Ace of Aces is the debut track from the 2018 self-titled EP by the Fearless Flyers, which is a side project from the band Vulfpeck that consists of me, guitarist Mark Lettieri, bassist Joe Dart and drummer Nate Smith.
This track all started from a melodic line I had written. Jack Stratton, our producer, had compiled a handful of live performance clips of each of us in the band playing and said, “Let’s work on these musical concepts as different things. We’ll use Cory’s line as the anchor then try to come up with four different sections of playing over one chord.”
I’ve seen people cover the tune, and one thing most get wrong about it is they’re not intentional about the sections in the way they should be. The best way to explain this is to demonstrate how Mark’s and my guitar parts work together in the arrangement, which I think is interesting and informative.
The tune starts with a primary bassline-like riff, shown here in Figure 1, which is based on the E major pentatonic scale (E, F#, G#, B, C#) with some syncopated chromaticism happening on the low E string. Compositionally, that’s actually the most important part of the tune.
Figure 2 illustrates Mark’s rhythm guitar part for the tune’s first “verse.” It’s is based on a 7th-position E9 chord shape, and the top three strings are strummed and move down from a 9th-fret barre, sounding E6, to a passing-chord at the 8th fret then to E9 at the 7th fret.
The strum rhythm is 16th notes, with pitchless, fret-hand-muted percussive scratches between the accented chord hits.
I play baritone guitar on this track, tuned to A standard (low to high: A, D, G, C, E, A). But for this column I’ve adapted my baritone parts for a conventional guitar in regular E standard tuning (low to high: E, A, D, G, B, E).
My approach with the baritone in this tune is like that of a second bassist, as Joe is playing a relatively simple part. As shown in Figure 3, I play a repeating line that’s based on the E Mixolydian mode (E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D) and pick a lot of fret-hand-muted, percussive notes between the pitched notes.
The ways in which Mark’s and my parts weave together is a key element of the arrangement. There are some spots where we play a harmonized line together; my baritone guitar part is shown in Figure 4. This line is recalled at the end of the tune.
After repeating the initial riff, we move to the second ”verse,” for which Mark switches to a rhythm part based around an E7#9 chord, not unlike Shining Star by Earth, Wind & Fire. Then, midway through the verse, we play a different line in unison, which is based on the E minor pentatonic scale (E, G, A, B, D), shown in Figure 5.
While Mark is sitting on that E7#9 chord, I change my baritone guitar part to Figure 6, which accentuates the minor 3rd, or #9, G.
For the third verse, Mark and I switch to a “gospel-y,” downstrokes approach. As shown in Figure 7, his part consists of descending 6ths on the top two strings followed by E9sus4 and E9 chord accents.
Over that, I add, on the baritone, a “gospel quartet” line based on E Mixolydian (see Figure 8). The song then moves to a bass feature then a drum feature and ends with a reprise of the line from Figure 1.
As you can see, Mark and I have very specific parts that we devised to fit together, all while working with the other instruments to create a bigger, wider sound.
- This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
