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Before I learned enough to actually hear and understand what someone was playing on a record. Also before youtube where you could see where someone was placing there hands on the fretboard of a guitar, I use to think it was me that was screwing up because it did not sound correct. Very frustrating.
Now that I know a little more I have come to understand that most of these "chords and lyrics" posted on the internet are just inaccurate.
I wanted to learn Tennessee Whiskey by Chris Stapleton note for note, lick for lick. Where the internet "chord" said D it was actually Asus4. A typical misrepestation of the song. Then some of the other sites had the song in another key.
Makes me wonder what else I learned off the internet that was just plane wrong.
I may not want to play some cover tune note for note but I think it is important to learn it note for note before I go screwing around with a new arrangement.
Well...what do you think?
Billy
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I can only comment on jazz. Many of us learned tunes in the sixties, only to discover fakebooks. These were illegal and often quite wrong.
Now publishers like Hal Leonard or Sher Music obtain the permissions and pay the royalties, and get permission from composers so the chart is right. You can buy these. Unfortunately junk remains available on the Internet, because too many want stuff for free.
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Hi Matt,
My experience with sight reading for guitar is very limited. For one thing, sight reading for guitar is pretty difficult to begin with. Actually, I can only do it if I have both the sheet music and the Tab.
We have always had fake books for pop and other forms which as you say are often wrong. Many songbooks of the Beatles I have owned were often inaccurate.
I use to own a song book of the 29 Robert Johnson songs that were transcribed note for note. I placed them on Nocols piano ( a concert pianist with a major orchestra in Germany) and she played it note for note. It was almost scary to hear Robert Johnson come to life in that moment on the piano.
There is a band of young guys here I like a lot. I go play with them sometimes. I know many of the cover tunes they play. But...I often have a hard time to keep up with arrangements they play that are not like the originals.
That is one reason setting in with someone else band is often not a good idea.
I guess some folks may think it is sort of arrogant but the better you get as a musician the fewer people there are to play with and have it be a lot of fun.
I often wonder if I had a formal musical education how things would have been different.
Billy
Last edited by Planobilly; 12/02/21 05:25 PM.
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As many of you know I make play along videos with chords and lyrics. I do not try and get them 100% “correct”. I try to get them so that the average campfire guitar players can strum along.
So if putting a capo on makes a song easier to play then that is what I do. And if leaving off the Asus diminished half passing chord makes it easier to play, then that is what I do.
I remember in a guitar lesson years ago the teacher telling me I could substitute the relative major/ minor in a song anytime I wanted. That completely blew my mind and I have happily been doing that ever since.
I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to play a song. There is only someone else’s arrangement and your arrangement. I don’t think that someone else’s arrangement (even if that someone else is the composer or somebody famous) is the only “right” way to play a song.
Interested to learn what others think on this topic.
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"I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to play a song"
Will I agree with that more or less 100%.
Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove wrote the song Tennessee Wiskey. I have listen to Dean Dillon play it. George Jones covered it. David Allen Coe made it pretty famous. Joanne Cooper has a cover of it.
Chris Stapleton has sold millions of copies and it became #1 on the Hot 100.
You can capo up one fret and play G to A minor if you can not form the B minor bar chord for example. It is played by Chris on acoustic in the key of G so his wife, I think she is his wife, can sing it.
But...if you want to sound as close as possible to Chris Stapleton playing the song at Austin City Limits you have to learn how to form a Asus4 and a good many other things for that matter...lol
There have been some exceptional deviations from the originals. Jose Feliciano's version of the Doors song Light My Fire comes to mind.
There is a certain riff to Smoke On the Water and if you don't play that riff note for note it is not Smoke On the Water.
There is certainly nothing wrong with playing a simplified version of some song. I do it all the time, not because I want to but because I don't have the skills to do it like the original. Go try to play "Bubble Shuffle" by Larry Carlton. I have never been able to play it and Larry himself has tried to show me how...lol
Those guitar players that many of us really like have spent countless thousands of hours learning songs note for note before they developed their own style/sound. Stevie Ray Vaughan could sound so much like BB King you had to look twice to be sure.
Making very simplified versions of a song and having it be recognizable is a talent/skill of it's own.
I assume not many of us are up at 12:33 in the morning trying to learn a new double stop interval we have never played before.
It is a lot safer for everyone for me to be doing that than flying airplanes upside down 10 foot off the ground like I use to do...lol It's called a "low altitude waver" that you have to get from the FAA to fly at airshows. Still, pilots kill people at airshows doing that.
Everyone should play what ever pleases them in what ever manner they like.
There is room for everyone in the world of music and we should support everyone who plays.
Billy
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...
Everyone should play what ever pleases them in what ever manner they like.
There is room for everyone in the world of music and we should support everyone who plays.
Well said. Music - the universal language.
