How to Play "Miss Gradenko"
by Greg Danielak
In my opinion, "Miss Gradenko", along with "O My God", is one of the most underrated tracks on "Synchronicity." Then again, I feel the same way for "Mother," which is an entirely different story . . .
Andy's classical background comes into play once again in this song, with a modern twist.
It Doesn't Sound Like The Blues . . . ?We all know the sound of 7th chords, right? That "bluesy", "sneaky" feel they have, the ones you play that lead into the main chord in any blues song. But "Miss Gradenko" isn't blues . . . so why do I mention 7th chords?
Once again, the Police's amazing arrangement skills come in. Look at the main riff in "Miss Gradenko", and see if you notice something.
The reason the riff sounds so "skeletal" and "shaky" is because of the 7th chord arpeggios in it. The song starts out on an E7 arpeggio, and then goes down to a D7 arpeggio, back to an E7 and then throws in a different inversion for a D7 by raising the F to an A. Normally this is not a normal move for a 7th chord, but who cares? The effect is wonderful. You wouldn't normally hear 7th chords used like this . . . but the Police were musical geniuses that used everything in the best way.
Loop-The-Loop
Here's the next part. This riff secretly shows Andy's love for loopy-type arpeggios. The Aadd9 is joyful and settled, but then the D/F# adds an "unsure" note- the F#. Then, it goes up a fret to a "G", sounding like it's going to resolve from being "unsure." Sure enough, the whole thing begins again with a relaxed Aadd9. Basically, the bass notes in these chords go A - A- F# - G and over again. A simple movement, but Andy stacks the rest of the chord notes onto them to give a "rolling" feeling.
Raising Notes To A New Level of HappinessNow the next section. Play the Asus4 arpeggio which starts off this section. Look at the way Andy plays it- by playing the outer two notes first, which by themselves make a 5th chord (i.e. "power chord".) Then he goes on playing the whole arpeggio, sounding the note that defines the whole feel of "Is there anybody alive in here?"- the D note on the 7 fret of the G string. Because the previous 3 notes were power chord-ish tones, you couldn't feel the effect until Andy played the D, which makes the whole chord now an Asus4. It's called a "sus4" because the note in question- the D on the G string- was the note that gave an A major it's "happy" quality. Andy always disliked that "forced feel", and here he simply just raised the 3rd to the next major scale degree- which made the 3rd a sustained (raised) 4rth.
The amazing thing is, it goes by so fast it makes the effect even more great.
. . . But You Sent This Dangerous "Note"The next chord arpeggio is a D13. Look at the way the C note clashes with the open B string Sounds sad, huh? Then in an instant, it becomes "safe" when the A is included. What a great chord movement.
The rest of this tune is self-explanatory. Note that this is also an excellent song to practice fast arpeggiated picking across strings with, along with any Rush song as well. Just remember that the pick must always go up, down, up, down, and never strike the string the same direction twice.
Nobody but us . . .
Copyright 1983 Stewart Copeland Published by Magnetic Publishing Ltd. (PRS) Represented by Reggatta Music Administered by Irvig Music Inc. (BMI) in the U.S. and Canada International Copyright Secured
All Rights Reserved
Lesson By Greg Danielak - 2000
