Ep41 Tom Sawyer | How Does This Song Work?
Guitar Music Theory
Desi Serna
4.6 • 931 Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2020
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this free guitar lesson, I analyze some of the guitar parts heard in the song "Tom Sawyer" by Rush and explain how the parts work.
You get to know the song's music theory including the key, chords, chord progressions, scales, modes, and more.
I also discuss guitarist Alex Lifeson's musical influences and how "Tom Sawyer" borrows ideas from music by The Who, Led Zeppelin, and Cream.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In episode 41 of the guitar music theory podcast we have another installment of how does this song work |
| 0:07.0 | featuring the song Tom Sawyer by Rush Greetings guitar engineers. |
| 0:13.0 | Welcome to the guitar music |
| 0:15.0 | podgings guitar engineers. Welcome to the guitar music theory podcast. I am your host |
| 0:26.2 | Desi Cerna author of fretboard theory, guitar theory for dummies, guitar |
| 0:31.0 | picky mechanics, and more. |
| 0:33.0 | Well, it was just one week ago today that I heard about the passing of Rush, drummer, and lyricist Neil Pert. |
| 0:41.0 | Rush has always been one of my favorite bands, and Neil in particular has always been one of my |
| 0:46.0 | favorite musicians. |
| 0:47.8 | I mean, the guy was nothing short of a virtuoso, and I really admired how much thought he put into his craft. |
| 0:55.7 | So even though today's podcast episode focuses on the playing of guitarist Alex Lifeson, |
| 1:01.8 | I chose a Rush song in honor of the now late great Neil |
| 1:05.8 | Pert. The audio is pulled from the YouTube video that I made. In the |
| 1:10.9 | YouTube video you can watch me play Tom Sawyer and follow along with embedded neck diagrams in tablature. |
| 1:17.0 | So head over to YouTube and search Desi Cerna Guitar to find my channel. |
| 1:21.0 | Or you could probably just go to Google or YouTube and search |
| 1:25.4 | Desi Cerna Tom Sawyer to be taken directly to the video. Now before we begin |
| 1:31.8 | today's lesson I'd like to share a recent email. |
| 1:36.0 | Travis sent an email and it says, Desi, I decided to go ahead and purchase the Freepord Theory video Pro Pack and so far I'm glad that I did. |
| 1:47.0 | I have limited time to practice each day and I like the straightforward yet still detailed approach you take to teaching. I like that all |
| 1:55.6 | the content I need is in one place and that I don't have to weigh through two to three |
| 2:00.0 | different sites to find audio, video, and tab for the songs. I played guitar for |
... |
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