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ID these songs
- Thread starter Marley's Ghost
- Start date
^
Instead of being a miserable grumpster just learn as many versions as you can, and enjoy the thrill of finding out if you've guessed right.
What fun! 
Our BL recently tossed out "Cherry Bomb", and since we do two other Mellencamp songs, you can bet I learned his "Cherry Bomb" and then showed up to practice to discover the BL actually meant the song by "The Runaways". Thankfully, I already knew it and was ready to muddle through it, but the drummer said "Nope! I learned Mellencamp not Joan Jett. Not my fault, next time send out better information" and that was that. 
Our BL recently tossed out "Cherry Bomb", and since we do two other Mellencamp songs, you can bet I learned his "Cherry Bomb" and then showed up to practice to discover the BL actually meant the song by "The Runaways". Thankfully, I already knew it and was ready to muddle through it, but the drummer said "Nope! I learned Mellencamp not Joan Jett. Not my fault, next time send out better information" and that was that. 
My BL sends the song title, artist and link to the YouTube video.
I AM the BL and I always send a YT link and the key I want to do a song in. For instance:
The Weight, Joan Osborne version, Am.
She does it in Bb
The Weight, Joan Osborne version, Am.
She does it in Bb
FullumMusic
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I have shown up to rehearsal a couple of times and we would launch into a new song for the first time and I would be like what the ****?! Then I would look over and sure enough there would be a capo on that guitar.
When the guitar player asks me what key a song is in, I usually tell him W#, Qb Minor, or something like that.
Qb Minor is one of my favorite keys to play in! What gets me in situations like that is, you hear something is wrong because they have a capo or are playing in the wrong key on and stop because you can clearly hear it's wrong... but why didn't they immediately stop? You're playing in two different keys. Like... did they not hear it was off? Or did they hear it everyone was in different keys and think, "This is fine. Just gonna keep playing. Nothing wrong here!"?
Omg don't get me started on this. Ok, maybe started a little.
Them: All My Love by the Beatles in F#.
Me: Ok. [Starts on the G#]
Them: Dude, in F#, not G#.
Me: Dude, i'm playing in F#. The song starts on the ii. It's in the key E Major and starts on the F#.
Them: {blank stare} Huh?
Me:
What gets me in situations like that is, you hear something is wrong because they have a capo or are playing in the wrong key on and stop because you can clearly hear it's wrong... but why didn't they immediately stop? You're playing in two different keys. Like... did they not hear it was off? Or did they hear it everyone was in different keys and think, "This is fine. Just gonna keep playing. Nothing wrong here!"?
Omg don't get me started on this. Ok, maybe started a little.
Them: All My Love by the Beatles in F#.
Me: Ok. [Starts on the G#]
Them: Dude, in F#, not G#.
Me: Dude, i'm playing in F#. The song starts on the ii. It's in the key E Major and starts on the F#.
Them: {blank stare} Huh?
Me:
Do you mean And I Love Her?
And I also would ask for the key they plan to do the songs in.
My guitar player/Co-BL drives me crazy with this kind of stuff. He will text a song to work on. First thing I ask, what key is it in? He will snarkily reply, it's in the original key. And, I know I can look that up pretty easy, but I also know my guitar player. So, as I have learned over the years, I ask him, do you use a capo on the song? And sometimes he will say yes, I put a capo on third fret, etc., and then I say, well its not in the original key. He will say, it is in that key, I just have a capo, but it has the same shapes.
I’m just stunned.
You can't see me seething right now, but i'm seething about his.
I just wanna yell "CAPOS CHANGE THE KEY OF THE SONG [expletive deleted]! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND HOW MUSIC WORKS?!?!?!?!?!"
Or, "original key." Which is what? Do you not know the key and are avoiding the answer? Or are you just being obtuse and not telling me? "The key of E." [checks song] Dude, it's in E minor. You know there's a difference?
Sad to say, i know exactly what you mean because i've dealt with several guitarists exactly like this many times over.
