Transcribing Notes From John Neil (Head Transcriber)
The Impression That I Get – The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – Song Breakdown
Melody
A nice upbeat ska song from these Boston boys. The vocal range comes in at B2 to G#4, a pretty big range. There are a lot of harmonies (many octave harmonies), but I tabbed out the basic lead vocal part.
Download the Melody Sheet Music Here
Keyboard
The keyboard on the recording is all organ, but I also included many horn parts (between keys and lead guitar), as that’s an important part of this song.
Download the Keyboard Sheet Music Here
Lead Guitar
This tab consists of the distorted guitar rocking parts, and also some horn parts (along with the keys).
Download the Lead Guitar Tab Here
Rhythm Guitar
I gave the main ska clean guitar part to this tab. It also does some chord picking in the choruses, and joins the lead guitar in rocking distortion during the interlude. There’s lots of precision mute & palm mute picking in here which is pretty quick.
Download the Rhythm Guitar Tab Here
Strum Guitar
This is an added strum part to give it acoustic possibilities, which would work good for solo work.
Download the Strum Tab Here
Bass
A very active bass part played with a pick. There are a lot of repeating patterns, which makes it a bit easier. One thing to note – at the outro, the bass in the recording is off by 2 bars for the chord changes. This may have been a last minute arrangement thing where they just left the bass the way it was because it makes more interesting chords that way, or it could be intentional. Live they seem to play the right bass line to the chords, though. So if things sound funky at the end, this is why. I notated the chord changes according the rest of the band, while the bass goes rogue.
Download the Bass Tab Here
Drums
A pretty fast drum part with lots of bass drum work – lots of syncopations. Keep an eye out for the rim shots as well, which are a staple of ska music.
Download the Drum Music Here
Download the Lead Sheet Here
