Background
I started writing this back in 2014 when I got locked out of the house one summer evening. I had my laptop and the cats as company so I started making things in Guitar Pro just for the sake of it.
The first thing that came to mind were the chords that start playing around 02:27. I had been reading about using pedal tones to make odd chords work together so I gave it a go.
The solo came naturally afterwards and so did the outro riffs.
It was when I started playing around with swybrid-picking that I stumbled upon the ascending picking arpeggios that are heard at 04:00. Everything is picked so I’m not using swybrid-picking here but it was the idea that gave me the intro. The final piece of the puzzle was the name. It just made sense one day and I finished the song.
Performance notes
I’ve written the tab to be exactly as I play it. This is a recommendation but you are free to play things in whatever way suits you.
Lead
Bar 37: contains a roll with the index finger on the 14th fret. I try my best to avoid doing these sorts of things but this part was inevitable. Practice it slowly and make sure the notes are clearly separated.
Bar 101 & 102: To phrase it the way it’s supposed to be phrased you’ll have to use the recommended fingering on these bars. I find that it’s quite comfortable once you get the hang of it.
Bar 104 & 105: The fingering here is less important, focus on getting the rhythm down and you’ll master it in no time.
Rhythm (L&R)
Bars 2 & 3 etc: You have the strangest thing for the picking hand in the entire song right off the gate. I find the first four notes the most difficult and the proceeding Down-Up-Up-patterns easier. I suggest practicing the first four notes on three adjacent strings like in the song but try to avoid playing on the same fret number. Try something like this:
What you’ll find is that the second note is the most difficult to execute timing-wise but also in terms of clarity. As always; practice slowly to make sure your technique is good before speeding things up.
Bar 5 etc:
Guitar L: There is no fun way around this tongue-twister. The repeating note might throw you off so try to memorize the sound before trying to nail it.
Guitar R: I use my middle and ring finger to tap. The most important part is to make sure to mute the strings that aren’t playing.
Bars 18-37 and 62-92: I think the easiest thing to do here is to memorize the rhythm. Once you have it the patterns get easy.
Bar 112 & 113: Doing the triplets might take some getting used to. My tip is to look at the frets you are about to move your fingers to before moving them. This improves accuracy by a lot.
You can listen to Color by Number here:
Personnel
Drums: Nick Acker
Bass. Raúl Vicente
Everything else: Elder Ozone
Gear
Picks: Dunlop Max-Grip Jazz III
Amp: Neural DSP Archetype: Plini for lead Neural DSP Archetype: Nolly for rhythm
and Neural DSP Parallax for bass
Guitar: Schecter Hellraiser C1FR from 2007
Bass: Fender 5-string Jazz Bass
Synth: Vital and Elektron Model: Cycles
FX: Portal by Output for soundscapes throughout the song