Dick McIntire's intro to Night of Tropic Love - C#min/C6

Jerome Hawkes · Post by **Jerome Hawkes** » 6 Jul 2014 9:55 am

here is a transcription of Dick McIntire's 'Night of Tropic Love'. I've included the original C#min (its tagged as F#9 in tab key, but only strings 1-4 are used).

**note the timing in this tune, its critical to get it right. every other measure is played on the 1 and upbeat alternating with the 1 on the downbeat. won't work if you don't get that tip. so it goes 1 measure 1 and > next measure get the 1 beat > 1 and > etc, etc thru the piece.
what i like about this is its simple, yet very rhythmically interesting - listen to the original cut for reference. i don't have a way yet to post mp3 files, if someone has a link that would be helpful.

[/i]

Jerome Hawkes · Post by **Jerome Hawkes** » 6 Jul 2014 9:59 am

original C#min - interesting to note the differences between the tunings. i haven't played C#min very long, so this is as close to what / how i think Dick played it as i can get. these are old recordings and its hard to tell sometimes, plus Dick played a cranked low watt amp and the overtones make it hard to hear 2 vs 3 notes - they could be overtones i'm hearing. anyway - let me know on this and have fun.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 6 Jul 2014 10:04 am

Night Of Tropic Love is the fourth tune on this recording:
https://soundcloud.com/mdneer/dick-mcin ... pe14-sidea

Your transcription is leaving out the crucial note of each chord played on the 3rd string, with no slanting.

Jerome Hawkes · Post by **Jerome Hawkes** » 6 Jul 2014 10:13 am

i agree mike - i'm certainly hearing something there. I remember from the old Dick McIntire course books someone scanned in a few years ago, he seemed to favor 3 string vamps.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 6 Jul 2014 10:56 am

Jerome, I just sat down with the tune and I now see what you're saying. I'm going to spend a few minutes with it and see if there's something else.

Jerome Hawkes · Post by **Jerome Hawkes** » 6 Jul 2014 11:37 am

the one main reason i decided to go with 2 notes is i can plainly hear the 3 note grip at the end. not quite hearing it as clearly on the others, though there may be spots were he did use 3.
anyway, its academic, anyone trying this can certainly use 2 or 3, either sounds fine to my ear - its just difficult to hear what he actually did.

play over this and let me know and i'll make some necessary revisions - i did this in about 20mins, so i probably missed some detail.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 6 Jul 2014 12:06 pm

Nice job on the 'script, Jerome!

Jerome Hawkes · Post by **Jerome Hawkes** » 6 Jul 2014 12:44 pm

what'd ya hear? 2 or 3 notes? you know his style / this tuning more than i do.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 6 Jul 2014 5:16 pm

I'm definitely hearing 3 notes, but the only possible way of playing the voicings I'm hearing is extremely difficult. It sounds to me like Dick has a G# as his first string. It is the only way I can fathom playing bar 2 (after the pickup). On C#m7, this is how to play those voicings, which I find near impossible to execute, and I highly doubt he did:

[tab]
--------------7---8-----------------
--14----15----7---8----15----14-----
--15----16----7---8----16----15-----
--16----17-------------17----16-----
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
[/tab]

I'm going to see if I can find any other tunes from that 1941 session and listen for a high G# string. My guess is that it is an F#9 tuning with the 9 on top. G# E C# G# E ? ?

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 6 Jul 2014 5:27 pm

As a matter of fact, follow my link to the Soundcloud page and listen to the fifth selection, At Waikiki I Met Her, and you can absolutely hear that his tuning is different with the high G#. Listen to the chord he strums at 12:22.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 6 Jul 2014 5:31 pm

As a matter of fact, follow my link to the Soundcloud page and listen to the fifth selection, At Waikiki I Met Her, and you can absolutely hear that his tuning is different with the high G#. Listen to the chord he strums at 12:22.

I don't think his 7 string F#9 tuning has ever been correctly spelled out before:

G#
E
C#
G#
E
A#
F#

Jerome Hawkes · Post by **Jerome Hawkes** » 6 Jul 2014 5:43 pm

yes, i can clearly hear that mike - interesting.
you're right, i haven't seen that 7 string tuning - i have my 7 string frypan tuned E C# G# E C# A# F#
damn i just strung it up last week...

btw - i was somehow under the impression you couldn't get thin gauge strings back in the 30's - how do you think he got that G# tuned up???

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 6 Jul 2014 5:56 pm

Alvino Rey used an A7 tuning with a high A first string back in the 1930s.

Tenor guitar strings are a very strong possibility.

Jerome Hawkes · Post by **Jerome Hawkes** » 7 Jul 2014 10:33 am

much appreciation for the help here mike - i was hearing something but nothing i tried on C#min seemed to fit. i just figured i was hearing some overtones or artifact from old 1930's recording technology

Nathan Laudenbach · Post by **Nathan Laudenbach** » 24 Sep 2024 5:55 am

So is the recording session mention here with Dick playing in F#9 with a G# on top-is that something he was doing later in his career? Iv seen pictures of his frypans, he had several and not all 7 strings. Is there anyone here who can chronologically break down what instrument Dick was playing and in what tuning?