“PAINT IT, BLACK”
The Rolling Stones
ONE OF THE Stones’ most creatively unique early masterpieces, from 1966, this dark, compelling uptempo ballad of heartache and despair features guitarist Keith Richards nimbly fingerpicking a clean electric guitar and co-guitarist Brian Jones playing acoustic, with both guitars capoed at the 3rd fret. So while the song is notated as if it were in the key of D minor, which reflects the way the guitarists thought of it, it actually sounds in the concert key of F minor, due to the minor-3rd-up capo transposition. You’ll notice throughout our transcription that we’ve additionally included the concert-key chord names, above the bass part. Interestingly, bassist Bill Wyman played this part not on bass guitar, but rather on the foot pedals of a Hammond B3 organ, hammering the pedals with the bottom sides of his fists!
Jones additionally overdubbed a sitar part, which doubles singer Mick Jagger’s vocal melody during the song’s verses. Notice how Richard doubles the melody too in his Gtr. 1 part, weaving it into a pedal-tone figure and playing the melody notes in alternation with the notes thumbpicked on the D string. Doing so requires continual skipping over one or two strings in a quick eighth-note rhythm, which is something that would otherwise be much more difficult and arduous to do using only a plectrum. By instead using his thumb and fingers to pick the strings, Richards greatly economizes his pick-hand movements here, making his parts fun and not too difficult to play.
Jones’ acoustic Gtr. 2 part during the verses similarly toggles back and forth between two strings on each eighth note. Fortunately, playing this part with a pick isn’t unreasonably arduous, as there is no string skipping involved, with all the notes falling on the adjacent A and D strings. Using alternate picking here (down-up-down-up) results in what’s known as an “outside the strings” picking pattern, which flows much better than the dreaded “inside the strings” pattern, which would occur if you were to pick up-down-updown here.
Regarding the fret hand, note the use of a quick quarter-step pre-bend and release in bars 11 and 15. This decorative embellishment really helps give the line an East Indian flavor.