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Vol. 13, No. 6: Dec.-Jan. 2008
 
pix Free Ride By Nick Drake pix
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pix pix by Gilbert Isbin  

Page added in June, 2000

About The Author

Gilbert Isbin, a guitarist from Belgium, favors dynamic improvisations over a mixture of expressive ambient, meditative lines and world music.

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His latest project is Red Wine, highlighting all the nuances and subtleties in Isbin's playing.

Send comments to Gilbert Isbin.

© Gilbert Isbin

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Click here for a printer-friendly version of "Free Ride By Nick Drake".

  "Free Ride" was originally played by Nick Drake in the, I guess, CGCFCE tuning. As I didn't want to totaly retune my guitar on stage or in the studio for every song I choose an easier tuning which became, after some experimentation, this one: D B D G B E

Just tune the A string to B and the lower the E string to D I came up with the folowing intro and re-harmonization of this beautiful tune. Mind your steps with the 5/8 bar!

INTRO


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THEME

I reharmonized the melody in the first part in sixths or fourths over an open B string drone and, as I wanted to avoid big stretches in the second part, the 6th string was retuned to D so that I could play the F# on the 4th fret. I have written the lyrics of the first verse under the tabs.


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IMPROVISATION

I improvised over the folowing repeated picking pattern in B


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Then I used a small middle part to make my solo interesting which was something like this:


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Here's a fragment of the solo I did using an Eastern flavored scale.


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Have fun.

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