Today I have a very short transcription, the solo from the studio version of Wax Fang’s “Majestic.” It’s a simple and beautiful little song. And I know I’m not alone in having first encountered it in a funny setting:
I haven’t consumed tons of other work from Wax Fang, and don’t know much about their guitarist and frontman, Scott Carney. But I do know that this is a fantastic, compact solo that frankly sounds maybe like what Slash would have laid down if he was brought in to drop some lead work on this recording. Great tone, great feeling, fits the song perfectly. (And I’d be remiss if I forgot to reiterate that there’s nothing less majestic than military forces and masked ICE losers being deployed on American streets against American citizens and residents. Shame on everyone involved.)
The song and solo
“Majestic” is in 12/8 time, and in the key of D major. Two chord progressions appear in it: a vanilla pop/rock I-IV-V-I (D-G-A-D) progression, and then a progression centered on the Bm relative minor: Bm-D-Bm-A (or, vi-I-vi-V). Carney’s solo comes over the second progression, played through twice.
Carney’s approach is nice and simple: over the Bm chord he plays some B minor pentatonic language, and when the D or A chord comes along, he plays a basically identical figure around either the D major triad or the A major triad, like a repeating motif that appears between the B minor pentatonic stuff. The exception is the final A chord where he has a climactic end that targets a finale on an F# note (the third of D, as the solo’s end returns to the song’s first progression).
The B minor pentatonic is all in (one little piece of) one position, playing only from the box on the middle D and G strings here:
And the motivic phrase on D major and A major can be played around the same triad shape for each:
The repeated figure is illustrated here:
Anyway, it’s a very short and sweet solo, which Carney approaches in a pleasingly simple way, which is why I felt like including it here. Enjoy the song, and abolish ICE.