The books we buy

1

Are the song books that are sold, I.E. say the Beatles one I bought, the genuine chords as written by the band themselves, does anyone know?

Thanks. :slight_smile:

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2

Unless itā€™s been created by the original artist, then its only ever going to be somebodyā€™s opinion about what notes were played. Iā€™ve found the album books that I bought years ago that were released along with the album to be more accurate than books with an assortment of songs. But again its best to use them as a starting point and watch a video or two of the musician playing them, watching their hands and using your ears to figure it out.

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3

Thanks James.

Iā€™ve bought a few. Some are a complete works (chords only) and some are I guess the original ones that have been released alongside the album.

I was curious because I thought they were maybe as they were written by the band and Iā€™ve started to relearn songs I had learnt Justinā€™s way but now I know they are not (the complete work ones) Iā€™ll not bother.

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4

No worries Stefan.

It could be a good exercise to watch and listen to a few YouTube videos of the band performing the songs and see what observations you make on the chords being played, embellishments and the various strumming patterns throughout the songs.

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5

Probably better to use a service like Justinā€™s TABs, since they are licensed ā€œofficialā€ tabs they are probably the most accurate youā€™re going to get. Even those though I feel like I remember Justin mentioning that they arenā€™t quite right.

Justinā€™s better than most at transcribing so Iā€™d trust him over other authors of random books though.

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6

I donā€™t know for sureā€¦ however Iā€™m convinced that most of the music/chord books for sale are transcribed by others. Even Justinā€™s licensed tabs.

Some of the songs Iā€™ve learned Iā€™ve found conflicting tabs, so I go look for live videos of the original artists. More often than not Justinā€™s lessonā€™s are the most accurate. Not always though!

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7

I think frequently its a bit of a pig in a poke. Iā€™ve bought loads of ā€œofficialā€ songbooks over the years and the accuracy varies. I doubt many were written by the artist or taken from the original scores. Some Hal Leonard publications have chunks missing for example. I have a couple of their Iron Maiden collections and solo are often incomplete. Other publisher have put out some accurate ā€œalbumā€ books but Iā€™ve lost confidence in anything from HL. I have a huge Beatles song book that all looks pretty good. Staind Break The Cycle and Metallicaā€™s Black Album again good. So to me its a bit hit and miss but as was said earlier its often a starting point to explore further.

My 2 cents

:sunglasses:

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8

Learned something new about you Toby, not sure why but I didnā€™t expect you were a Staind fan.

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Back catalogue Its Been A While and OutsidešŸ˜Ž

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Thank you everyone for your thoughts. I think Iā€™ll watch videos and last week I signed up to Justinā€™s tabs, so I think Iā€™ll stick with these two ways and take them as gospel.