Black Crows Hard to Handle. I have been playing it wrong all these years.

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, Phil Starr said:

Like @Al Krow I take a pragmatic approach. Go Your Own Way is a good example. There are at least three guitar parts in the intro and I've played with drummers and guitarists that struggle with the intro. I've variously started the song playing one of the rhythm guitar parts on Bass and I've also played it properly. It's got that lovely run at the end and initially I played the notes all 'wrong' but with the rhythm and feel of the original and nothing that would clash with the guitarists solo. Later I went back and learned it properly but I doubt a single band member noticed and the audience not at all. It's great to sometimes learn things note for note and you learn loads by doing it but criticising people by describing it a lazy isn't seeing the bigger picture IMO

 

5 hours ago, Doctor J said:

I recall a similar major/minor line issue at a Stone Roses tribute many years ago. The bassist in question constantly played one passing note of the chorus of She Bangs The Drums one fret from where it should have been. Most people didn't notice but, to me, it came across as half-arsed. If you're charging money, and it's as hard to get it wrong as it is to get it right, it's just laziness not to get it right, regardless of whether anyone but you notices or not.

 

That's generously put Phil, thank you. But I think Doc J is also correct: sometimes it's a case of us being content to play something that "just works" rather than putting the time and effort to learn something trickier but ultimately truer to the what the original band intended, and frankly often just a much better bassline than the "flattened" / simplified version I've certainly been guilty of settling for! 

 

I'm not going to deny that I loved the appreciative smile from a pro guitarist who was depping for us for a function gig last year when he heard me playing the correct bassline on Go Your Own Way. And yes a few members of the audience do notice too!

[Geek99]

1 hour ago, Phil Starr said:

 

 

 

btw it's the Black Crowes in the original spelling, couldn't resist it

That’s interpretation spelling, but you’re right. Let’s stick to the original 

 

#joking btw 

Edited 4 hours ago by Geek99

[TimR]

Blondie's Maria, and Madness's Baggy Trousers (and quite a few other songs I've played)  have inversions of chords that will sound off if the Root note is played. Not wrong, just slightly off.

 

A chord isn't a chord until the bass player says it is. 😉

 

Often guitarists will have downloaded tab that just includes the 1st inversion of the chord. 

[Misdee]

Well, if nothing else we've all learned something about how to play Hard To Handle.