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I think a lot of information from the internet is worth as much as you pay, i.e. zero.
I come from an era when we learned songs by figuring them out from recordings, swapping info with other players etc.
Most recent converts don't develop those skills due to relying on what they pick up from the net.
Sometimes the chords are wrong, sometimes they are an interpretation that has strayed too far from the 'definitive' version, sometimes chords above the line are misplaced due to a different typeface being used at copy and paste.
I attend a weekly informal ukulele group of very mixed abilities. Some download songs with all the above errors for their weekly contribution but don't see or hear the issues. They don't have the knowledge to edit and likely don't want to think too hard, so just go with what they have.
Others recognize that something is wrong and seek advice on how to fix it and expand their knowledge in the process.
So, yes, use the internet but as a start point, seek as many alternative sources as you can, and most importantly, use your ears.
Vintage
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<< I assume not many of us are up at 12:33 in the morning trying to learn a new double stop interval we have never played before. >>
Yep. That's me. Many nights watching performances of Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, Austin City Limits and The Midnight Special and learning chords from the live performances.
Back in the day, it wasn't just fakebooks that were often quite wrong. On TV performances that were not live but were lip-synced with backing tracks, the performers hardly ever used correct chording. Very frustrating...
Charlie
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Usually, if I want to learn a song note for note I purchase the sheet music - mostly from MusicNotes I also pour over YouTube videos to help with the fingering. Worth the price not to practice something that is way off base. ...Deb
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Asus4 - isn't that just a D chord with the top string open? you just lift a finger up. it's amazing how many 'complicated' chords that are played on a guitar are really quite simple.
which is a godsend for cowboy chord guitarists like me !
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The worst thing about getting from the net is, one site copies the wrong chord from the other sites.
But the advantages outweigh the disadvantages I think.
In this day and age its easier to become a reasonable guitarist (with practice of course) with the abundance of free tutorials on the internet, compared to years ago.
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Some ways to play Asus4 on guitar.  Herein lies the problem, and the value of the internet video of the original player actually playing the song. You can see where he or she played the chord. There are many ways to play the same chord. The "suspended 4 chord" removes the 3rd and replaces it with the 4th note of the major scale. The purpose is to create "tension" which is resolved when moving back to the major chord. To say it another way one rases the 3rd a half step. It is very common and done in thousands of songs. The progression is A, Asus4, A. The second note in the A major triad is C# and on the piano from the root position one rases that note a half step to D. This is super easy to see and understand on the piano. Perhaps less so in the first and second inversion of the chord. Suspended chords are most often played from the root position. This "visualization" on the guitar neck is a bit more difficult because one has to know and recognize every note on the guitar neck and know what note forms the chord you want to play and know the notes in every major scale. That is why we normally think in "patterns" on the guitar and memorize the position of things. A Guitarist can play middle C on five of their six guitar strings. Therein lies the big problem with sight-reading sheet music. Which "middle C" do you play? It is why Tab was created. I hope I have explained this correctly. I am certainly not a theory expert. My issue is not with how a song is arranged. It is with so call "internet youtube guitar teachers" saying and demonstrating things that are just highly inaccurate creating a situation where inexperienced guitar players develop all kinds of misconceptions. Billy
Last edited by Planobilly; 12/03/21 03:11 AM.
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my momma used to say, listen to the bass and arpeggiate
the difficult chord in your mind for the chord notes.
that'll help you figure out chords in a song.
merry xmas.
om
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs(90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
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.......................
A Guitarist can play middle C on five of their six guitar strings. Therein lies the big problem with sight-reading sheet music. Which "middle C" do you play? It is why Tab was created.
.............................
Billy Only guitarist who can read music know about middle C being played on 5 strings. Good for you! The problem I see with Tabs are that guitarists, mostly young guns, rely on them. They take a song they know then look for the Tabs for it, ignoring notation completely. At least back in our day when we tried to play what was on the record we were developing ear training! Remember the old Mel Bay guitar books? They would put a small number next to the first note of a riff indicating the starting fret then you had to figure out the rest. You learned the easiest way to play in various positions while learning notation. YMMV
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agree partly with your first picture of asus4 but if you leave the d string open your double the D as opposed to the E of A,E, and D............Sus4 (or just sus) stands for „suspended 4th“. The 3rd of a major or a minor chord is suspended and replaced by a perfect 4th. A major chord has the tones A (1), C# (3) and E (5), ... a Asus4 chord has the tones A (1), D (4) and E (5)
so i'll stick with just lifting a finger!
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.......................
A Guitarist can play middle C on five of their six guitar strings. Therein lies the big problem with sight-reading sheet music. Which "middle C" do you play? It is why Tab was created.
.............................
