This page is a guide to learning the song Don't let the world pass you by on a tapping instrument such as the Chapman Stick or the acoustic Dragonfly DFA.
This song is by jazz / fusion violinist Jean-Luc Ponty from his album Cosmic Messenger.
Take a listen to it ♪ here ♪ and you'll hear how it's something that could be adapted to a solo player with some judicious looping.
The Score (and tabs) to go along with the diagrams below is available ♪ here ♪
This score includes elements that allow you to employ it with a looper But you could assign the loop parts to a second musician. There are only a couple looping parts and they are fairly simple. Even the most basic looping facility shoiuld be able to handle the parts.
Fm9 | / | Dm9 | / | Fm9 | / | Dm9 | / |
The vamp chord symbols in the score in essence make up the first 'loop' of the song and serve as the initial intro. Once started, it plays throughout. In the score, a Yamaha CS-80 synth emulator plugin was used for the m9 chords.
For a Free hands instrument (fifths in the bass) , for the m9 chords, you can usually use :
add9 [R-5-9] or m9(no3) [R-9-m7]
There are passing chromatic tones in the melody, so these chords work well because they avoid the third , leaving the melody to express most of the "minorness" and chromatic colorings in the song. Even using just one or two notes out of those chords is effective. It keeps things open sounding since there is a lot going elsewhere in the song already.
The melody loop plays as a second layer over the vamp chord loop for a few repititions prior to starting the Bass lead in melody section. Once started, it plays throughout.
This section is a two handed bass part. "rh" markings in the score indicate where the right hand is employed.
TBD.... the fingering in the tabs needs some review
This section's length is at one's discretion. As usual, listening to the original is instructive. The vamp and ostinato loop continue thoughout. A simple bass loop is added as a layer here and serves well as a segue into the solo section.
TBD - there's an Arp synth riff in the solo section that could be made into another loop layer. i'll get to that at some point
These syncopated 'octave stabs' provide a skeletal rythmic vibe for the melody. Ralphe Armstrong's original bass lines are too monstrous to reproduce here. One is invited to add your own flourishes or tackle Ralphe's work if you dare