Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I was at a practice last weekend and had to do a little educating. The bass player and rhythm guitar player were trying to play a song with the chords written in order, but with no designations as to how long to play the chords before switching to the next.

So what I might have written as:
C | C | D- | G ||
they had written simply as C D- G.

When pointing out the err of their ways at that rehearsal, I was lucky enough to come up with a good analogy. It's like giving someone directions to your house as follows:

"Okay, back out of your driveway and start driving. After a while you turn left. Then a little later you take a right and then another right and my house is the fifth one after this big tree."

It's technically correct, but doesn't quite get the job done, does it?

Without getting into actual staff notation, what kind of "road maps" do you write out for 1)yourself, 2)others? Do you borrow any symbols from proper musical notation, and what difficulties have you had to overcome in communicating to others?

I am better at hearing patterns and transitions and replicating them than I am at relating that information to others.

I have a "phonographic memory" (neither pun nor typo!) in that I can 'play back' the song in my mind, so that I when play the chord patterns, they are pretty close to the original. The problem is in putting such info in a written form so that someone else can follow it. I will be interested in seeing how others do this.

Okay then...what are the proper chords for "Lovin' You Ain't Easy" by Michel Pagliaro?

One of the tab sites that hasn't been shut down yet has the chords, but they never sound just right.

I usually write key words from the lyrics in spots to highlight changes in combination with something like this for a standard 4/4 song:
C///|C///|D-///|G///|
The chord symbol & the slashes mean beats in each bar. Sort of my own short hand.
Quick & dirty, it gets me in the ballpark until I'm properly familiar with the song.

Mick, if I were familiar with that song and performer, I probably would be able to tell you, but unfortunately I am not.

One thing I can say is that from my experience with tabs out there on the 'net, some people have a difficult time distinguishing between chords with added notes and 'regular' chords. For example, many tabs of "Twist And Shout" show only an A major chord, whereas a friend of mine heard the added 1st string G and played it that way (which sounds more accurate, IMO).

Nice, Kevin. This is easy to understand and you can even type it in simple text!

So, the "|" is a bar line, and the "/" means repeat the beat before. Four bars of 4/4.

We also would have accepted C///|////|D-///|G///|

ha!

I appreciate the response.

Again, gotta agree...I have found most tabs do not reflect the subtleties in the chords of a song.