Q:
I would appreciate to play Senor CS with my band. You played the 12/8 rhythm (or do you call it 6/4?) a bit faster in Leverkusen than John did on Industrial Zen, and I totally fell in love with the way this rhythm carried the melodic flow over the changes (with a touch of samba in in the bass while staying in the non-samba rhythm, if I remember well).

A:
John wrote Señor C.S. in 6/4 but, as you heard, the band took it through various interpretations of the basic rhythm. The keyboard solo tends to break down into 2 bars of 3/4 with a little Flamenco flavor. But, yes, the song is basically in 6.

Q:
Is it daring to ask if a lead sheet of this song is available anywhere? The other way is the usual way in our band: the (amateur) keyboarder has to to capture everything by listening again and again. ;-)
I would readily pay for the material, since it would make my task easier and shorter in the always too limited time I have for making music besides my main job.

A:
I suggest you write to John at his website for a lead sheet of the song. But it wouldn't be a bad idea to transcribe it yourself - it's great "ear training".

Q:
And while asking, I could add a question concerning improvising over the changes. Of course I know you guys don't play 'scales', but just make music, since you know all about scales inside out and have advanced ways of forming melodic lines while relating to harmonic content. Still it is of great help for someone like me to have an idea of possible scales/moods used for the changes, just to get some basic orientation. Be sure soon as I grasped that I will follow my ear and no scales. I just have to work harder to understand the basic outlines before doing so.

A:
You answered your own question in a way. My cheap advice is to go right to the source of the song and the improvisation, in this case John's recording of Señor C.S., and listen to the scales and melodies John uses to improvise with. That's a good place to start. Of course, you can find quite easily what scales and notes go with what chords in many different books and you should look into this source of info. But the bottom line is deciding what scales, notes, phrases, etc sound best to you. Just lots of trial and experimentation will get you there. There is no other way that I know of or would recommend.

As far as transcribing music from recordings, I strongly advise you use this method to help develop your ability to recognize and "hear" and also write down the notes, phrases and rhythms. Everyone will start from different basic abilities to do this. But no matter where your ability is in this, it's an essential ability to develop as a musician and so you can take it to the next level with practice and application.

One example of what I mean:

The first chord in Señor C.S. (where the main theme begins) I spell out as an Abm7. One scale that goes with that chord commonly would consist of - from low to high: Ab - Bb - Cb - Db - Eb - F - Gb. There are many different names for this scale - but that's "a" scale, or one possible scale. But, the bottom line, as I said above, is to improvise a melody that You like - whether it uses the notes in this scale or not. There are no hard, fast rules to this game except "what sounds good to you."

-- Chick