Hold your head up

A midi sequence of Rod Argent's Hammond organ solo

I am not a keyboard player, but I have always admired Rod Argent's Hammond organ playing.  One of my favorite Argent performances is the 2 minute solo in "Hold your head up".  In 2001, I began transcribing this solo into a midi sequence.  Using the variable-pitch feature of my wave editor, I was able to slow the tempo of the lightning-fast runs enough to obtain an accurate transcription of about half the solo.  Unfortunately, my ear wasn't quite good enough to cope with the chromatic mayhem that breaks loose in the second half of the solo.  I broke down and bought a copy of Slow Gold, which does a pretty good job of slowing the tempo while maintaining the pitch.  Over a period of about 6 months, I entered the solo one note at a time in staff notation using ancient copy of Cakewalk.  By spring 2002, I had a complete and fairly accurate transcription of the whole solo.  I threw down minimal bass and drum tracks, which were quite helpful in ironing out some of the phrasing.  There are still a few spots where the phrasing is a little shaky, but I am still very pleased with the result.  None of the midi sequences that I have found on the net even attempt the organ solo - they just skip to the last verse.
Here is a recording of the Cakewalk playback of the midi sequence, using a Roland RD-600 stage piano as the tone generator.  I didn't make any attempt to duplicate the insane overdriven Leslie tone of his rig, but it sounds decent for a midi sequence.  I'm not quite ready to give the raw midi sequence away:  I plan to finish a sequence of the entire song to use as a backing track for my band.  I'm not sure I still have the attention span to complete this project.  If you have got a great sequence of the rest of the song, I'd certainly be interested in a collaboration to join my middle to your two ends.