"Alice's Wonderland" by Bert Jansch

Friends:

Bittersweet this month as my summer winds to a close and I head back to the hustle that is public education. I realized last night that we are closing out 5 years on Patreon, this came as a bit of a surprise. Thank you all for keeping the project alive.

I wrestled with what to do this month, especially after so many requests from the thread earlier this summer. While I continue to work on several things mentioned there, I wanted to get back to Jansch and work out another favorite from his first record.

My transcription corresponds to the album version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7VUs76rCLM

There is also an early live version of the tune (I love the foot tapping): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y_hqilXbzM

"Alice's Wonderland" is full of extended harmony and will keep your left hand busy. Contrasting this month's other post, Fahey's "Sunflower River Blues," where nearly all of the chords can be played with only two fingers, most of the harmonies in "Alice's Wonderland" require 3 or 4 fingers from the left hand.

A note in the wikipedia entry on Jansch's self titled LP suggests that this composition was inspired by Charles Mingus' piece of the same name, recorded a few years earlier in 1959. I don't necessarily heard any strong correlation in melody or harmony, and suspect the inspiration may be just in title alone, or perhaps mood, or perhaps just the frequent use of extended harmony. The rolling figures in the horns in the first few seconds of Mingus' composition could possibly have inspired the many rolling figures in Jansch's lines. I also hear a nod to Dave Brubeck's "Take 5" (also recorded 1959) in the middle section, mostly a similarity in harmonic movement between Am and Em7.

There are a few tempo shifts in his performance as well as frequent shifting back and forth between swung and straight eighth notes. Most of the piece is in 3/4 time but the middle section briefly visits 4/4.

I think the two most important things worth focusing on while studying this piece are the quality of the forward rolls and establishing left-hand finger independence while moving in and out of chords. Jansch would have likely used the right hand fingerings that are suggested in the score. I'm slowly getting a better picture of how his right hand worked and now can see quite clearly that he did not like to use his ring finger alone. He usually only uses it in conjunction with the middle or with the index and middle, or he will use it as part of a rolled chord. I drew on some documentary footage of him playing "Fresh as a Sweet Sunday Morning" to inform the editing here. He frequently executes a quick forward roll followed by higher melody notes there, very much the same move as he's doing in "Alice's Wonderland," so the fingerings here are a direct reflection of this. You may also want to spend some time working on arpeggios to improve the speed and crisp clarity of the attack on your forward rolls. Jansch usually will plant the index middle and ring finger the moment the thumb plays then quickly roll off all three notes. There is a little variation in the rhythmic quality of this, sometimes the rolls are strict in time as 16th notes, sometimes faster as if they are grace notes anticipating the beat. Pay attention to the editing of the left hand fingers and how long those notes are held. Many, if not most of the chord forms are entered a few notes at a time, not the block chord movement that is more typical of Fahey or Kottke. In the lesson video I mention that a characteristic of the chord movement in this tune is he often establishes the bass first, then likely places the rest of the chord.

You can access the private video lesson here: https://youtu.be/nckEmgVHFJE

The score is attached below. Enjoy!