I am incredibly disappointed in the Queen sheet music arrangements for piano. I have been playing piano for 7 years. A 5-year-old could play it! I was at a store that sells sheet music, and I played a little bit of their "rendition" of Bohemian Rhapsody. It sucks! Whoever sat around and arranged these songs for piano should get another job! I expected it to be a little bit more detailed. Seriously, it is just the basic melody with a few chords in the left hand. I was hoping (although I knew it would be highly unlikely) that somewhere, they would sell the actual music that Freddie wrote for piano (at least just for Bohemian Rhapsody). I guess they can't do that because it's all copyrighted. BUT THE ARRANGEMENTS STILL SUCK AND I'M REALLY MAD CAUSE I WANNA PLAY QUEEN ON THE PIANO BUT IT ALL SUCKS!!! AHH!!!!!! *hyperventilates*
TheMiracle, Thank you for posting that link! I downloaded the software that they said to get and it is SO much easier to use than a MIDI sequencer! I'm gonna have SO much fun with this...
My old Queen songbooks are so much different than the newer versions. The sheet music is easier to read and laid out in a bigger format. Nice when you're playing in dim light!
I know. In fact, I have a very large book of Beatles sheet music, which was to me, the best damn thing on earth, as a fourth grader. Now that I look at it- the arrangements are totally messed up. My dad would constantly help me add parts, fix rhythms, etc...
artist_nine wrote: Try books which have "Off the Record" arrangements of the songs. Though not 100% accurate, they come quite close...
wow - if anyone's been able to find errors in those Off The Record books they're either (a) full of **it, or (b) Mozart.
seriously, they're fantastic, if you can get your hands on one. I've only got the GHII, but as far as I've seen, everything is noted in excruciatingly accurate detail.
I totally sympathize with your plight, as I learned to read sheet music using Queen songbooks, would you believe. yes, they suck, arrangement-wise. no, they're not even close to the LP performances.
so get an Off The Record or team up with someone with an incredible ear (like Mozart, for example... but preferably someone living), would be my advice. have fun!
"wow - if anyone's been able to find errors in those Off The Record books they're either (a) full of **it, or (b) Mozart".
- Or (c), just very attentive and with a good ear.
Those books are definitely the best thing on the market in terms of Queen transcriptions, but I'd say on the whole they're only about 85% accurate.
I, along with a few others that post here, have noticed many mistakes in all the books in the series (Queen, GH, Innuendo, GHII, Classic Queen) and I (we) are neither full of shit or Wolfgang Amadeus himself.
Vocal harmony parts are slightly wrong or incomplete, lyrics are incorrect and added in where they don't exist, guitar-parts may have the correct notes but are played in strange and obviously wrong positions, whole instrument sections are omitted, instruments/sounds are named wrongly, and you get general fuck-ups where it looks like the thing simply hasn't been proof-read.
Don't get me wrong, I think the Off The Record scores are fantastic. I absolutely love them, would recommend them to anybody, and wish that more would be done.
It's just that once you get to a certain level of musicality, you begin to realise that these books are not perfect.
Bohardy is absolutely right.
Besides many small inaccuracies, the two biggest cock ups can be found in the Innuendo-book: the guitar-transcriptions for Hitman, but most especially Headlong...the latter one was corrected for the GH II one.
Exactly Phil.
Not having Headlong in drop-D (save for 1 guitar if i remember correctly) was just insane.
Although I'd say probably the biggest cock-up was the labelling of the footstomps in WWRY as 'Multiple Bass Drums'...
I do not recall finding BIG errors on the OTR ('Off The Record') sheet music books, but I do remember dealing with BIG omissions (e.g: some synth bass sequences in Radio Ga Ga).
Should I state here that I am not WAM nor a god, but just a regular living person.
Anyway, I love those books. I have also learned reading music with the GH2 one.
Thanks Bohardy. And to take the point further (in response to GonnUseMyPrisoner's post):
Unlike the Innuendo one, the GH II book does include a decent rhythm guitar-transcription of "Headlong", but whilst it may certainly be useful and - up to a certain point - satisfactory, once you've compared the transcription with the instrumental mix of "Headlong" ("The Eye", CD 5), you'll notice that it's still far from 100 % accurate (not that I'd blame its creators for that. They certainly didn't have access to an instrumental version or the like).
Woof. I know how sucky transcriptions are ... the difficulty with getting them as exact as possible. (Doing that to Bo-Rhap right now, which ought to be the easiest thing in the world; I'm just lazy.)
So ... I'm not Mozart. But I do have a good ear. And I'm hopelessly in love with Queen. (Sad little combination, eh? Time for some tea.)
And I'm checking out those available sheets ... wheee. Good luck? Ha!
Aaaaaaand the stuff on my computer isn't showing up. So does anyone have an idea about how the heck to make it work? (Or should I simply start kicking this pile of crap that I call a computer?)
Hahaaa .... nope.
One really cool thing to do is take the 4 DVD 5.1 releases and mute certain speakers to isolate other sounds. For example, disconnect the front 3 speakers and just listen to whatever was mixed to the surrounds. I guarantee you'll hear things you never heard before! GREAT for accurate transcriptions!
I dunno, seems like a lot of you are fairly gifted to have been able to work out some of these differences. Although I'm not a guitarist myself, so I couldn't begin to analyze them. Nor even play 'em. Just goes to show how musically adept Queen fans are.
Therefore, I'll be expecting full symphonies from each of you very soon!