music education
March 31, 2011 10:08 AM Subscribe
Is there a good place for cover bands to learn new songs other than with tabs, youtube, etc.? They seem unreliable. And will sheet music be obsolete eventually?
I'm kind of amazed at the lack of good, reliable song information on the internet. It all seems to all be thrown together by a 15 year old in a tab or as a lesson on youtube.
And as far as sheet music goes, isn't the piano roll a more modern, easier to learn/understand tool? Why hasn't technology ushered in something better? Is it just the massive existing user base, or does it really have advantages?
I'm kind of amazed at the lack of good, reliable song information on the internet. It all seems to all be thrown together by a 15 year old in a tab or as a lesson on youtube.
And as far as sheet music goes, isn't the piano roll a more modern, easier to learn/understand tool? Why hasn't technology ushered in something better? Is it just the massive existing user base, or does it really have advantages?
Fake books. A piano roll takes up a lot more space than modern musical notation, and the information on interpretation could end up far away from the notes, which is irritating. But it's by no means a settled question. There are new systems devised for turntablists, for example, who are not well-served by traditional notation. The Wikipedia article on notation has more information than I ever thought possible.
Steve Vai wrote an interesting document on transcribing weird rhythms for Frank Zappa.
posted by mkb at 10:22 AM on March 31, 2011
Steve Vai wrote an interesting document on transcribing weird rhythms for Frank Zappa.
posted by mkb at 10:22 AM on March 31, 2011
Anytime I've been in a cover band, I've just figured out the parts by listening to the recording. If there are notes that are too subtle for me to detect by ear, they're too subtle for the audience to miss them if we leave them out. Also, if I get the parts a little wrong, well, that's "artistic license."
Since tab from the internet is never reliable, I'll always need to double- and triple-check any parts I've learned from the internet. I find it easier to just figure everything out organically to begin with, rather than acting as an editor to other people who were just doing the same thing I can do on my own.
But if you really want written music, don't rely on the internet. Buy the tab or sheet music in paper book form, or subscribe to a magazine like Guitar World.
posted by John Cohen at 10:26 AM on March 31, 2011
Since tab from the internet is never reliable, I'll always need to double- and triple-check any parts I've learned from the internet. I find it easier to just figure everything out organically to begin with, rather than acting as an editor to other people who were just doing the same thing I can do on my own.
But if you really want written music, don't rely on the internet. Buy the tab or sheet music in paper book form, or subscribe to a magazine like Guitar World.
posted by John Cohen at 10:26 AM on March 31, 2011
Use and train your ears. Every minute you spend deciphering music for yourself makes you a better, more capable musician. The first few songs you try to figure out may take a while but it will become easier and easier until you can recognize the chords the first time you hear a song. The musical vocabulary of popular music is finite.
posted by Jode at 10:43 AM on March 31, 2011 [3 favorites]
posted by Jode at 10:43 AM on March 31, 2011 [3 favorites]
And as far as sheet music goes, isn't the piano roll a more modern, easier to learn/understand tool?
Definitely not. Musical notation is an extremely clear, compact, and efficient way of recording musical ideas, fine-tuned over hundreds of years. There continue to be innovations in notation -- there are some 20th and 21st century pieces with downright strange-looking scores -- but regular musical notation isn't going away anytime soon, and it certainly wouldn't be replaced by a piano roll, which was not designed for humans to read. I don't think anyone could sight-read this.
posted by Anatoly Pisarenko at 10:44 AM on March 31, 2011
Definitely not. Musical notation is an extremely clear, compact, and efficient way of recording musical ideas, fine-tuned over hundreds of years. There continue to be innovations in notation -- there are some 20th and 21st century pieces with downright strange-looking scores -- but regular musical notation isn't going away anytime soon, and it certainly wouldn't be replaced by a piano roll, which was not designed for humans to read. I don't think anyone could sight-read this.
posted by Anatoly Pisarenko at 10:44 AM on March 31, 2011
I sort of just went through all this because I joined two cover bands in October and I've learned about 100 songs note for note since then.
The best thing you can do is just listen to the song. Maybe get a tab or chord chart to help start you off and then you transcribe it yourself.
If you can't listen to songs and pick out parts you'll be able to when you get done. Think of it as free ear training. =]
My ear was terrible back in October but now I can fake through songs on the first go around.
