Death Cab for Cutie – The Ice Is Getting Thinner tutorial

Here’s the introduction and verse.

This is the bridge and instrumental solo:

Partial Transcript (to be completed)

Starting with the instrumental part. In the recording that I have, it sounds like they play something more like this: [fifth arpeggios]. And I want to play like [broken chords] because we just played stuff that was at this kind of speed. So I’ll show you both. The first one -if you play it – I’m gonna play pretty basic. So get your left hand into that nice 5 key position, ’cause you’re going to move it like that. And your right hand is gonna be in an octave span. I’m gonna play the middle note with my middle finger. So your left hand is going to be on F and C for the first chord. You’re going to go F And C, and then move down town to C and G, and Then move back up to F and C , and then you can go down or up to A and E, then wherever you were go to D and A, and then up to G and E, down to C and G, and then up or down to F and C, and then up to G and D.

So while your left hand is doing that, your right hand is going to be either up here [below middle C] or up here [above middle C]. Listen to it; decide what you like. I’m probably going to stay right her,e I don’t know, maybe. SO your right hand is going to be playing like the same notes but one further. But we’re playing the extra C. We’re starting on F:
FCF, CGC, FCF, AEA,
DAD, GDG, CGC, FCF, GDG, G. And that chord holds.

So what I’m going to do, what I like to do, is play a little, just with a little more movement, just because we already had that. And we’re going to slow down in the instrumental section. So the way I do that is I only play one note in my left hand:
F, C, F, two As or one A (you can pick one)
D, G, C, F, G.

And the way that I do the right hand is just those chords basically that are in the key except that we change A to A7. So I play them in specific inversions so that my hand doesn’t have to move as much, and so that is sounds like a much smoother transition. So I’ll show you. THe first one I play is F. F is in second inversion. And I play that with C F A, and I do that three. AFC, AFC, AFC. And then I move these fingers down (3 and 5), and I move them to E and G, and we play a C [chord], and I start on G [note]: GEC, GEC, GEC. Then move those fingers back up, we’re going to play an F chord again: AFC, AFC, AFC. Then we’re going to play an A chord, you can play an A7 chord if you want. A chord [A major] is like this. (Just so you know, you’re on AEC#.) So AEC#, AEC#. AEC#. If you want to play A7, just play a G instead of an A. And then the next chord is D minor: AFD, AFD, AFD. And then a G chord, and I play mine here with GDB: GDB, GDB, GDB. And then back to C: so GEC, GEC, GEC. And then F again, and just for ease of playing, we’ll play it in the same inversion that we did before: AFC, AFC, AFC. And then we’re going to play G again: GDB, GDB, GDB. And I’m just going to hold that. So let’s play that together once, or you can just watch me and see if you can handle it, and then we’ll go into the instrumental part.

[To be continued, as it takes a while to transcribe.]