This is where the actual song starts. The Mayo Jar consists of two almost identical verses and one chorus. That’s all!
Because the song is so short, you may feel like playing a verse and a chorus one more time. Don’t do that, because it will ruin the balance of the arrangement. There is no need to worry that the song will be too short, the worst that can happen is that your audience asks you to play it again.
Throughout the performance, make sure to let each note ring out as long as possible. In order to achieve this, the chords indicated in the tabs are often placed finger by finger, not with all fingers simultaneously. I will also point that out in the video clips.
I have divided the verse into seven sections. On this page we will work on number 1. Here we go:
There are 3 things in this section that people often miss:
- In the first bar, after the hammer-on, you must let the note ring out all the way, until the next note (on the 3rd fret). There should be no pause in between the two notes. I usually add a nice tremolo, by firmly pressing my pinky down and slighty rock my hand along the neck. See video.
- The last note in the second bar above is played on both the first (pull-off) and second string (pluck with right middle finger). In Orkney Tuning, these notes sound the same, but playing it this way creates extra richness in tone, as if you play a twelve string guitar.
- In addition, the pull-off on the first string is played a fraction later than the plucked second string, This sounds like a digital delay effect.
- The fourth note in the last bar is a very quick pull of. This is indicated by the small ‘2’ in front of the ‘0' in the tabs. I notice that people often tend to play this pull-off of as a regular sixteenth note, which sounds cheap. Pluck both the 1st and 2nd string and perform a very fast pull-off on the second string only.
Instructions
Are you done?
Can you play along with the audio loop above?
Then you can move on to the 2nd section!
Anything still not clear?
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