How to play our version of "By This River"

World Oceans Day takes place each year on 8th June, and for the last three years we've contributed tracks to special CDs curated by the aquatically-inclined Notebook Of A Mermaid. For the 2011 CD we offered our version of "By This River", a Brian Eno song originally from the album "Before and After Science" (Amazon UK; Amazon US), released in 1977.

Here's how I played the main riff, originally a piano part, on my Washburn D10SCE acoustic. Note: this is the first time I've put tab online! It's not very exciting tab, as the part is very simple - all that changes is the bass note.

Capo 3 

Bb

e|3-2-------------|----------------|

B|----3-0-3-------|----------------|

G|----------0-2-4-|--0--2--4-------|

D|----------------|--0--2--4-------|

A|----------------|----------------|

E|3---------------|----------------| 

Gm 

e|3-2-------------|----------------| 

B|----3-0-3-------|----------------|

G|----------0-2-4-|--0--2--4-------|

D|----------------|--0--2--4-------| 

A|----------------|----------------| 

E|0---------------|----------------|

Eb 

e|3-2-------------|----------------|

B|----3-0-3-------|----------------|

G|----------0-2-4-|--0--2--4-------|

D|----------------|--0--2--4-------|

A|3---------------|----------------|

E|----------------|----------------|

Gm

e|3-2-------------|----------------|
B|----3-0-3-------|----------------|
G|----------0-2-4-|--0--2--4-------|
D|----------------|--0--2--4-------|
A|----------------|----------------|
E|0---------------|----------------|

 

Luke's lap steel was tuned to an open G chord, and Robert played his recently-constructed percussive frame from which hang a multitude of cheap wind chimes, keys, washers, random sections of metal etc etc. Robert and I sang unison lead vocals, and then Luke added a melodic flute part during the middle and ending, to top the whole thing off.

We recorded the song on our 8-track, and then ported it into Buzz where I added plenty of the Sonic Verb plugin to give a bit of distance.

You can watch the video for our version of "By This River" on YouTube here.