“EVEN FLOW”
Pearl Jam
THIS EARLYNINETIES grunge classic from Pearl Jam’s smash debut album features a driving, syncopated 16th-note groove, octave-doubled ensemble riffs, a roaring, mellifluous chorus and some intense blues-rock jamming, all in the key of D.
Guitarist Stone Gossard, who wrote the song with singer Eddie Vedder, plays his parts (Gtr. 1) in open D tuning while co-guitarist Mike McCready, who performs all the lead parts (see Gtrs. 2 and 3) plays in standard tuning, as he channels the bold soloing style of Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Gossard makes great use of his altered tuning by incorporating open strings into his repeating two-bar intro and verse riffs, especially at section B, where he “bounces” fretted notes off the open strings, pullingoff from C to A on the 5th string and sliding up to the 7th-fret A note on the 6th string, which he follows every time with a pair of palm-muted, alternate-picked low Ds. The descending D blues-scale run (D, F,
2
Ab, 4
G, A, C) in bars 4, 22 and 26 (the bars) can be tricky to finger cleanly in standard tuning (McCready’s Gtr. 2 part), due to a quick, descending position shift after the fourth note, G. Notice how the guitarist smartly employs a 1st-finger legato slide from G to F in bar 4. He no doubt similarly shifts his fret hand in bar 22, although the slide here is masked by his use of a wah effect and the fact that he picks both notes.
For the song’s choruses (see sections C and E), Gossard again takes advantage of his open D tuning as he conveniently and musically uses his bottom three open strings as a “free” passing chord, which buys his fret hand a little bit of invaluable time to easily shift from the barred D shape at the 12th fret
Bbsus2 down to at the 8th fret. Particularly cool is the way the guitarist adds the Jimmy
#11
Page-like note, E (3rd string, 10th fret),
Bb5 (Bb5#11) as a bittersweet color tone to in bars 28, 29, 32, 33, 36 and 37. This exoticsounding chordal “extension,” which may
Bbsus#4, also be thought of as meshes beautifully with McCready’s half-step whammy bar dips in these bars, which briefly add the major 7th, A, to the harmony.