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 Bird Dream chords (peer review needed !)
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picpic
* Dog in the Sand *

Belgium
1870 Posts

Posted - 05/26/2016 :  10:37:39  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
So... Looking at some rare videos of the Pixes performing this song, I came to two conclusions:

1) This song is awesome
2) There's a special guitar tuning involved on this song and others Trompe songs. And I think it's: D-A-E-G-B-E

I suspect this tuning is used (at least) on: Bird Dream, Palace of the brine, and Letter to Memphis, and maybe others. BF used to play thoses songs on a Gibson ES in 1991-92, and then never played them again after the Pixies reunion in 2004.

I tried to play Bird Dream with this tuning, trying to mimic Black Francis strange chords I've seen on video.

I need some peer review here. Do you think it sounds right ? Here's the video:

https://youtu.be/73GzVCVjBaM


If so, well, I've probably found a pretty nice Trompe easter egg !

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Cult_Of_Frank
= Black Noise Maker =

Canada
11674 Posts

Posted - 05/26/2016 :  13:48:22  Show Profile  Visit Cult_Of_Frank's Homepage  Reply with Quote
Sounds pretty good so far but a little hard to tell with both tracks at once which is you...


"If we hit this bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate."
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picpic
* Dog in the Sand *

Belgium
1870 Posts

Posted - 05/26/2016 :  18:03:15  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Well that's a good sign

The only thing bothering me is that DAEGBE is a pretty uncommon tuning. But I'm sure this song is a Drop D + raised E. You can clearly hear it on some videos.

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Arm Arm Arm
* Dog in the Sand *

1034 Posts

Posted - 05/28/2016 :  15:17:31  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
It sounded good to me, picpic. Thanks for sharing the tuning.

Oh, it's a shame that the Pixies never performed this on the reunion tour with Kim singing it. I think that was mentioned somewhere at some point; but I think it would've been great.

A good encore song or even to open a show. Oh well.

cheers
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Arm Arm Arm
* Dog in the Sand *

1034 Posts

Posted - 05/28/2016 :  15:21:40  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
It sounded good to me, picpic. Thanks for sharing the tuning.

Oh, it's a shame that the Pixies never performed this on the reunion tour with Kim singing it. I think that was mentioned somewhere at some point; but I think it would've been great.

A good encore song or even to open a show. Oh well.

cheers
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Arm Arm Arm
* Dog in the Sand *

1034 Posts

Posted - 05/28/2016 :  15:30:25  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I'm just happy I got to hear Planet of Sound on that tour!
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picpic
* Dog in the Sand *

Belgium
1870 Posts

Posted - 05/29/2016 :  00:00:35  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I'm not sure about this tuning, but on the only two good quality video performanes of this song, I can clearly hear the "dissonant" third string tuned up.

Not sure why they don't play those 3 songs anymore. I know BF has "backup" guitars for special tunings (ex: he had a second telecaster with each string tuned a semitone up to play Velouria and Havalina on the latest tour). So, that "Trompe-era" Gbson ES was probably used for this DAE tuning... You can also see Joey is using a white LP on those songs, which was probably tuned the same Way.

I googled a bit, this tuning actually exists, but is quite uncommon. And I can't find any Pixies tab using it. Mhhh....

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picpic
* Dog in the Sand *

Belgium
1870 Posts

Posted - 05/31/2016 :  20:32:55  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Now I'm confused... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wPUhn_cOOQ... Around 33:00, there's this batch of "D" songs: Palace, Memphis, Planet... also played with the Gibson ES.

The two Memphis "solo" parts are played on the D (third) string, which looks tuned to normal D here, according to the position on the neck. So, it's not tuned to E here...

Memphis sounds good with DADGBE tuning (normal Drop D).
Palace sounds normal in Drop D too.

BF plays an open D on Memphis & Palace, so the D string must be tuned to D.

But Bird Dream sounds better in DAEGBE in my opinion.

Pretty strange since those songs were played back to back at some gigs in 1991 with the same guitar (=same tuning).

So... does that means Bird is in standard Drop D ?

ARGH.

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Edited by - picpic on 05/31/2016 20:36:53
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