Steve Howe’s merry guitar tune, “Clap”
I had understood the title of this song to be “The Clap”, as in the STD, but according to Wikipedia, that’s wrong. I just checked our antique tape of The Yes Album, and there it is, wrong. How annoying would that be, to write a jolly little song in honour of your son’s birth and then some album-cover designer renames it after gonorrhea. I’d be a little upset, I have to admit.
But what a happy song, and what an interesting video of it. I’m so used to the cello and violin model of of string instruments, where you’d be moving the left hand fingers for each individual note, but you can see really clearly here that the left hand holds set chord positions and most of the work and challenge is in the right hand. Pretty neat.
Yay! I’m always happy to have “Clap” stuck in my head. Or “Horizons,” while we’re in the category of “guitar instrumentals by prog rock bands of the 70s.” My understanding about the title was the same as yours; I’m glad to be set straight about that.
That is a fun song. It is very cheerful, and sounds great with guitars.