Purple Haze

As a bassist, the course of my career was altered upon discovering bassist nonpareil, Michael Manring. After hearing the music that Manring had recorded, I realized there was much more to playing bass than just simply playing bass. Manring has pioneered an entirely unique approach to performing on the instrument that includes unorthodox tunings, techniques, and ground-breaking concepts. Through his virtuoso technical innovations, Manring has completely redefined the role of the electric bass as a solo instrument. He seamlessly blends all of the modern bass techniques including traditional fingerstyle playing, slapping, plucking, chord strumming, and contrapuntal two-handed tapping techniques on fretted and fretless instruments with his amazing and unparalleled work with the EBow, explorations with harmonics, and his extensive use of altered tunings.

Throughout his career, Manring has honed his skills on hundreds of recordings as a session musician and thousands of concerts around the world. His six recordings as a solo artist, Unusual Weather, Toward The Center Of The Night, Drastic Measures, Thonk, The Book Of Flame, and Soliloquy, have earned him international critical acclaim. While solo recordings released by bassists have been conventionally regarded as music strictly targeted for the hard-core bass fanatic, Manring's solo projects have consistently astonished listeners with their compositional depth and beauty. Manring has been awarded two gold records, multiple Grammy nominations, a Berklee College of Music Distinguished Alumni Award, and numerous readers' poll awards including Bass Player magazine's "1994 Bassist Of The Year."

In 1991, Manring released, Drastic Measures, his third recording as a leader. This is a complete transcription of Manring's solo interpretation of Jimi Hendrix' "Purple Haze" as recorded on Drastic Measures. It was the first solo bass arrangement that I heard as a teenager that really opened my ears to all the textural possibilities available on electric bass.

Although this transcription includes tablature and most of the articulation markings including hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides, I would like to include a few additional comments to guide you through the performance of this solo bass arrangement. This piece requires the utilization of a variety of techniques including slapping, plucking, and the two-handed tapping of double, triple, and even quadruple-stops. Traditionally regarding two-handed tapping passages, melodies are usually tapped with the right hand while accompanied by an ostinato-based part played with the left hand. With the exceptions of sections "B" and "F" along with a few other noted measures in the transcription, the notes found in the treble clef are to be tapped with your right hand, and the lines notated in the bass clef will be played with your left hand. On beats two and four of the measures within sections "B" and "F", the double-stop is tapped at the 22nd fret on the E and A strings with the first and second fingers of the right hand while the melody is tapped with the left hand. As heard throughout the recording, many of the notes played on the E-string, especially the open string "E's", are allowed to ring for longer than indicated rhythmically in this transcription. The octaves found starting on beat three of measures 24, 37, and 66 are produced by plucking the A and G strings with the thumb and index fingers, respectively. In measures 25, 38, and 67, the open G-string on beats two and four is sounded with the 4th finger of the left hand by quickly pulling the string away from the fingerboard and releasing it after fretting the "D" at the 12th fret of the D-string. The extended slides sounded in measure 33 are performed by crossing the right hand over the left. First, the left hand slides up the E-string starting on the 3rd beat. As the left hand is sliding up, the right hand crosses over the left, and as soon as the left hand completes the slide, the right hand taps the "G" at the 3rd fret and slides the length of the fingerboard. The power chords heard on the 2nd and 4th beats of measures 47 and 49 are sounded with fury by striking all four strings simultaneously towards the end of the fingerboard with a flattened middle finger. In measures 48 and 50, the left hand taps the power chords that are notated in the treble clef on the A, D, and G strings while the right hand crosses over the left and taps on the E-string. The power chord in the final measure is articulated by simply strumming downward across all four strings with the thumb. Even though I didn't notate dynamic markings in this transcription, be sure to include them as performed by Manring to create contrast between the sections and generate the greatest amount of intensity.