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Originally Posted by tonedeaf
I know these questions sound very simplistic but I would appreciate any feedback.
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Hi Tonedeaf
You've no idea the amount of frustration those same questions caused me when I started buying songbooks. (Revolver, Sgt Pepper and others) There were three staffs plus chord symbols and lyrics - no tabs.
I assumed that it contained everything played on the record and the chord symbols were for rhythm guitar, the top staff was lead guitar, the middle one was other instruments and the bottom one was bass guitar. WRONG!!
Nobody told me they were just simplified piano arrangements. I couldn't read music at the time but I could work out the notes one by one from a school text book so I was completely baffled when trying to follow the song on paper while listening to the track. They hardly ever seemed to match up. I would hear a great guitar lick from Harrison but there was no sign of anything remotely similar on the page.
I learned later they are just piano arrangements and they were produced that way because, at the time piano was still considered the right way to present song arrangements. The fact that guitar had exploded onto the pop music scene and completely dominated it was lost on those publishers and professional transcribers from an earlier generation who seemed reluctant to accept the guitar as a proper instrument at all.
Guitarists had to make do with those simple little chord boxes at the top and be thankful for it. I also learned later that those chord shapes usually bear no resemblance to the shapes actually used.
Worse than that - songs would often appear in downright unfriendly keys, such as E flat, when they were actually in simple keys like D. (Apparantly E flat is a friendly key for pianists).
A lot has improved. At least now they tell you when it's a piano arrangement and don't just expect you to assume it.
If tab is provided then you know that it has been written especially for the guitar part and that's what you should play from if you just want the guitar part. But if you want to make your own arrangement of the whole song from whichever instruments are used, then transcribe the piano part - or at least a simplified version as the two handed piano part usually has more notes than you can manage on one guitar.
The chord boxes are just a simplified version of the harmonies of the music - ok for strumming along and singing but pretty useless for anything more elaborate - That's what the tab and notation are for.
Good luck
(Hi Knight - Glad you found our explanations helpful
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