Just to put closure on this because in my mind it's over for any of you that are interested. I had a lesson last night (moved up a couple days cuz of a golf match)Anyway I went in and told my teacher of my dilemma and asked him to relisten to the that part of the song and see if maybe it could be another chord.
So we listen and listen and listen, he says it's absolutely the C#11 you can hear the F# ringing clear as day and he plucks an F# and to me it's right on. Him and I get along pretty good so we joke alot but then he says I've been playing for over 30+ years, has a degree in music, has perfect pitch, has taught for 20 years or so, does professional transcribing for major publishers and bands etc and he would bet his reputation that it's a C#11 chord. He laughed when I told him I was guestioning it because internet tab and videos showed something different. He wasn't mad and was actually kind of amused but he did tell me to tell him to stick to playing Smoke on the Water...Ouch (Not sure I'll tell him that but I probably will then maybe he'll never do this again)
Texted that we checked and we still hear C#11 but never got a response but I'm sure this is going to throw him for a loop now.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
I'm still curious - so what did your bandmate actually think the C#11 chord was? How different from your teacher's tab is he playing it?
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
Vic he's playing a Cadd9 which is what the internet tab shows, but the Cadd9 and the C#11 share the same notes except for the F# in the C#11 so they blend together fine.
The difference is pretty unpersceptable and that was my point with him in the first place. Although he said he brought it up because he wanted us to be in sync when we play I think there is more to it but I'm not going to bother to try and find out.
When I first started with the instructor I'm with now I would always go and check internet tab etc. after he tabbed out a song kind of double checking to see if he was right. After awhile of finding that his are near perfect representations compared to what I see on the internet I stopped wasting my time. But he's human and every once in awhile he misses something. But alot of times he'll write out something and I'll really have to struggle to hear but then I really listen and sure enough it's there and 99.9999 times out of a hundred he's right on.
The main problem with his argument is that there is no "official" way to check this. We all know internet tab sux so that's out right from the get-go and watching a video would be fine if the transcription we we are comparing it to was written off that performance but that's not the case. I always use the original studio version of the song we want to do and to my knowledge I've never seen videos of the actual studio version recording sessions so unless you had that watching a video of the band playing live 5 years after the song was recorded and then trying to compare a transcription to that from the original is like comparing apples and oranges. So to me he really doesn't have a truly valid way to prove his point unless he had great ears and tabbed it himself.
But to be honest I wonder what would happen if we took ten people with good ears to listen to that part and see what they came up with? It would be an interesting excercise. I know I couldn't do it.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
I know you consider this episode closed and resolved, but keep in mind for future episodes (which I'm sure there will be): my Internet Psychological Profiler ability tells me your bandmate is a control freak and is just luring you into a p*****' contest and one-upmanship game. It's a dilemma: you know he's wrong, but to give in just to shut him up sets a bad precedent.
It is difficult to answer when one does not understand the question.
I suppose the ONLY way you'd ever know for sure is if you could ask the guitarist on the original song what HE played!
Watching a video of a band playing live isn't going to tell you much - some bands play songs differently live. A while back, I was trying to work out "See Me, Feel Me" by the Who - found the original on youtube, no performance video but I managed to work out the chords. Then I found the version they played at Woodstock a year or so later, I'm playing along with that and thinking, "something isn't right here....." - they were playing it a semitone higher, for some reason! Other live versions I've seen since have all been in the original key.....
But to be honest I wonder what would happen if we took ten people with good ears to listen to that part and see what they came up with? It would be an interesting excercise. I know I couldn't do it.
A couple of years or so back, there was a "guess the chord" game in the Games forum - I haven't been there for a while, but it was interesting to see some of the guesses people (including me!) came up with for some of the chords - even arpeggiated chords! Slightly different to your dilemma, as this was one chord taken out of context....
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
Frank not sure what his true intent is it may be control but I think it will come up again and we will always have this dilemma and all we really can do at that point is play both and then decide which chord/note sounds better and go with that.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
all we really can do at that point is play both and then decide which chord/note sounds better and go with that.
Agreed. I even argue with myself over something I think sounds better one way or another.
It is difficult to answer when one does not understand the question.
But I hope it doesn't happen that often that I have to go through that with him. If I really wanted to be real nitpicky I would start telling him about the rhythm he's playing on a lot of songs which is kind of his version of what was played not always the same as the record.
To me it's usually no big deal and I just adapt to how he plays it but sometimes it's more than a little. He plays the beginning of the Pearl Jam song Black pretty different. I'll cut him some slack there since that whole beginning is kind of loose almost free time the way they kind of loosely strum those chords.
