Tab books

[smilnJackB]

I bought the 'O Brother Where Art Thou?' tab book on ebay and it came yesterday. It's a nice book with cool photos. I'm not sorry I bought it.
However, some of the songs my friends and I have already been playing are in different keys in the book. For example, we've been playing 'Down To The River To Pray' in the key of G and the book has it in E. And we play 'Man of Constant Sorrow' in G and the book has it in F.
So, learning to pick those songs in the 'wrong' key (for playing with my friends) is not highly useful. Mando friends, take that kind of thing into consideration.
I'm a self taught picker and pretty good at picking the melody in the key of G. I hope this book will broaden my horizons. I need to learn when to pick 2 pairs of strings instead of just one pair. I hope the book helps me there.
But it the world that my friends and I play in, the keys of Bflat, and F do not get much use or appreciation.

http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif Jack

[Clyde Clevenger]

Spend the time to learn those "other" keys. It can pay off in more ways than on. I was at a festival a couple of weeks ago involved in a very good jam with some fine pickers, when we were joined by the harmonica from hell. Full volume all the time and it was not apparent that he was hearing the same music we were. He had 10 harmonicas on his belt, so with every key change he would fine another harp to blow. We found that he didn't have Eb or G#, so, we played everything in those keys for about a half hour and he decided it was getting late. Hot Burrito Breakdown at about 260 bpm in G# was the killer. After he left, our bass player made us play everything in G and D for a while.

[MDW]

Jack,

The ability to transpose into another key is an important tool because you'll always be running into situations where the tab you've got isn't for the key the song is typically played in in your area. Because the mandolin is tuned in 5ths it is actually fairly easy to transpose things from one key into another once you know where the notes are. I can't do it on the fly, in the middle of a jam, but doing it at home is pretty easy and I haven't been playing that long. In simplist terms, transposing is just moving a set of note relationships (i.e. how many frets between notes) to somewhere else on the fretboard. For example, for Man of Constant Sorrow in F, just move everything up two frets and you'll be playing in G (remembering that the 7th fret of each string is the same note as the open string on the next string up). If that seems too hard to figure out on your own - let Tabledit do it for you. Just download Tabledit (available through the co-mando website) and type in the tab for the song in F and with just a couple of mouse clicks Tabledit will transpose the whole thing to any other key you want it in. Plus, Tabledit will give you access to literally thousands of tabbed songs, often 3 or 4 versions of each song.

Mark

[steve in tampa]

Here's a cool tool.....

http://www.simusic.com/transpose.html

[Mark Normand]

Hey MDW, been using Tabledit for a year and didn't realize it did that! Here's the instructions should anyone need it...

http://www.tabledit.com/help/english/transpose.shtml

Thx for the heads up! What a great tool.
Mark

[smilnJackB]

Thanks guys, I will take a look at that.
Jack

[earthsave]

Just thought I'd state the obvious, just in case it isnt as obvious as I obviously think it is, but the keys in the book are the keys they were recorded on the CD.

[Bruce Evans]

Just thought I'd state the obvious, just in case it isnt as obvious as I obviously think it is, but the keys in the book are the keys they were recorded on the CD.
AND... wasn't Down To the River To Pray sung by the female trio? It's not unusual for women to sing in a key a minor third below or a fourth above where men prefer to sing.