Verbatim Piano Sheet Music

[Osias Baptist]

Byits very nature, a lead sheet is just an outline of a tune, containing the bare-bones melody line and the chord progressions. This type of music notation is used to accurately convey most non-classical genres of music, where the goal is not to recreate something verbatim as in classical music, but rather, to interpret a tune to create your own personal version or arrangement. Lead sheets contain a single staff (the treble clef) with the notation of the melody line of a song and chord symbols above the notation denoting the harmony of the tune.

I'm working on a version of the theme from Mission: Impossible. It is in 5/4 with key signature of C (Tim points out the piece is in G minor). I realize that the piece is quite dissonant but I'm struggling with 2 bars in the right-hand, marked in red.

Ok, given the example, the upper phrase you highlight is a whole-note ascending minor third with the lower note doubled in the bass (the first note is a b flat due to there being a b flat at the start of the bar), the second phrase is a chromatically ascending minor third with the lower note doubled in the bass logically leading to the next bass note.

So the consistency of upper and lower staff and the respective interval moved and the fact that either phrase are out of whack with the underlying tonality very much make it likely that what has been written here has been written intentionally and is not a typo.

Now if your impression from listening to the original is markedly different, there is a certain likelihood that the transcriber put in something that he considered a good idea. i have several versions of music where the small print makes clear that they are an interpretation of the original rather than a faithful transcription. For something like a Simon&Garfunkel collection for fingerpicking it is more commonly than not a total nuisance that you did not get the original accompaniment but rather something with the melody line crammed in as well and the rather characteristic accompaniment only present in shreds if at all.

I do not know the original, and an actual verbatim comparison would likely be somewhat out of the scope of StackExchange. From the passages you quoted I consider it highly likely that those phrases are written intentionally in that manner. Whether they were written originally in that manner is a different question.

First thing to do is to listen to a recording - or several different ones - of the particular piece. This will give you a more accurate idea of how it goes. Or at least how others think it should go. Chords, dots and particularly tab on various sites on the internet are sometimes the product of amateurs, with little grounding in what they're doing. Thus questions like these. Other sites simply copy stuff across, with the inaccuracies intact : no great help, really.

I used to find this problem also when backing artistes - the music wasn't actually written properly in some cases, so the old ears had to come back into the equation. Years of relying more on those than what the music tells you to play helped a lot.

Like you - I have come across sheet music and tabs that I did not find sounded like the song they were supposed to represent. What I have learned is that in many cases, the sheet music you buy or find on-line, is nothing more than someones interpretation of a particular song or their own personal translation. Often they contain some inaccuracies.

I don't trust anyone else's interpretation of a piece I want to learn. I use those interpretations as a starting point. Often a good portion of the author's interpretation or translation works well and sounds very authentic. But more often than not, there are parts that I don't feel sound the way I hear the music on the recording.

So I listen to the recording and (sometimes through trial and error) arrive at my own translation or interpretation of how it should be played. If you aren't able to do that yet, find someone to help you learn how to find the correct notes and/or chords from listening to a recording of the piece.

As Jacob said in his answer, if you don't really care to learn the piece, there is no reason to spend time translating it yourself by ear. I only learn pieces that I am specifically interested in being able to perform.

Just one thing to keep in mind: when you find something sounds utterly wrong, it may just be that you're reading the notation wrong. I find that a particular trap are keyboard fugues from Bach where there is modulation back and forth in a measure and an accidental that occured at the start of the measure is not repeated close to its end even though it is a mere accident that the accidental has not been resolved in the mean time and the second note is not even in the same voice as the first.

I am afraid that more of my initial readings turned out to be wrong than I discovered actually wrong editions, so it's always worth making doubly sure that you read the notation correctly before suspecting notation error.

I think part of the problem with "trusting your ears" is that your piano version is very simplified. In the original it sounds to me like the chords you underlined were three notes, F-Ab-C F#-A-C# and Bb-Db-F C-Eb-G. That gives quite a different sound, especially if you are playing the top notes of the right hand as if they were "the tune" (which they aren't - the bass line is "the tune" in so far as there is a tune at all.)

Use your ear to figure out how the music should sound. This also includes knowing the style of the music noting that what sounds somewhat "wrong" in some contexts may sound "right" in others. Music is often mis-transcribed into sheet music.

TP: Now, you are well known particularly in the early part of your career for being a devotee of Bud Powell, and someone who assimilated that vocabulary into your own particular take. But before you encountered Bud Powell, who were the pianists who struck you?

HARRIS: Oh yes. Every house had a piano almost. Like people nowadays have televisions? Every house had a piano. Somebody could play the piano in almost every house. Because the piano was the form of entertainment then.

HARRIS: Oh, no. Well, when he came through, he knew me and I knew him. I guess Bobby Timmons was with him, and Bobby was going out on his own to do some trio stuff, so he had me come join him. Something like that.

TP: You mentioned several musicians who played extremely important roles in your life as mentors, people you learned from, and also friends. Coleman Hawkins, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Monk. A few words about your experiences with each of them.

HARRIS: Well, no, my mother was the church thing. Classical was with Neptune Holloway and Mrs. Lipscomb, which was in a private home. Then Tommy and I took from Mrs. Dillard, Gladys Dillard. We were on a recital together one time.

HARRIS: No, I started pretty early playing professionally. I had to ask my mother could I go to Pontiac, and then I had to have a place to live there in order to stay there and play a couple of days. I was pretty young then.

HARRIS: Oh, no, it was more than that. I sat with him at the Crystal Bar, so I must have been of age then. We have to find out when Bird came through Detroit at the Crystal Bar. Then I sat in with Bird at the Graystone Ballroom. I think I sat in with Bird at the Mirror Ballroom.

HARRIS: That was my first time. Then we went to another place in the Bronx and heard Art Blakey. There used to be a joint over in the Bronx that New Yorkers could tell you about, by the overhead El, and cats played at this place.

HARRIS: No, not really. I was a poor son-of-a-gun! [LAUGHS] I was so poor I just sat on my foot! No, I was very poor in Detroit. Then I had a little daughter. I was the cat who went to the supermarket when they had sales.

TP: But could we get back to this question of how you perceived the musical scene around you. Because when people wrote about you, the attitude that came out was you as a keeper of the flame, as it were.

HARRIS: Pretty much so. Don was an A&R man for Prestige. We just had this strong relationship. No contract or nothing, just a handshake. And I always sort of stuck to that, except I might not have stuck to it too much lately.

Then there was a trifling period where I went to the racetrack every day, or went to OTB and stuff like that. But I was fortunate that I continued in some kind of way to learn things. I think the reason why I started my classes and things like that was to keep me out of trouble.

TP: He and I have been talking some about Detroit, and I just wanted a few memories of him within the Detroit scene and his position. What are your first memories of him? You had the same piano teacher?

TP: Barry also said that he was always a natural sort of teacher. This may or may not have had to do with you, it was probably after you left Detroit. But that he always seemed to have a knack for finding a correct way of approaching a situation.

FLANAGAN: Well, I know he always had that bent toward teaching. He had a lot of young prospects that really went on to become well known. Charles McPherson, Lonnie Hillyer, guys like that. Those were the two most outstanding.

WILLIAMS: Well, it was the feeling, the beauty, the touch, the depth of his music. It was perfect to me, coming out of the Bebop period and Charlie Parker and Monk, which is the music I like. He just sounded perfect.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, pretty much. And (?) with all the guys. Wilbur Ware was a real influence on me. He was kind of a mentor in Chicago. He was a great bass player, and he kind of guided me away from things and not to things.

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