What do you play? What music are you playing? Those are important details to help provide you with good resources.
I like this tool called Best Practice -- you can use it to slow down the parts and change keys. I like playing songs in a few different keys so I know that I really know the parts well.
posted by zephyr_words at 10:46 AM on March 31, 2011
The best thing you can do is just listen to the song. Maybe get a tab or chord chart to help start you off and then you transcribe it yourself.
If you can't listen to songs and pick out parts you'll be able to when you get done. Think of it as free ear training. =]
My ear was terrible back in October but now I can fake through songs on the first go around.
What do you play? What music are you playing? Those are important details to help provide you with good resources.
I like this tool called Best Practice -- you can use it to slow down the parts and change keys. I like playing songs in a few different keys so I know that I really know the parts well.
posted by zephyr_words at 10:46 AM on March 31, 2011
Just learn it by listening and playing along, like cavemen do. Write down the chord changes only if you absolutely have to.
Then work it out amongst the band members in a rehearsal, until all the parts come together to make a cover song that sounds great with your ensemble.
Reading off tab is a really poor substitute for using your ears and brain to figure out how the songs works best for YOU.
posted by Aquaman at 10:50 AM on March 31, 2011 [2 favorites]
Then work it out amongst the band members in a rehearsal, until all the parts come together to make a cover song that sounds great with your ensemble.
Reading off tab is a really poor substitute for using your ears and brain to figure out how the songs works best for YOU.
posted by Aquaman at 10:50 AM on March 31, 2011 [2 favorites]
There used to be some good tab/crd groups on USENET back in the days before OLGA. While they weren't always perfect, at least they were looked at and played by people and corrections were posted. Some of those ended up on OLGA as well. I've noticed that many of the current sites are just reposting the same files with the same inaccuracies.
You might want to peruse Google's USENET archive to see what's available on alt.guitar.tab and rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature.
posted by tommasz at 10:53 AM on March 31, 2011
You might want to peruse Google's USENET archive to see what's available on alt.guitar.tab and rec.music.makers.guitar.tablature.
posted by tommasz at 10:53 AM on March 31, 2011
In addition to what everyone else is saying this site, especially the last three listening exercises will help you build the skills necessary to transcribe pretty much anything you need to repeat by ear. I just picked this site off the google a few minutes ago but from an initial glance it seems to be a pretty solid reference as well for beginning music theory. Which is absolutely useful for not only learning how existing songs which you want to learn work, but will help when writing original pieces as well.
posted by mcrandello at 5:53 PM on March 31, 2011
posted by mcrandello at 5:53 PM on March 31, 2011
If you're trying to play really accurate covers then, as a few people have said, the best possible source of information is the song itself. The more effort you put into deciphering song A, the better you'll be at deciphering song B.
But on the other hand, why strive for slavish imitation? It's probably better for your musicianship to figure out the general structure of the song, what's important, what can be skipped or fudged and fit that to the players/instruments you've got in your band. If you don't have a keyboard player, how are you going to do that classice organ riff in "Like a Rolling Stone"? You'll have to have a workaround.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 7:50 PM on March 31, 2011
But on the other hand, why strive for slavish imitation? It's probably better for your musicianship to figure out the general structure of the song, what's important, what can be skipped or fudged and fit that to the players/instruments you've got in your band. If you don't have a keyboard player, how are you going to do that classice organ riff in "Like a Rolling Stone"? You'll have to have a workaround.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 7:50 PM on March 31, 2011
The lack of resources for learning cover songs is probably due to copyright. As long as this material is only available in a casual or haphazard way it won't attract legal action.
As well as the other approaches mentioned above I would add:
-Examining the notes in a good midi file
-Learning directly from other musicians
-My favorite software tools are Amazing Slow Downer and Transcribe
posted by canoehead at 8:34 AM on April 1, 2011
As well as the other approaches mentioned above I would add:
-Examining the notes in a good midi file
-Learning directly from other musicians
-My favorite software tools are Amazing Slow Downer and Transcribe
posted by canoehead at 8:34 AM on April 1, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
even the official song books that you can pick up in guitar shops aren't usually correct. part of this is because they want to write everything for a certain skill level and part of this is because a lot of artists don't write things in a sheet music format (or they don't share it with people writing the songbook).
cover bands usually have to have someone that's really good at playing by ear.
posted by nadawi at 10:14 AM on March 31, 2011