Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Since it seems my band is interested in doing more and more Beatle songs I finally decided to get a copy of this.



I was looking over a bass part of a song, and thinking to myself, “Gee, I wonder why Paul would play up there (i.e.; higher up on the neck).” Then I noticed in the preface it says that the vocals, guitar and bass parts were transcribed an octave higher than what is on the records. (Though the piano part was transcribed in the original octave.)

Sorry if this is a dumb question but – anyone know why the writers would do that? Thanks.

ease of reading I suppose. A guitar is scored an octave higher in all the music I have.


PS - I also have that book!

Easier to read yes. when I took jazz guitar lessons, I was always told to play the parts 1 octave higher than what was on the sheets because "the piano will get those notes, you don't want to blend in too much with it"

Thanks but sorry, I'm still confused.

Easier to read? Sorry, don't get it.
And Charly, I have (way too many) guitar (and bass books). And I can't think of one off the top of my head that is scored an octave higher.

As far as blending with the piano ... ? Maybe.

But -

1. Many songs don't have piano and
2. It says "octave higher than what was ON THE RECORD." So, if it was originally lower, why should I play it higher? What was good enough for Paul, John and George should be good enough for me, right?

Again, apologies if I'm being a little too thick here.

Same here. When I was taking classical guitar lessons, all the music was printed in the treble clef. For example the note fretted on the A string, third fret was written as middle C, even though in actuality it was an octave lower.

JimK

I think it's to save space, as you know, the text is small. I think it is written that way so there doesn't have to be more room for writing above and below the staff.

"Many songs don't have piano"...True, but I guess the authors decided to keep the format the same for all the songs. So some songs won't be in the correct octave and others lower or higher. I assume it's just to avoid confusion.

I hope this clears it up for ya!

And once again confusion is born from an attempt to prevent it.

OK, that does help, thanks.
I can understand the issue about not wanting to use ledger lines in order to save space.

Of course the ironic part of all this is that I mostly look at the TAB for guitar and bass parts (not the normal staff).

So this:

------------------------
------------------------
------------------------
---5--------------------

Takes up the same amount of space as this:

------------------------
---7--------------------
------------------------
------------------------

So an octave higher just makes things confusing (for dummies like me).
And the TAB two strings (an octave) higher won't work for many bass (and guitar) licks.
Just take a simple scale lick like: root-third-fifth-octave. That won't work if one is already starting on the D string 7th fret. You'll run out of strings!

Oh well, such is life. The book is a good starting off point. It helped already (with the bass run in "Birthday" behind the C-G part).

So, are you talking about what is called out for the chord notation as well (ie. notation E7, A7, B7, etc.)? It seems to be called out correctly, I always thought Twist & Shout was basically D, G & A7 with G & A7 as standard barre chords. Please explain, sorry for my shameful thickness regarding the use of higher octaves.

I can't speak to the recordings, just that music is written that way. It is a drag trying to sight read below the staff. I have read that there were more clefs in the old days, and that would handle the ease part. You just put that clef an octave below the other one and you have the "same" notes on the ledger. They did away with the clef and now just move it up to the staff to be nice.

Chord structure does not change with octaves. Unless your building the chord yourself!