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Re: The WHO in tab



The usual practice in the music biz, it seems, is to put out a piano/vocal/tab
book when a record comes out, but that's generally the only printing.  Thus,
most if not all of the Who books are long out of print.

The quality of these books is typically not that great.  Usually, they draw
from a standard set of tab fingerings for each chord, so that a C chord, for
example, always is printed the same even if Pete used different voicings or
inversions.  You have to have a good ear to really get these things right.

One exception is the Quadrophenia book (long out of print, sadly), which has
pretty accurate tab, and note-for-note transcriptions of all of Entwistle's
bass parts.

I was just at a music store (one that specializes in printed music and
accessories for musicians, not a record store), and found two Who books, which
are apparently in print.  One is a book of early who with some handwritten
commentary by Pete in some of the songs.  I forget the name of this one.
(I *think* it might be "Decade of the Who", but I may be confusing it with
something else.)

The other is a book in a series of books, where they write out a few of a
band's songs in full score format (that is, separate staves for lead vocal,
backing vocal, two guitars, bass, and drums).  That format also includes a
staff for guitar tab, but only for one of the guitar parts.  I'm not a
guitarist, but it looked to me like the tab wasn't complete -- didn't
distinguish between open strings and unplucked strings.  But if you can read
music, you could fill in the details from the regular staff.  This book has My
Generation, Substitute, I Can See for Miles, Pinball Wizard, and The Kids Are
Alright.  The transcriptions are reasonably good.  The chords to Substitute
aren't quite right, however.  And of course, they don't really get every
detail of Keith's performances (though I like the direction "go loony" at the
end of My Generation).

I bought this last book, so I can try to remember to send the publisher info
to the list.

Ken Traub