Part of this stems from the fact we don't get much out of our bass player other than root notes and hopefully those are in time so the guitars tend to carry the songs and the bass just becomes some background noise so his thought process is that we should have our parts down so we can cover for the lack of bass. Not sure it really works but it is what it is.
It all comes down to band politics.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
To me it's usually no big deal and I just adapt to how he plays it but sometimes it's more than a little. He plays the beginning of the Pearl Jam song Black pretty different. I'll cut him some slack there since that whole beginning is kind of loose almost free time the way they kind of loosely strum those chords.
Part of this stems from the fact we don't get much out of our bass player other than root notes and hopefully those are in time so the guitars tend to carry the songs and the bass just becomes some background noise so his thought process is that we should have our parts down so we can cover for the lack of bass. Not sure it really works but it is what it is.
He's not playing the intro to Black right? Now I really don't like the guy!
jw--Ye me neither :x . He's a good guy just gets anal sometimes. I did bring it up to him the first time we played it that he was a bit too busy in his strumming, he kind of pretended not to hear me so I brought it up one more time with the same response so I gave up. I have to pick and choose what's worth arguing about and that wasn't but it's not that he's hacking it up or anything he's just playing it different in the whole scheme of things it's as insignificant as the C#11 chord I'm playing that he thinks should be a Cadd9.
In some ways I wish I could really sing and play and had a good voice I'd go solo and wouldn't have to worry about all the petty arguments and nonsense that goes on.
It's like a big dysfunctional family and if I sit back and look at it it's kind of funny. The bass who's my best friend in the band is the weakest player by far yet practices less than any of us yet thinks he's soemthing special. He also has got it in his head he's a singer now and trust me he ain't no singer.
The lead guitar player is good but a bit whiny and won't play out mainly because of his love of alcohol and he says when he's in a bar he gets antsy, but when we press him to play a party or something we'll get a different answer.
The drummer now thinks he's a frontman and recruited his brother in law to drum so he can sing. We all don't sing very well in my opinion and he's no better than the rest of us. To his defense he has a gravely voice and there are a few songs he sings pretty well but his voice doesn't work well on all songs and he doesn't have much range.
I'm just the little ol rhythm guy trying to hold down my part as well as possible and I don't have any problems with that. I do a couple of the simpler solo's and some harmony stuff but most of the time it's rhythm which is Ok but there are alot of songs where I get bored playing them there is no real challenge to it.
We can't play songs more than once lately because the bass player (who knows zero actual basslines) gets bored if we do.
Let's add in the wife asked me if we can practice somewhere else because when one of us sings it gives her a headache...ha unfortunately she's probably right. which means I'll have to sing more..ha
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
Yikes! More band problems.
I suppose the ONLY way you'd ever know for sure is if you could ask the guitarist on the original song what HE played!
I bet there's many case a guitarist doesn't remember. Reminds me of the big argument a few years back about Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" where two of our chums got into it over the existance of a 12-string in the song. In the end, I think the fellow GN'er with the most rifles won. But, music videos were offered as "proof" and I think each offered youtube clips to back their opinions. And then of course, the song itself and hearing what one can hear.
And that brings me to this. Some people get hearing loss at differing frequencies. I don't have the chart in front of me, but mine drops off dramtically on the lows. My mother, who was kind enough to pass along the bum ear to me as I was to my son, hears the lows just fine, but can't hear the highs very well. That might explain why I like the neck position on my LPs. Plenty of lows out of them. :D
Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin
No Roy it's all good or as good as it can be. I don't mind debating or even arguing to some degree over things. Sometimes that's good at least we know we care about what we are doing.
I just hope it doesn't get to an extreme regarding a chord here or there. What I hope we concentrate on is how the song sounds not whether someone is playing the wrong chord and as long as it sounds good in the context of what we are playing then it's good to me.
And Vic is right there really is no way to actually know unless you were to ask the original guitarist what he played in the studio the day they recorded the song and you know that will never happen.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
Record the practice session. Play it both ways (one verse one way, the next the other way).
Then listen to the "official" recording alongside your playing. Don't tell anyone which chord they are listening to at any given point (blind taste test)
Decide which sounds better. See if the drummer or bass player has an opinion (maybe they are smart enough to plead "the fifth")
I wrapped a newspaper ’round my head
So I looked like I was deep
kent,
That's a great idea but I know these guys won't want to bother to do that. But the reality is I would bet even money they won't even be able to tell the difference it's that subtle.
The only reason he told me I was playing the wrong chord wasn't by what he heard it was because he saw where I was playing the chord and told me it was wrong.
The difference in the two chords is one note an F# int he chord I'm playing and with everything else going on it's really hard to tell the difference that's why he kind of threw me for a loop when he made an issue of it in the first place.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
I get it now. He said it was the wrong chord based on your finger placement? Yeah, that's a little.....I dunno.
Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin
