Mike Hoegeman

Ralph Towner's Goodbye Pork Pie Hat

This page is a guide to learning Goodby Pork Pie Hat on a tapping instrument such as the Chapman Stick or the acoustic Dragonfly DFA.

There is a score/tablature that will help you along the way. These tabs/fingerings are for a 12 string matched reciprocal tuning.

Musescore score + tabs

This is the Authoritative version which is for twelve string Matched reciprocal tuning.

There may be others in the future with different tunings. If you have a request for a different tuning let me know at mike.hoegeman@gmail.com

This transcription referred to one done by Edu Anderez for solo guitar. I would request that you make a donation to his website if you find this score useful here . This will allow you to also download the entire high quality transcription of the Anthem album for (solo) guitar for about 6$ which is of very high quality.

Background

This song is by Charles Mingus and is well seated within the pantheon of great jazz tunes.
This version is an arrangement by Ralph Towner for solo 12 string guitar. Ralph has recorded several different versions of this song. This arrangement is found on his album Anthem and is his shortest and most unusual one.
A spotify link to hear what the arrangement sounds like in the original.

Elemental Structure

There is a atmospheric A and C prologue/epilogue sections, with once through of the basic refrain as section B in the middle. This makes for a short approx 2 minute piece.

It's very different harmonic take on the song, as opposed to the blues based way the song takes normally. You make not even recognize it at first, it has a very impressionistic feel harmonically. It's very much in Towner's personal sensibility of arragements and original compositions.

Section A

This section is repetition (4x) of a 1-bar "finger-sticking" style phrase with open space at the end of the bar for variations. You could freely add a few more repetitions/variations if the mood strikes you.

The phrase harmonically the notes of a Emin7add4 (or Emin11) chord

E(root) G(minor3rd) A(add4) B(fifth) D(minor7th)

Interleaved like so:

↓ = bass side ↑ = melody side

( ↓ E3 ↑ E5 ↓ A3 ↑ G4 ↑ B4 ↑ D4 )

between the melody and bass sides in such a way that emphasise the suspended note nicely with the root E and A present as underpinning bass notes.

.fbjson file

Section B

TBD

Section C

Section C is a reprisal of section A with it's Emin7add4 chord base along with few outro bars added on

TBD