TAB: Wings - Intan, Ku Kesepian

Warning: If you download the GP6 TAB (*.gpx), and you don’t have the full version of GP6, you may not be able to hear the intended sound for each instrument. GP6 trial version has limited sounds. I donno, I haven’t tried using the trial version myself.

Eer, actually kat ofis tadi aku ade tulis like a 4-page article to accompany this. Tapi lupa nak bawak balik. :P So, you’re gonna have to wait till tomorrow for the article and the link to the TAB. Sorry!!

For the time being, take this.

So ni la yang aku buat for the past ~2 months. I pretty much did this for the solo, because I like it a lot. I figured out the notes for the solo pretty much the first night I worked on this. But as usual, developing the sheet music takes much longer than that.

Sikit Pasal Lagu Ni

First off, aku tak sure actually tajuk lagu ni. Some say “Intan, Ku Kesepian”. Dalam CD compilation rock 80’s/90’s aku dia tulis “Intan Ku Kesepian”. And some people say “Intanku Kesepian”. I have no idea which one is right, since aku takde album Wings yang ade lagu ni. Well, they don’t sell it in the US.

Tapi pada aku, the first one, “Intan, Ku Kesepian” makes the most sense. The second one isn’t that different, but the third one doesn’t make sense to me. “Intanku Kesepian” pada aku maksud dia Intan yang sepi, walhal lagu ni narrates kesepian penyanyi tu, setelah kehilangan si Intan tu. My BM isn’t that good, but I think I’m right on this. Maybe it doesn’t matter to most people, but to me it just has to make sense. (Revision: There is a possibility that tatabahasa time tu lain sket. I mean DBP kan suke tuka rules tatabahasa).

Lagi satu, mungkin korang tau, mungkin tak. Lagu ni sebenarnya ade dua official studio versions. In 1987, lagu ni ade dalam album Belenggu Irama. Mase tu guitarist dia Sham. In 1992 pulak, dorang record skali lagi kot lagu ni, untuk album Best of Wings. Mase tu guitarist dia dah Joe.

There are a few notable differences between the two versions. ’92 punya version, drum dia masuk awal, right after the anacrusis measure. Part intro acoustic guitar pon lain sket. Vocal plak yang ’87 nye version dia ade doubling sket (e.g. part “Menanti hadirnya…” tu). Part solo generally the same, but ’92 punya version aku rasa lebih feel sket. It makes sense, if you wanna remake it, you wanna make it better. But I guess credits should be given to Sham too, since most likely he’s the one responsible for writing the basic structure of the solo.

TAB

So ni first tab aku yg dibuat pakai GP6. Actually memula dulu aku buat pakai GP5. But lepas aku try sket GP6, I cannot look back. And currently, GP6 still blom support export to GP5 format. But knowing GP, biasanya boleh save as the previous version punya format. And according to Arobas, they are working on that. So for the time being, you have to live with PDF tabs. But aku included a few MP3 files for reference. Ade file yang aku mute certain part guitar, so boleh play along. 
Go get them here.

As soon as GP6 boleh export as GP5 format, aku akan post the tab. But I sure hope you guys get access to GP6 (full version) soon. It’s really good.

And untuk acoustic guitar ngan solo, aku transcribe both ’87 ngan ’92 punya version. By default aku mute ’87 punya version. But when you play it back, you can pick if you want to hear ’87 or ’92 punya version by muting and un-muting the appropriate tracks.

Oh, again, aku tak tulis ending solo dia dalam TAB tu. So, do it yourself. I used D minor exclusively in it, except bile nak abis tu, aku ade main note C#; a D harmonic minor note.

It’s actually quite challenging to transcribe 1992 punya version. Sebabnya CD aku sound utk lagu tu cam cilake. Macam dibuat pakai mp3 96kbps. Haram tol, padahal aku beli yang so-called “tulen”. Konon “digitally remastered” lagi. And aku cari online pon tak jumpe yang good quality. Menurut kawan aku, Mus (speedrider), album Best of Wings (1992) ni rare gile.

This Video

Untuk video ni, part guitar aku main style Joe (1992 version). But drum dia aku keep as 1987 punya version. Since I like the solo so much, I added my own touch sket. Sorry, can’t help it. Aku pakai tremolo bar lebih sket, exaggerate vibrato here and there, and hujung solo tengah tu aku main style aku seniri.

The other thing is the ending solo. While it is still loosely based on the original recordings, I took the liberty to add my own touch sket. Especially mase memula. And ending dia, kalo dengar both original recordings, dorang fade out. I decided to do something else.

Mase aku tunjuk dia draft track untuk video Luhur, my ol’buddy Kamal cakap aku main kurang original untuk lagu tu. He’s right on that. For the most part, my videos are the representations for my TABs. They are the means of promoting my work, my TABs. So as much as I can, I wanna play it as close as possible to the original recording. So when people hear it, right away they can tell that it’s pretty damn close to the original. They know the TAB is good.

But for this video, I guess it won’t be a bad idea if I put a bit more of my own touch in it where I can, while still giving the impression of a good copy of the original work.

