🎬 Heart Shaped Box v1.0

Today, I present the song, Heart Shaped Box. I usually don't listen to Nirvana songs. But this song, was from way back in my childhood. When I was a little kid, I didn't have access to any device of any sort, so I played no games, EXCEPT on weekends. When I visit my grandpa every Saturday, I would beg him to lend me his then Nokia phone. ☎

It was a very very old model, but it had this game called Guitar Rock Tour. Yes, now you know where I got this song from. I was an expert at that game back then, 100% perfect score for every song. I memorized the parts of the song altogether. Heart Shaped Box, to me, still echoes familiarly in the back of my mind. 🎵

Recently, I went to look up this song on YouTube and found the instrumental of it. I prefer that to the one with vocals. Well, vocals totally destroyed the song in my opinion, plus that singer guy looks too fierce. I had listened to it for a week before deciding to try to play it. 🎧

Before this recording, I first touched the riff 3 hours ago. That means, I only had 3 hours of practice. I only decide it's time because my fingers are hurting. :) The gear I used today is my telecaster and my orange mini amplifier (Too lazy to drag all my other gear to the window-side). The weather is too good to not sit beside the window. :) Just look! 👀

                                        

To describe this song riff, I love it because of its quieter and cleaner intro. Although I used the same settings for all the parts, I used different strengths to strum to vary the amount of distortion. Then there's the strum-bend chorus, which was tricky but nice to hear. And of course, my favourite part, the bridge. From the 8th fret B string bend jumping to the 5th fret G string and so on, that's the shiok part. And then I ended with the intro going into a low end I felt is must. This is also one special song because it's in Drop D-flat tuning. First, tune everything half-step down (like GnR), then tune the low E another one step down. Unusual tuning but power chords are easier to strum because of drop D. 😎

Without further ado, here is the link to today's harvest. 😊

On a side note, after playing this telecaster for awhile now, I realized why the seller decided to sell it so dirt cheaply. The knobs totally suck. There's only 2 settings for each knob (has the exact function of a button). Other than that, everything else is fine. 😄

Edwin Ang

6th December 2015