The ShadowMusic Web Community

Thanks everyone. Interesting stuff.

Phrygian wrote:The song is in the key of F major.

Thanks . As I thought, I've completely misunderstood what I've read - back to the books .

Cheers,

Cliff

Teflon wrote:… he also claimed that he never plays full barre chords, leaving out the low "E" string as "that's what the bass player is for"

Yes! That’s the key, one of them, to the Bruce sound. It’s clean and fits neatly into the sound spectrum. I’ve been that pointless bass player, struggling with a booming rhythm guitarist or a keyboard player with a busy left hand.

Teflon wrote: ... he also claimed that he never plays full barre chords, leaving out the low "E" string as "that's what the bass player is for" . I have to say, I like his style and admire his total lack of pretentiousness. Cliff

Too many rhythm guitarists think just because a guitar has six strings, that they always have to play all six!

Here's the sheet music if anyone is interested.

https://mega.nz/folder/1gsWUaKB#wALR-L6Y8rqe3218ryu8jQ

Best wishes

Paul

The sheet music is interesting. I wonder if it was done by the composer or transcribed from the record by someone else. At any rate, I do not hear a sustained Db in the beginning of measure 4 of the B section. Later in the measure Hank plays a Db as a passing tone. I do not hear anyone hitting an F, so I would not play Bbm6, although it fits the melody. I do hear Bruce playing a C major triad - could have been 1st position or xx555x. Nice tremolo sound too!

Sometimes naming chords can be arbitrary and different chords can fit the same melody. There is room for different interpretations in this case.

Frequently, the chords indicated in the sheet music (probably by publishers' music editors) are just a simplified approximation of those actually played on the recording (sometimes not even in the same key), often omitting the progression or 'in between' ones that are essential to the appeal of the piece as a whole.

Bill

Thanks to a tip off from drakula63 (I posed the question to him about the chord) I decided to finally join this fine forum.

Regarding the topic i.e. what's the Maroc 7 chord? I have spent some time listening to it in depth and also ran the whole thing past a music teacher friend of mine who is also a composer. If you're wondering which chord I'm on about, it's around 24 seconds in, Hank isn't playing and you only hear Bruce play the chord between Hank's phrases.

We also looked at the ebay sheet music link above and listened to the track for the best part of 2 hours. Tragic I know, but it has to be done.



The chord in the sheet music is Bbm6 (B flat minor six), which is ALMOST correct. We both believe the chord in question is actually a Bbdim7 (B flat fiminished 7th). Both my music teacher friend and I both agreed we can hear an E note at the top of the chord, and thus we believe it to be the following chord voicing on the guitar, where you play 4 notes only:

E X (don't play low E string)
A X (don't play A string)
D 8th fret
G 6th fret
B 8th fret
E open string

Breakdown:
8th fret D string is B flat
6th fret G string is C# (or Db, minor third from B flat)
8th fret B string is G (G is minor third from E)
open E string (E is minor third from C#)

I'd play it like this:


This we believe makes it a B flat diminished 7th chord - the E is open string and it's tricky to hear it but we're both sure it's there. You can hear a full piano version of this chord here:
https://www.scales-chords.com/chord/piano/Bbdim7

The Bbm6 in the sheet music would be correct if an E was added on top, so like I say, I think it's almost correct.

I noticed the guy in the Shads Tribute playing a straight Bbm bar chord which totally works and is much easier to play, but I believe that to be totally correct you'll probably need to go with the voicing shown here.

Of course, this is only my opinion and I could be wrong. If there is a better sounding chord than this one out, I'd love to know what it is.

Incidentally I love Maroc 7 and it's a crying shame there is no live version of this from The Shads.

The question of Shadows' sheet music is very interesting - and almost worthy of a topic on its own. Anything published by The Shadows' own 'Shadows Music' is usually written for lead, rhythm and bass guitars (and vocals) and is generally in the same key as the original, presumably so that amateur musicians at the time could replicate the arrangement on the record. I'd love to know who the transcribers were! Often they would notate exactly the notes that Hank played. This was in contrast to the sheet music industry generally where the transcriptions often bore little resemblance to the music on the actual record. As a teenage amateur pianist, I was unaware of this in the days when I used to collect sheet music by the likes of Russ Conway and Floyd Cramer - and then wondered why my piano fumblings sounded fundamentally different to the records (apart from the little matter of 'comparative absence of talent'!). Famously, sheet music for Beatles records was often in completely different keys to the record - almost as if the publishers were trying to discourage people from playing the songs!

Virtually all Shadows records in the '60s were transcribed and commercially published as sheet music; was there a significant market for this? The 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. Albums of Guitar Favourites are worth collecting as they also often feature otherwise unavailable pictures. I bought the Marvin, Welch and Farrar songbook (which had the same cover as the LP) in 1983...and someone must have spent hours writing out the music for all 12 songs. Presumably they didn't bother with Second Opinion!

Moderne wrote:Virtually all Shadows records in the '60s were transcribed and commercially published as sheet music; was there a significant market for this?

I bought the Geronimo sheet music when it came out — and would have bought more — but it was immediately obvious to me that it differed from the record! Once I found I could work it out by ear I never bought any more.