first album is six songs… and clocks in under 16 minutes long.
On this one, they’re joined by guitarist Blake Mills & tambourinist Sandra Crouch.
🔥🔥🔥
CHARTS:
All this month we’re doing Must-Know November:
Songs you’d be expected to know in a wedding/corporate function band.
So far we’ve learned:
Today we’re learning Stevie Wonder’s Signed Sealed Delivered:
SMARTS:
1
Form unclear? → Ableton
Signed Sealed is a little like Here Comes The Sun—the form isn’t super obvious.
There’s a riff that’s part of the intro…
but that riff is also in another section…
…and the sections themselves aren’t radically different from one another.
It’s a lot to decipher with only your ears & memory.
That’s why I use the DAW:
download the mp3
pull it into Ableton Live or Logic Pro
(both can be set to follow the tempo of the original audio)
mark the sections with color-coded markers
I’ve heard this song hundreds of times.
But I got more clarity about its form with 5 minutes of work.
oh… and if you want to check out Here Comes The Sun, we learned it back in July:
2
Fade out on the record → live ending
On the original recording, there’s a fade.
Which means you gotta figure out some way to end it live.
But most bands I’ve played it with play this last riff…
…with a ritardando—a slow down.
Oftentimes you’ll see it abbreviated as “rit.”
And if you want it to be a dramatic slowdown, you’d write “molto rit”:
3
Guitarist’s choice
The original has an electric sitar:
No one expects you to bring one to the gig, and the exact part played by Eddie Willis sounds a little weird on standard electric guitar.
Which means you get to do whatever you like!
(Most folks just do funky strums.)
4
Electric sitar songs
Here’s a playlist of my favorite tunes that use electric sitar:
That’s all I got this week.
See you next Wednesday,
Josh
ps. We’ll be doing one more Must-Know November—subscribe so you don’t miss it: