00:00 (explosion)
00:02 All right, Josh Smith back again.
00:06 This month we're gonna start talking
00:08 about my song "Brown Gatton."
00:10 This tune is from my album "Still,"
00:12 which was a jazzier album I did,
00:14 and the title should tell you a few things about this tune.
00:17 It's basically James Brown meets Danny Gatton.
00:20 That's at least what I was thinking when I wrote it.
00:23 So it's at its heart a James Brown shuffle,
00:26 like, you know,
00:27 (funky jazz music)
00:30 but mixed with Danny Gatton hybrid picking and ideas,
00:34 and of course, some interesting twists and turns.
00:37 So the phrase of the song, the melody,
00:40 the head of the song has a two beat bar,
00:44 every third bar.
00:46 So it goes like this,
00:47 one, two, three.
00:48 (funky jazz music)
00:51 (funky jazz music)
00:54 So what's happening there is,
01:05 (hums melody)
01:08 one, two, three, four.
01:10 (hums melody)
01:12 one, two.
01:13 (hums melody)
01:16 So it's turning itself around with a two beat bar
01:19 after every third bar of the melody.
01:22 This leads to some cool twists and turns,
01:24 especially when you go through the change,
01:26 because then the second time we do it,
01:28 we modulate to C.
01:29 So we go,
01:30 (funky jazz music)
01:33 (funky jazz music)
01:59 So that adds a lot of kind of forward motion to the tune.
02:04 When we hit those two beat bars,
02:07 it kind of, the audience kind of feels something,
02:09 'cause something different than the ordinary is happening,
02:12 but it doesn't feel out of place
02:14 because it's still in the same time signature.
02:17 You're just dropping two beats
02:18 and starting a phrase in a weird spot
02:21 as far as what the ear is used to.
02:22 And then when we get into the solo later,
02:25 that makes for a really great cool phrasing things
02:28 because you can have licks that cross the bar
02:30 in a different way than you're used to
02:32 and resolve in a weirder spot.
02:34 And I love that.
02:35 And that was kind of the Danny Gatton twist
02:37 on the James Brown thing.
02:39 Then we get to the bridge of the song,
02:40 which goes to the four chord
02:42 and we're full on James Brown here,
02:44 where I'm playing straight eighth notes.
02:46 (funky jazz music)
02:49, so we're basically chromatically moving around the four.
02:54 the five chord and then we're into the solo.
03:23 So that's the meat and the potatoes
03:25 of this tune, Brown Gat.
03:26 (rock music)
03:29 (upbeat music)
03:32 (rock music)
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