Billy Only guitarist who can read music know about middle C being played on 5 strings. Good for you! The problem I see with Tabs are that guitarists, mostly young guns, rely on them. They take a song they know then look for the Tabs for it, ignoring notation completely. At least back in our day when we tried to play what was on the record we were developing ear training! Remember the old Mel Bay guitar books? They would put a small number next to the first note of a riff indicating the starting fret then you had to figure out the rest. You learned the easiest way to play in various positions while learning notation. YMMV Hi Mario, Yes I remember the old Mel Bay guitar books. Standard notation sheet music is great but it does not tell where on the neck to play. Tab is great but it does not tell you anything about the duration of a note or the rhythm pattern. Nashville notation is pretty cool if not criptic musical short hand. Only really useful for professionals who play together all the time. Billy
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Guitar.
First of all, you have to decide which is the middle C you can agree upon. Then decide which register, since guitar is a transposing instrument. But who’s counting?
ps I’m speaking as a composer and arranger; my guitar playing is limited to one year of the Mel Bay book in fourth grade.
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Guitar.
First of all, you have to decide which is the middle C you can agree upon. Then decide which register, since guitar is a transposing instrument. But who’s counting?
ps I’m speaking as a composer and arranger; my guitar playing is limited to one year of the Mel Bay book in fourth grade. Matt, when we say middle C we mean the concert middle C, the one on a piano between the staffs. It is the MIDI nomenclature that has a few names for middle C, like C3, C4, or C5. Same note number, 60, but different names.
Life is short so make sure you spend as much time as possible on the Internet arguing with strangers.
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You and autocorrect are on your own Mario. No one in their right mind would get in the middle of the "Moo" thing...lol
Billy
Last edited by Planobilly; 12/03/21 06:52 AM.
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I think you should learn any song as the composer intended it first. Know the melody inside and out as well as the chord progressions. It is from there you can then get creative and give it your own touch. Then add the feeling etc. That is what people react to more than anything anyway, the feeling, groove etc. If it is a famous hit song, you may also want to include the parts that everyone expects to hear, to make sure they recognize it and that is usually why it was a hit isn't it?
Great interview with Tommy Emmanuel on Rick Beato's channel just out. Tommy says basically the same thing.
My wife asked if I had seen the dog bowl. I told her I didn't even know he could.
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Our new country & Americana RealTracks deliver a rich collection of acoustic, electric, and roots-inspired styles! We have new country pop (9) with legendary guitarist Brent Mason. There is also a potpourri (14) of bouzouki, guitars, banjo, and more, perfect for adding texture and character to contemporary acoustic arrangements. We’ve added funky country guitar (5) with PG favorite Brent Mason, along with classic pedal steel styles (5) featuring steel great Doug Jernigan. There are more country songwriter styles (8) that provide intimate, rootsy foundations for storytelling and modern Americana writing. Finally, we have “background soloing” acoustic guitar (12) with Brent Mason — simpler, but still very tasty acoustic lines designed to sit beautifully behind vocals or act as a subtle standalone solo part.
Check out all the 202 new RealTracks (in sets 468-488)!
And, if you are looking for more, the 2026 49-PAK (for $49) includes an impressive collection of 20 bonus RealTracks, featuring exciting and inspiring additions to add to your RealTracks library. You'll get new country-rhythm guitar styles from PG Music favorites Johnny Hiland and Brent Mason, along with modern-pop grooves that capture today’s radio-ready sound! There are also new indie-folk styles with guitar, bass, 6-string bass used as a high-chording instrument, acoustic guitar, and banjo. Plus, dedicated "cymbal fills" RealDrums provide an added layer that work very well with low-key folky styles with other percussion.
The 2026 49-PAK is loaded with other great new add-ons as well. Learn more about the 2026 49-PAK!
2026 Free Bonus PAK & 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®!
With your version 2026 for Mac Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, Audiophile Edition or PlusPAK purchase, we'll include a Bonus PAK full of great new Add-ons for FREE! Or upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for only $49 to receive even more NEW Add-ons including 20 additional RealTracks!
These PAKs are loaded with additional add-ons to supercharge your Band-in-a-Box®!
This Free Bonus PAK includes:
- The 2026 RealCombos Booster PAK:
-For Pro customers, this includes 27 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles.
-For MegaPAK customers, this includes 25 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles.
-For UltraPAK customers, this includes 12 new RealStyles.
- MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
- MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
- Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
- Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
- Playable RealTracks Set 5
- RealDrums Stems Set 9: Cool Brushes
- SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
- iOS Android Band-in-a-Box® App
Looking for more great add-ons, then upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for just $49 and you'll get:
- 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums with 20 RealStyle.
- FLAC Files (lossless audio files) for the 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums
- MIDI Styles Set 93: Look Ma! More MIDI 16: SynthMaster
- MIDI SuperTracks Set 47: More SynthMaster
- Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
- Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
- RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
- SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
Learn more about the Bonus PAK and 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®!
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