About this Video
Browsing Youtube the other day (as I do often for music videos), I came across a wonderful tune called Sari nande. It's an Indonesian folk song originating somewhere in the 60's by an Indonesian artist named Andy Tielman (and bros) from what I can gather. The original melody was played with lyrics and simple instrumentation.

I don't know if he wrote the tune, but he does promote it with his band on the road. I think his last real tour was in the early 2000's. The tune is very catchy as it has a few nice hooks.

I was taken by one of the first guitar only (with backup band) version I listened to from a dutch party band named The Locomotions. Another band the Dixie Aces also did a very nice job. The later guitar only instrumental versions are not like the original vocal folk tune from Tielman, but has certainly captured the spirit of Tielmans verses and melody but with a more punchy modern bent.

As I found out, there were many posted contributions to this tune. I settled on listening and documenting versions done by the The Locomotions, Dave Monk, the Dixie Aces and Supertuneless. All of these guitar based artists carry the core of the tune in their own way.

The tune is in the key of A and appear to have only 3 chords. A, D and E. You could be using E7's and Bm as well in places, but needs experimenting.

The tune in general is not hard to learn. There is a fast mandolin like sounding section in the tune if you want to take up the challenge.

I have developed the guitar tabs (in Word and as a PDF) by listening to a combination of Dave Monk and the Locomotions versions. There are a lot of variations and improvisations you can add to the tune using my tabs as a base to any new work.

The posted tabs I did find online appear to differ a lot in phrasing or have outright errors. My tab version is a composite of the artist(s) work just noted. Use it with confidence. It's very very close to what is being played. I may miss some double fingerings, slides etc., but add them based on your playing style.

As far as playing along with any backtracks, I could not find any online (Karaoke or other wise).

The amateur guitar players who posted videos playing this tune, have used others backtrack works by permission, produced their own or played as a band. Good on them. Nice work. I didn't think it a good idea to ask them for their materials.

So I decided to get my own backing track produced by a pro composer and musician. I am in the process of learning composition and the recording arts, but its a long road. In the meantime I contract the pro's.

Early on I did begin the process of creating my own basic backtrack using Chordpulse software as a quick and practical way to practice the tune rather than playing along with an existing Youtube video. Of course, it is not as exciting as a studio produced version, but it did do a lot for learning this tune for now. It is rather incomplete.

Equipment Used and Settings

• Fender Jazzmaster guitar. Neck pickups for brighter sound
• Strymon Flint Reverb, tremolo effect slightly used
• Digitech Delay pedal (still experimenting)
• Lots of vibrato needed. Typically used at end of phrases.

Artists and Versions
Listen for the Dave Monk, The Locomotions and Dixie Aces versions on my video Playlist above this text. See Playlist icon location in upper left hand corner of the video frame - Playlist.

Audio and Video Production Tools
Audio recording is done using REAPER DAW, ART DI boxes and an ART USB based audio interface to get guitar sound to DAW.

Video production work is done in Adobe Premiere CS5. Original and final Video resolution is 1280x720p. Compression is about 7-10mb/s MP4. Youtube will transcode to their transmission specs anyway.

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