Lagi satu video kali ni aku feature lebih sket aku main EWI tu. It’s just that aku tengok video Luhur tu, cam bosan sket la part guitar banyak sangat. Even tuka angle pon aku rasa bosan sket. So I hope this one is less boring. Plus, maybe girls would appreciate that better too. :P

And for your info, kalo tak familiar ngan saxophone, basically there are 4 most popular kinds. Arranged by the range from high to low: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Baritone. Untuk video ni aku pakai sound Tenor. There are more types of sax of course, like Sopranino, Bass and some experimental ones.

Oh, since I really really hate youtube punya audio compression, if you’re interested, here’s the high quality mp3 audio for that video. Tah ape ape tah youtube ni. Video high quality, but audio cam celake.

p/s: Nak tau kenapa aku really recommend tengok in HD? Check this out. Yup, 14 hours just to encode it, pakai computer laju. :(

Recording

Some of u may know that mase record video ni, aku ter’OCD’ sket. Like I mentioned before, I think I have much better ears than hands. I can’t play that well, but I can hear what’s wrong with something. And when it comes to my work, actually the best quality of my work is the sheet music, the TABs, not the video. Because making the sheet music is highly dependent on your hearing skills, and I’m much better at that than playing the guitar. And if you’ve seen the videos that I released before, if you have very sensitive ears, you’d notice some notes yang a bit flat, some phrases yang tempo tak tight. And I let it go, sebab tanak obsessed sangat.

Aku record video ni during May 1st punya weekend. It’s not perfect, but I let it go. Almost everthing siap record weekend tu, except for the solo. I must have recorded the solo hundreds of times. Every time, something just wasn’t right to my ears. And it’s hard to do it right, EXACTLY as I want it. Because not only do I have to play correct notes, maintain tight rhythm, it has to be done expressively too. That takes a lot of energy if u keep doing it. Seminggu gak aku try. Until last Saturday, I was finally ok with what I did. It’s still not perfect, but I can live with it.

It turned out that one of the problems was Guitar Rig 4 as a VST, meaning that aku pakai Guitar Rig 4 as an effect in Sonar, instead of standalone application. It’s hard to keep the rhythm tight that way. In fact, part aku main clean awal-awal tu, you can blame the less-than-perfect rhythm control on GR VST. So, note to self: next time use Guitar Rig only for post-processing. Use GearBox while recording, but record clean tone.

Some Theory

Tak sah kalo aku tak discuss sket pasal theory. :P

So, this song is written in D minor. Let’s take a look at D minor (F Major) punya basic triads.

F Major, G minor, A minor, Bb Major, C Major, D minor, E diminished

Again, those triads memang belong to this key, diatonic to this key. Meaning that chords tu dibuat pakai note note yang ade dalam scale D minor jek, takde accidentals.

But lagu ni, instead of A minor, dia pakai A Major. Why?

First, tengok note-note yang diguna untuk buat chord A minor – A, C, E.

Chord A major plak – A, C#, E.

Now, what’s D harmonic minor scale?

D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C#, D. (Remember, C#, not Db. The 7th note in a harmonic minor scale can never be a flat note. It’s either a neutral or a sharp).

You’ve guessed it. A Major chord works in this progression because of the harmonic minor note, the C#. It’s pretty common for a minor chord progression to have a Major in the 5th degree, instead of a minor chord. In fact, lagu Sejati pon wat benda yang sama.

 

Next, listen to part solo. Of course mase awal solo tu, takde chord. Just bass guitar and lead main solo. Katekanlah takde bass guitar, and u want to accompany the solo with a triad chords, what is the very second chord in the solo? The first chord, since bass main note D, is most likely D minor. But in the 3rd measure of the solo, bass main note C#.

Could it be a C# Major chord? Let’s see. C# Major punya notes – C#, E#, G#. Note E# tu ok lagi, since it’s enharmonic with F (enharmonic = same sound, different name), you can say that it still belongs to this key. But G# tak masuk sangat la. (Try it).

How about C# minor chord? C# Minor punya notes – C#, E, G#. Still, E ok, but again, G# tak masuk. (Try it).

C# power chord (C#5) won’t work too, sebab note dia C# and G#. (Plus a power chord isn’t a triad. I’m looking for a triad).

Let’s take a look at the lead line. Kalo tengok dua bar ni, nampak macam note E is emphasized. So I think it would be a good guess that this chord has a C#, and E.

Tengok balik chord A major – A, C#, E. So ade note C#, ade note E. But note C# bukan bass note dia, note A yang bass note untuk chord A.

This is where the knowledge of theory helps in figuring out the chord progression. It turned out that the best chord for this two measures is A/C#. This is what we call the 1st inversion of A major triad. Inversion ni, note-note dia sama ngan major triad tu, but the bass note is not the root. The root note for A major chord is A. Kalo main note-note yang sama, tapi tukar bass note to a C#, that becomes the first inversion of A major (C#, E, A). When the bass note is E, that’s the second inversion of A major (E, A, C#).

Kat gamba kat bawah ni, the first one is the basic A Major chord. Kat tengah tu first inversion dia, and then the second inversion. That’s the basic idea behind an inversion. 

 

Bawah ni plak typical A Major inversions on the guitar.

 

Ok, that’s enough for now. :D

 

 

I do not own the copyright of the original recording nor the music itself. The tablature that I transcribe and the backing track that I make are for educational purposes only.