Staying with our Friday isolated tracks theme, here’s Steve Howe’s isolated guitar tracks in “Roundabout,” one of Yes’s most famous tracks. The song is off of their breakout album Fragile, which catapulted the band into a worldwide headlining act. It’s a long song with a lot of parts, so here are just a few of the things to listen for.
1. Listen to the acoustic guitar harmonics on the left and electric guitar fills on right during the first verse.
2. On the second verse, the acoustic guitar harmonics are replaced with a strum.
3. A slightly out of tune electric guitar takes over in first chorus.
4. Check out the mis-fingerings at 3:08 and 3:17, something that we’d probably fix if the song were done today.
6. Listen for the chair noise on the second intro at 5:15.
7. On the last verse the electric guitar doubles the bass.
8. Check out the strumming guitar on outro at 7:50, along with tapping on the body for a rhythm percussion effect.
9. The ending guitar line (the same as the intro) at 8:18 is doubled.