"In My Life" keyboard break?

[Matt DeBlass]

I'm trying to work out an instrumental version of the Beatles' "In My Life", and have the main melody fine, but am stumbling a bit over how to arrange the keyboard break. Does anyone happen to have, or know where I can find free/cheap a transcription of it in standard notation (or mando tab, or course)?
If not, no worries, I'll work it out by ear, it'll just take a bit longer.

[Paul Kotapish]

The break is transcribed in The Beatles: Complete Scores, available here and in many music stores. You probably know someone who owns it--it's common amongst Beatles freaks and completists.

Don't know about any separate transcriptions for that specific break, but our own John McGann runs a custom transcription service and might have already done that one, given its popularity.

http://www.johnmcgann.com/

[mandocrucian]

Check the catalog of your local library; they may have a copy of Complete Scores. Excellent refernce book. Originally somewhere around $80 new (my wife bought me a copy years ago), but I seem to recall seeing copies floating around for somewhere around $30 within the last year. Great for getting the drum patterns and bass lines and guitar rhythm figures too.

Unless time is a business factor (i.e. "I need this for a gig I'm doing this Saturday.") you should at least do your own "pushups" in working out the best (sonic) neck positions/shifts/open strings/etc for playing the break if you've got the notation to work from. These things are "puzzles" and you need to work it out yourself without turning to the back of the 'book/magazine' to get the answers. And if you can't solve it all through trial and error, you'll have a much greater appreation for the "solution" when you do 'cheat'.

I've got to get out the mandolin and transcribe the Moog and guitar solos for "Lucky Man" and "From The Beginning" (Emerson Lake & Palmer) so I can work them up on flute. I just don't have enough ear>hand facility on flute to do it on the fly with the recording, and get it onto paper. Have absolutely no idea yet how to get close to some of those Moog effects, but then, that's the "Puzzle".

Instrument of origination should become a non-issue with more advanced players, regardless of instrument of destination. (I'm skipping the more advanced stipulation flutewise. Come to think of it, I skipped over it too on mando and was working on electric guitar solos even way back when I was a pretty 'basic' mando player.)

BTW, I don't see anything wrong with copping the solos of other instruments from recordings (for performance purposes); much more preferable than copying the solos recorded on the instrument you play. Exceptions of course for certain breaks which have evolved to become the "required instrumental section" ("Johnny B Goode", "Sultans Of Swing", Django's "Honeysuckle Rose" come ot mind) that are the prelude to your solo. Of course, learning breaks from your own instrument for dissection/examination purposes are just part of the musical pushups and crunches of any musical get-in-shape training.

NH

[catmandu2]

BTW, I don't see anything wrong with copping the solos of other instruments from recordings (for performance purposes); much more preferable than copying the solos recorded on the instrument you play. Exceptions of course for certain breaks which have evolved to become the "required instrumental section" ("Johnny B Goode", "Sultans Of Swing", Django's "Honeysuckle Rose" come ot mind) that are the prelude to your solo. Of course, learning breaks from your own instrument for dissection/examination purposes are just part of the musical pushups and crunches of any musical get-in-shape training.

I agree. Transposing for instruments is excellent for ear training, arranging and orchestration.

I worked with a bassist developing a reggae band last fall (we played our first show on Tuesday)--at first it was just the two of us with me on drums. As we began to add other players, I experimented with instrumentation. Before I acquired keyboards, I was covering the parts (there are usually two and sometimes three--piano, organ, synth) with flute and vocals. Flute is a really nice instrument for emulating organ/synth because of its easy facility to modulate and render overtones. If I had to cover a keyboard part without a keyboard, flute is my first choice.

[Jason Kessler]

The piano line on "In My Life" was played by George Martin at a slower speed, then was sped up. I've read that he played it at half speed, but it sounds remarkably natural for such a drastic speed-up. The only real clue is the glissando which ends the solo; it happens faster than human hands can muster.

[Amandalyn]

I worked this out awhile back. Pretty close, not perfect. It's in a .tef file which opens with Tabledit. Would like to hear what you come up with.In My Life ( HarpSolo-G ).tef

[Amandalyn]

Here's another file I found: