An elaborate and unique excursion. One of my favourite pieces. I worked out a transcription of this back in 2010 and have kept coming back to it to work out fingerings suitable for a solo guitar performance and this process has finally gelled into an arrangement for classical guitar played with a guitar pick.
It's much more than just a simple A B A or even A B A C A or similar form. Many letters are required to properly delineate its form, but there is definitely closely related thematic material throughout, so it might be more accurate to call it a theme and variations. Just in case my use of repeat signs is a bit obscure, using the labelling in the score, its form follows (without explicitly listing number of repeats at each point).
A B1 C1 A B2 C2 D B3 E1 E2 E3 E4 F G
Of course, now that I've presented the score, people will more easily be able to spot all my performance mistakes. In fact, since I first published this section, inspired by a video produced by Tyler Bartram about Alien Orifice, I went back and checked section B3, where I had one too many semiquavers of time at the end of each bar. That and an error in section D have now been fixed here.
Having checked this piece up close again recently I spotted a transcription error in section B3, which I've also fixed. The score itself could be improved with better choices of various accidentals. The default in Logic Pro score is not very intelligent and changing them is not very covenient.
Theme A is basically the outtro of Village Of The Sun, which continues underneath B1 and C1. From B2 onwards, that theme stops and the whole band follows the logical time signatures of the main melodic material. In my score, I haven't shown this because it's for a solo classical guitar, but there is a return to this theme after C1. Section D was originally some kind of ripping solo by FZ, played over a 4 bar 4/4 vamp. I have written my own little mini composition for this section, inspired by how this piece makes me feel.
All of the E's are obviously very closely related and I've used registers that are suitable for playing and obtaining a good sound on a classical guitar. The interchanging themes are usually played by different instruments, so to play the jumps between them can be very tricky. I used to play this one octave higher and it was quite difficult. I eventually realised, by dropping it an octave that it all sits nicely in or near the open position. Theme F is another piece I imagine that FZ would have initially composed in open position on the guitar. It plays very naturally there and it is easy to get both the lick notes and the bass notes in together.
Section G is the jewel in the crown. Quite a stupendous and exciting closing section. This also took many changes to fingering schemes before I settled on one that was comfortable to play. Basically, the decision not so long ago, to work out an arrangement for classical guitar, forced me into finding a lot of these arrangement solutions that I've ended up liking so much. Almost everyone who does a cover of this, does it as an electric band of some description. I had always been trying to do some kind of lead guitar solo in section D, like everyone else, even when playing it on steel string acoustic. I came up with that mini composition for section D soon after starting to play it on classical guitar, it just fell out of that process - very satisfying.