Not only is the song complex, I have to REMEMBER the song, while learning how to play it, since I don’t read music.
It sucks. I have a guitar-only version, supposedly played by Clapton, (which is easier to hear the guitar VS the '68 version, and I have Ultaminte TAbs .com for reference.) and Clapton makes it sound easy, (though there are 2 poorly fretted chords in his version, and I suppose he didn’t want to try another take.).
Shit, the time signature in the opening riff is like 17/19point3.14 or some shit. Swagger, I call it, and it is F-ed up hard. I can’t play that relaxed, knowing what is coming in the remaining bars.
I am both trying to learn to play and memorize the song for the sequence at the same time, and it is very overwhelming, as it was back when I first tried.
Quitting smoking was 100 times easier, but I am absolutely sure I will get laid when I break this bad boy out, so I am motivated.
But, you’ll break your brain and fingers trying to play the '68 Mason Williams version on one guitar. It contains A LOT of guitar tracks mixed together. I don’t know if he played them all himself, or had other guitar players laying the tracks down.
Without having done this myself, you might look for a Youtube live performance. Even then, Mason Williams maybe played one part live to taped back-up.
Multi-track recording is a great invention, but can cause problems like this when learning.
Good luck
David
There is a midi file, a PDF with both sheet music and Tab, and clicking on the song title Classical Gas will download a .tef file in TablEdit format. You can download the TablEdit player for free; it will allow you to listen to the music while looking at the Tab.
Not long, it is one of the easier “classical” pieces. The arrangement I learned is in the key of Am and most of it is played at the “beginner position” with open strings etc. The picking is for the most part arpeggio.