YYZ (Guitar/Bass/Drum solos) - Rush

WARNING: quiet start but gets LOUD!
"YYZ" is an instrumental rock piece by Rush, from the 1981 album Moving Pictures.
Following its initial release, it became one of the band's most popular pieces and has been a staple of the band's live performances. It appears on all live concert video recordings following its release (except R30; it was performed during that show but omitted from the DVD.) On both the live album Exit...Stage Left (1981), and the concert video recording A Show of Hands (1989), a version of the track is played with drummer Neil Peart integrating his full-length drum solo. (On all later live Rush recordings featuring a drum solo, the solo is its own separate track.)

YYZ is the IATA airport identification code for Toronto Pearson International Airport, of Rush's native area of Toronto. It is common practice for air navigation aids to broadcast their 3-letter identifier code in Morse Code using VHF omnidirectional range (VOR). A plane using VOR equipment would then always know its location relative to the VOR navaid within range. A plane landing at Toronto (Malton) would, for example, rely on the radio emanation of the letters YYZ (in Morse Code) as a homing beacon to locate and arrive at the Toronto airport. The song's introduction, played in a time signature of 10/8 (with some argument of 5/4), repeatedly renders the letters "Y-Y-Z" in Morse Code using various musical arrangements.

"YYZ" is structured in the following arrangement: A-B-C-B-A. The song starts with the YYZ Morse Code played by Peart on the crotales (A). The guitar and bass join this pattern, using the dissonant interval of the tritone to distinguish Morse Code dots and dashes. The guitar and bass render the code by playing the root note of C for the "dashes" and the tritone F# for the "dots". The synthesizer melody played over this arrangement is an example of the Locrian mode. In live performances, the synthesizer part is played by bassist/keyboardist Geddy Lee -- using a foot-pedal MIDI controller (Korg MPK-130 & Roland PK-5)[1] -- while he plays the bass part. After two cycles of the melody, the synth ceases, and the bass drops one octave, the introduction ending on the guitar, bass, and drummer making hits on only the "dashes". A brief rest follows, before the next section.
The next section features the guitarist, bassist, and drummer playing complex up- and down-scale runs for several measures, in unison. (This is done similarly in technique to a sequence of runs-in-unison from Rush's "The Spirit of Radio" (1980), also in which the section of runs separates the opening riff from a second major riff in the song.) The next pattern follows a verse structure, going from an A chord to a C chord, then back to an A, then to a C again. Then, the guitarist plays another riff along with a B chord, where the bassist plays supporting bass notes. The chord structure goes from a B, to a C Altered Dominant chord. This cycle of riffs repeats twice.
In the next section (C), the guitar provides structure with rhythmic B and C chords, with the bass and drum trading fills at the end of each cycle. After the final, extended drum fill, the guitar plays a oriental scale oriented solo in Phrygian Dominant with the bass and drums playing complex patterns underneath. The solo climaxes with a guitar run, followed by a synthesizer break. Following this climactic section, the song returns to the arrangement established earlier in the song, after which it ends it a musical run combining bass and drums (with the guitar sustaining its last note from the previous section), a short reprise of the tritone section from the beginning held at the end according to a fermata, and finally, a short run in unison by bass, guitar, and drums to close the song. Info courtesy: wikipedia.org]

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Rush
• 70s
• 80s
• Rock
• YYZ
• guitar
• bass
• drum
• solos

[hanadulsarutobi]

NEIL IS A GOD!!!

[MrBLAOSVSE]

i first got serious about playing bass from listening to this song

[bleedthepure]

@MrBLAOSVSE you can't spell bass without ass

[CarMan792]

I love Geddy's Wal Bass days.

[Chipkanobe]

AC/DC, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, The Beatles, The Clash, Cheap Trick, Cinderella, Dokken, Dio, Def Leppard, The Eagles, The Firm, Guns N Roses, Heart, Iron Maiden, Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Oasis, Quiet Riot, Rolling Stones, Rush, The Who. ALLL ROCK

[marcelozagallo13]

In 1981, they already better than a lot of things, and today with a lot of crap bands..they are amazing,,,this song is better than all the pop music, black music together...

[pablorazeroffsky]

@DetoxRogue What's about Bonzo?

[01lr1g]

starts drum solo at 3:18

[BeowulfVids]

Why do you hate this song, rj2dsouz?



[kamashakuji]

Whoever dislikes this seriously, Has a love for JB. Those dumbasses HOW COULD YOU NOT LIKE THIS?! D:<

[gunryobassist]

hahaha was meant to delete this one that said "shit" coz i figured ppl would misunderstand and think i was saying they were shit and it friggin posted anyway. Damn...

[gunryobassist]

All you can say when watching these guys is: HOOOOOOOOOOW?!