! Will Hay WILLHAYGUITAR.COM ! ! ! ! ! ! ! FREEBIES - THE MIDDLE Solo by Jimmy Eat World ! Level: Intermediate - Advanced Oct 2014 ! ! ! ! ! Will Hay Guitar Tuition! WILLHAYGUITAR.COM - [email protected]

FREEBIES - THE MIDDLE 1 ! Will Hay WILLHAYGUITAR.COM The Middle ! Heres a little classic slice of Jimmy Eat World for you. The Middle was released in November of 2001 as the second single of their fantastic album Bleed American (check out the title track for one of my favourites, renamed Salt,Sweat Sugar depending on where you see it). The story goes that they had just been dropped from their record contract by their label and it was do or die time for the band. They decided to self finance the album and this song became their breakthrough success . Its an optimistic and catchy tune in drop D and the lyrics make reference to some of the emotions the band were going through at the time. ! It has since become a classic solo in the Pop-Punk, Alt-Rock world, and for good reason. At the time of recording Jim Adkins mostly used Gibson Les Pauls and Marshall/Vox amps at the time so any reasonable hum bucker/rock amp setup should work well for this. !

CHUNK 1 ! ! ! !

! We have this lovely descending run to start off, essentially just a twisting run down a D major scale, utilising the open notes also. This is quite a tricky run to play in time as you're mixing legato with string changes so take your time. Bars 2, and 3 pose less of a challenge and are based on the A string D major scale as shown here: ! The phrase in bar 4 mirrors the legato patterns found in bar 1. ! 5

FREEBIES - THE MIDDLE 2 ! Will Hay WILLHAYGUITAR.COM

CHUNK 2 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! As you can see above bars 5 and 6 are identical to bars 1 and 2 so nothing new to cover there. More interesting is the second ending, below:

As you can see they utilise the same notes from the D major scale that we discussed on the previous page. This time we have crisp 16th notes (4 notes to a beat) so make sure you're alternate picking and start slow and precise before you try and bring the speed up.

CHUNK 3 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Chunk 2 starts in the same position and continues milking those basic major scale notes. Notice the use of repetition between bars, each phrase is identical save for the endings. Our predictable human ears love tasty repetition, yum yum! !

FREEBIES - THE MIDDLE 3 ! Will Hay WILLHAYGUITAR.COM

As we continue through chunk 3 we come across more lovely D major scale action, however this time we are moving up the length of the string and also using the open D string as an interesting way of breaking the run up. As you can see the pattern begins at the root note (fret 12) and moves up the scale as far as the fourth note (17th fret. Below is the scale on the D string to illustrate where this idea has come from:

! CHUNK 4 ! ! ! ! ! ! Here we have the same idea as the end of chunk 3 but this time on the G string and descending down the scale. You could think of these notes as having come from our A string major scale shape I showed you at the end of page 2 but played up an octave at fret 17 instead of fret 5. We end with some nice clashing open notes along with the G string played with another descending set of D major notes.

There is another way this could be played which I have included below. Enjoy!

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FREEBIES - THE MIDDLE 4 ! Will Hay WILLHAYGUITAR.COM

NEED SOME HELP? ! Not sure about some of the chords, scales or techniques in this lesson? Please check out my website where there are products and courses to help. I will be adding more as time allows but if you have any specific requests of topics you would like me to cover, or any other feedback then get in touch via the contact page of my website willhayguitar.com or email me at [email protected]. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Will Hay Guitar Tuition! WILLHAYGUITAR.COM - [email protected] ! ! ! ! I really hope you have enjoyed this freebie, It has taken many hours of hard work and effort to create. It is intended as strictly non-profit, educational use only as set forth in section 107 of U.S copyright law (Fair usage). All copyrighted music is offered as short excerpts only for the above educational presentation.

I can’t accept money for these freebies, however if you feel you’ve learnt from my site and want to send a thank you in the form of a Paypal donation you can by clicking below. It all helps me to keep this site running and lets me know my efforts are appreciated! ! IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

FREEBIES - THE MIDDLE 5