From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Mon Jan 05 06:59:40 2004
Subject:Re: Great Organ Techniques - Hush

Hi All,

I, too, have played the solo in a couple of different bands. Here's my take. Bear in mind that my personal philosophy on copying solos is NOT to copy them verbatim; I copy the intro and outro, and the general "feel" of the solo, but if I miss a note here or there, or if I'm using 88 8864 567 while the original uses 88 8663 358, so be it.

THE BASIC SOLO

As David mentioned, it's blues riff based, in C. The "machine gun" part uses a mostly white-key chord progression (C-Dm-Em-F-Gm-Am-Bb ...). I've found it easiest to play on two hands on two manuals, with the left-hand manual an octave higher than the right-hand to prevent the need to overlap the hands. I use 88 8833 368 w/C3 vibrato on the upper hand and 00 8888 357 no vibrato on the lower hand -- YMMV.

The ending requires a gliss to High C, hold the C with your pinky, and play a VII-IV-III kind of pattern with the remaining fingers, while performing a heavy palm gliss with the left hand.

OVERDUBBING

The Hush solo is definitely overdubbed for the last 8-12 bars. However, it's mainly overdubbed with a repeat of the rhythm part from the song's intro, complete with windmill chops. You can actually hear the two organs, because one of them is using a 2-speed Leslie, while the other appears to be a 1-speed version. Mr. Lord, however didn't cheat on the actual solo, and the machine gun riffs are not overdubbed, as was suggested. (He has awesome chops, and doesn't need to play tricks to hit the notes.) One might argue that if Ritchie Blackmore was more of a "fill" rhythm player, a la SRV or Joe Walsh, there wouldn't have been a need for the overdubs, but SOMEBODY had to keep the R&B feel of the song going! ;^)

Regards,

-BW
--
Bruce Wahler
Ashby Solutions™ http://music.ashbysolutions.com
978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@ashbysolutions.com