Chicago - Make Me Smile

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TGNeil
Posts: 963
Joined: Thu Feb 18, 2010 1:09 pm
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Wed Nov 24, 2021 12:12 pm

Hey Folks,
Getting back on the Chicago bandwagon, here is a lesson on the rhythm guitar parts to Make Me Smile.

Make Me Smile is an edited version of two parts of James Pankow's Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon, which was a seven part suite that took up most of side two of Chicago's second album, released in 1970. The song featured the horn section, along with Terry Kath's vocals and dazzling guitar parts.

This lesson goes over the accompaniment parts that Terry played, including the driving, 16th note patterns, his short melody in the intro, and the rhythmically complex outro (a common thing among early Chicago tunes). Aside from the powerful strumming, the entire piece is played with many different barre chords.

Here is an amazing concert they did in 1970. The Ballet Suite starts around 1:10:10


And the edited version-