Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by jeremyb »

What's SCOM?
Slowy wrote: That's the problem; everything rewarding is just such hard work. Regret takes much less effort.

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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by Single coil »

Some Cind Of Monster
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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by foal30 »

kwhelan wrote:
jimi wrote:these days quite happy playing bangers to people who want to drink and dance to something they know.

I refused to play April Sun for years, but if that's the song they'll get up and dance for then that's what we'll play. not going to be precious about it.
kurt cobain wasn't even happy with people liking his own songs

Indie Music curse bro

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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by foal30 »

jeremyb wrote:What's SCOM?
Sweet Child of Mine by Guns and Roses
Genuine Old Frontier Gibberish

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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by werdna »

foal30 wrote:
jeremyb wrote:What's SCOM?
Sweet Child of Mine by Guns and Roses
Sweet Child O' Mine, as in O'Reilly.
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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by hamo »

foal30 wrote: troublesome to finger
Where was jb on this one? The man is slipping.
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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by Kiwiaxe »

werdna wrote:
kwhelan wrote:
werdna wrote:The most popular songs we play are Piece of My Heart and Sweet Child O Mine. One easy on the guitar, the other intermediate level on the guitar.

People ask me to play Wagon Wheel. I say "no. Not ever."
Sweet child was one of those songs that was so radio overplayed it made you ill as a guitarist, everyone had to learn it then just the other day I saw clip of slash saying how all his songs/riffs were "tone wise "cleaned up as the became GNR songs I guess so they could keep overdubbing multi parts
anyway it came on the radio on way to work this morning and rather than change channels like usual I actually relistened carefully and it really is an example of great layering, there is an awful lot going on in their songs, including after the 3rd chorus 3min mark the last big solo they fade the rhythm guitars out and crank the bass up under slashs part
so used to listening thru guitarists ears I'd never really noticed how much of this song is actually bass
Sweet Child is not a typical no frills cover band song. The chord structure starts off D, C and G. The chorus is A, C and D, either a modulation or different key, not sure which. After the third chorus it uses a D sharp passing note to go to E harmonic minor. Then when Slash switches to the bridge pickup and wah, it goes to E natural minor and speeds up, riding that out until the end.
I don’t think this is right. Let’s ignore the half-step detune that was all the rage back then and I’ll just refer to the chords as they are played.

Verse is the most standard mixolydian I bVII IV I progression.

Chorus is VI bVII I - still same key (D mixolydian) except it majors what would otherwise be a minor VI so a little major-minor modulation for half a bar.

Solo modulates up to Em. (Given that D mixolydian uses the same notes as G major, which is the relative major and thus uses the same notes as Em, there’s probably a case for saying the key didn’t change at all - just the tone centre.) First half of solo is i VI v iv (nothing odd there) and second half of solo is i III IV VI. Some smarty pants would probably say that the IV is major due to melodic minor but again I see it as just a majored minor for flavour modulation :)

Anyway, essentially the song is in D mixolydian except the solo when it modulates up to E harmonic minor. That’s my take on it anyway.

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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by Single coil »

Könntest du das bitte auf english wiederholen :crazy:
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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by sizzlingbadger »

I could be wrong as I’m still trying to learn stuff but keys and modes are not the same thing which is why we use Major and Minor to represent keys rather than Ionian and Aeolian.

Modes predate the idea of keys and mixing the concepts leads to a lot of confusion (especially when I was learning this stuff) since most modes don't follow the traditional tonal concepts of harmony so calling them keys doesn't make sense.

So semantically there is no "key of D Mixolydian" nor "key of C Ionian" for example.

As I said Ihave really struggled with this music theory stuff so I could be wrong but I find it really confusing sometimes when people mix terminology.
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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by Terexgeek »

It is easier to understand if you read sheet music (and I don't, not fluently anyway). Only the key of C and it's relative minor Key A minor is marked and referred to in sheet music notation.

But within that key signature are the modes C Ionian (C major), D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, A Aeolian (A minor) and B Locrian.

The same pattern follows for each Key Signature and the relative modes: A, A#, B,C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#.

Now go and learn them all in all positions for the key of C, then learn all the modes for all the keys in all positions and notate them all. This will count for ten percent of your final grade and will be in the final exam, it's due Friday.
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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by null_pointer »

Badger is technically correct, but most people still use the terminology ‘key of x mixo’ etc. I think you’d be docked a point in an exam, but everyone does know what you’re saying :P

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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by null_pointer »

...as an aside, anyone else have Sweet Home Alabama used as the D Mixo example when having this explained to them for the first time?

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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by Terexgeek »

null_pointer wrote:Badger is technically correct, but most people still use the terminology ‘key of x mixo’ etc. I think you’d be docked a point in an exam, but everyone does know what you’re saying :P
Guitarists understand you, all other musicians assume you're musically illiterate.

It is as if you say "somefink" instead of "something" or pacific instead of "specific" or praformance instead of "performance" or prostrate instead of prostate or your instead of you're. Everyone will know what you mean, but they will be less inclined to trust you with tasks that involve thinking. When you express an opinion on a topic you are an expert on you will find the audience has decided to do something else, or is patting you gently on the hand waiting for you to finish. You may well have to get used to people looking at you like the kid at school that used to shit himself randomly.
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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by Polar Bear »

Interesting thread. With some of the stuff mentioned, if you're painstakingly trying to recreate the solo of Sweet Child, or indeed My Sharona, then you'll have a hard time. If you have some license to do your own thing, then you can tailor it to your own style. Message in a Bottle is hard if you have little hands, and it is a bit repetitive. I've just looked at Mr Brightside, those are hard shapes, but not implausible.
I'd say that the hardest songs I've found to get right are the songs that are actually slightly more simple, but need to be nailed to sound right. Black Velvet, Son of a Preacher man, and in particular Trouble by Taylor Swift (no keyboards) stand out as songs that have been very difficult to nail.
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Re: Top 40 cover band: hardest song to play on guitar

Post by null_pointer »

Terexgeek wrote:
null_pointer wrote:Badger is technically correct, but most people still use the terminology ‘key of x mixo’ etc. I think you’d be docked a point in an exam, but everyone does know what you’re saying :P
Guitarists understand you, all other musicians assume you're musically illiterate.

It is as if you say "somefink" instead of "something" or pacific instead of "specific" or praformance instead of "performance" or prostrate instead of prostate or your instead of you're. Everyone will know what you mean, but they will be less inclined to trust you with tasks that involve thinking. When you express an opinion on a topic you are an expert on you will find the audience has decided to do something else, or is patting you gently on the hand waiting for you to finish. You may well have to get used to people looking at you like the kid at school that used to shit himself randomly.
Just as well this is a guitar forum then, I'd hate for people to think of us as the kid at school that shit themselves...

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