Or when the album version of the song tuned to Eb standard (like a lot of GnR songs) and i ask if they're tuning down like the album or we're keeping standard tuning in E? And i'm told "We're doing it just like the album." So i tune down to Eb Ab Db Gb. Lo and behold, the guitarist is in standard tuning playing the same positions but a half step up from the recording, specifically like i asked and they said they weren't doing.
I could go on with these communication failures for hours.
“Oh, the song is in D#”
I can promise you that the guitarists that say that don’t know that the second note in D# is E#.
on capos and key signatures - it drives me crazy when I first meet bandmates that think the capo doesn't change the key. Worse yet, there's people that think the first chord of a song [always] dictates the key signature. And... when it's not clear on the details of the 'new song' to try out, people can arrive at rehearsals with a version by X and others come having a version by Y that is quite different. Grrr!
A. I wasn't aware that use of a capo automatically precludes the possibility of playing a song in the same key as the original recording. But I'm barely a bass player, let alone a musician.
B. I don't think I've ever been in nor ever will be in a band with someone who gets a band audition song list like this one and says, 'Whoa! Major red flag--hard pass!!!' right off the bat. I'm not saying they don't have the right to do that, mind you, I'm just saying that we probably won't be friends.
B. I don't think I've ever been in nor ever will be in a band with someone who gets a band audition song list like this one and says, 'Whoa! Major red flag--hard pass!!!' right off the bat. I'm not saying they don't have the right to do that, mind you, I'm just saying that we probably won't be friends.
A capo doesn’t preclude, but if the guitar part doesn’t originally include a capo, it means the guitarist is either changing the key OR they can’t play the chord shapes.
FullumMusic
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Aha! I meant "All My Loving" not "All my Love." Slight mis-remembering of the song name. It's been years and years since i've actually had to play it. My bad.
I picked it because it starts on the ii. So if a guitarist calls it in [whatever key], the first chord they play should not be the tonic. But so many guitarists think the first chord they play is automatically the key of the song. So they'll call it in the wrong key. I'll play the "correct note" for their "wrong key" (aka: A step up from the tonic), and they'll get confused and think i don't know what i'm doing. But they're the ones who don't understand that the song is in the key of E Major but starts on the ii (F# minor). They think the song is just in F# minor because it's the first chord.
FullumMusic
Commercial User
- Oct 13, 2022
- 2,008
- 5,683
- Disclosures
- Audio/Music software developer, contracted with a company you've heard of and deving my own stuff.
“Oh, the song is in D#”
I can promise you that the guitarists that say that don’t know that the second note in D# is E#.
So much this. Or:
Me: Hey, what notes are you playing in that chord?
Them: D# G and Ab.
Me:
Aha! I meant "All My Loving" not "All my Love." Slight mis-remembering of the song name. It's been years and years since i've actually had to play it. My bad.
I picked it because it starts on the ii. So if a guitarist calls it in [whatever key], the first chord they play should not be the tonic. But so many guitarists think the first chord they play is automatically the key of the song. So they'll call it in the wrong key. I'll play the "correct note" for their "wrong key" (aka: A step up from the tonic), and they'll get confused and think i don't know what i'm doing. But they're the ones who don't understand that the song is in the key of E Major but starts on the ii (F# minor). They think the song is just in F# minor because it's the first chord.
Should have guessed that that's what you meant! I was fooled by the fact that the first Beatles tune with a similar name that came to mind was And I Love Her, which also starts on the ii.
About band member goofiness: been there! A drummer in a hobby band I played with from time to time would ask us to learn some new song to play through for fun every couple of months or so. "It's easy!," he'd say.
He'd send a YouTube link around, and it was invariably something with ridiculously complicated signature guitar and/or keyboard parts. ("Hey, guys! Let's do Martha My Dear next week!")
We finally figured out that "It's easy!" meant he'd had no trouble learning the drum part.
For him, the Venn diagram of cluelessness would have the "Feeble grasp of music theory" circle overlapping with the "I don't listen to songs or practice them between rehearsals because I can only learn when I'm playing with the band" circle.
To refresh your memory, this is Martha My Dear, picked by the drummer because it would so easy for the rest of us to learn:
