My Whitesnake transcriptions

[PaulThePlug]

@neilmurraybass ' assume, perhaps wrongly, that the bassists who are interested in my playing are more likely to look at the tab, with help from the notation, particularly for the rhythms'

Bassists who are interested in your playing 'prolly come in various guise and at various levels...

The majority i expect are fans of your work, and someone like me, starting out and familiar with the songs after listening to em all these years are simply thankful for you 'time and tab' so we can look to enjoy the songs by starting to get a bit of it right then participating at a greater level...

Thanks for the caterpillars!

[Ahmed]

On 04/03/2021 at 20:59, neilmurraybass said:

A fan and friend of mine linked the copies of these transcriptions that are on my Facebook page Neil Murray Bass Guitarist to a FB page to do with Berklee music college in the US and their associated bassists. A very respected bass player and teacher, Steve Bailey, who I've met at Warwick Bass Weekends in Germany, saw the transcriptions and quite rightly made the criticism that sometimes the notation is not exactly 'correct' - I assume he means that you’re supposed to see where each crotchet/quarter note starts in each bar, by using e.g. two tied quavers/eighth notes instead of a crotchet, indicating that one of the four beats in the bar lands in the middle of that particular note. In my defence, I would make the following points:

Although in certain situations (Gilgamesh 1973, National Health 1976-7, We Will Rock You 2002 onwards) it's been necessary to be able to read music (but not sight-read), for the entirety of the rest of my career playing by ear and not requiring the 'dots' in order to do the job has been the most important skill.

I assume, perhaps wrongly, that the bassists who are interested in my playing are more likely to look at the tab, with help from the notation, particularly for the rhythms. Tab is probably banned at Berklee, and mostly I wouldn’t use it much myself, but I didn’t transcribe these bass lines for Berklee students, and if I'd known they would be scrutinised by one of the instructors, I would have made sure they were notationally perfect.

For me to do these transcriptions, my abilities are not good enough to use a pure notation app such as Sibelius. I need to be able to hear the notes sounding similar to a bass guitar, and to at least enter the notes in tab, based on the fret positions I used when the songs were recorded. The program that is best for this is Guitar Pro, though certain bends and effects are difficult to notate, even in an app designed for guitarists.

Some parts took a huge amount of time, partly just hearing and working out what I played, particularly on the live versions, given that I often haven’t listened to some of these tracks for 35+ years. So occasionally if I got it sounding correct rhythmically, I left the notation as Guitar Pro had entered it, even if I knew it wasn’t 100% 'correct' according to the rules. Given that I am not earning anything from the transcriptions, I feel they're good enough for people’s purposes.

The criticism has left me less enthusiastic about continuing with more transcriptions, though anyway at the moment I am extremely busy with non-musical family situations, soI don’t have time. My main plan was that the transcriptions were just an add-on to videos of me replaying these songs, but that’s a more difficult task, to do well, especially as I'm not an extrovert who loves seeing their face on social media etc.

Thanks for everyone’s very kind words!

Neil, as a bassist and long time fan of your playing I must say that I have found your transcriptions most welcome. I appreciate that you have taken the time to do them and that it must have taken considerable effort. Thank you! I have always felt that your contribution to Whitesnake and music generally has been understated and that you are deserving of far greater recognition. Rest assured you are well recognised amongst hard core fans, particularly bassists. What is put down on paper and the way it's put down on paper is very much, as you have stated, secondary to whether it sounds right to the ear.  The views of others be they favourable or unfavourable and everything in between really don't matter. Personally I hope that you do find the time to continue putting transcriptions together and perhaps consider putting out a book at some stage which may, amongst many things, include an autobiographical account of your career and the albums you've played on.  Rock on Neil. Kind regards and best wishes A 

Edited March 6, 2021 by Ahmed
Grammatical error corrected.

[Stub Mandrel]

Another way of putting the comments above might be "don't let pedantry kill creativity".

[JamesPrestonUK]

On 04/03/2021 at 09:59, neilmurraybass said:

A fan and friend of mine linked the copies of these transcriptions that are on my Facebook page Neil Murray Bass Guitarist to a FB page to do with Berklee music college in the US and their associated bassists. A very respected bass player and teacher, Steve Bailey, who I've met at Warwick Bass Weekends in Germany, saw the transcriptions and quite rightly made the criticism that sometimes the notation is not exactly 'correct' - I assume he means that you’re supposed to see where each crotchet/quarter note starts in each bar, by using e.g. two tied quavers/eighth notes instead of a crotchet, indicating that one of the four beats in the bar lands in the middle of that particular note. In my defence, I would make the following points:

Although in certain situations (Gilgamesh 1973, National Health 1976-7, We Will Rock You 2002 onwards) it's been necessary to be able to read music (but not sight-read), for the entirety of the rest of my career playing by ear and not requiring the 'dots' in order to do the job has been the most important skill.

I assume, perhaps wrongly, that the bassists who are interested in my playing are more likely to look at the tab, with help from the notation, particularly for the rhythms. Tab is probably banned at Berklee, and mostly I wouldn’t use it much myself, but I didn’t transcribe these bass lines for Berklee students, and if I'd known they would be scrutinised by one of the instructors, I would have made sure they were notationally perfect.

For me to do these transcriptions, my abilities are not good enough to use a pure notation app such as Sibelius. I need to be able to hear the notes sounding similar to a bass guitar, and to at least enter the notes in tab, based on the fret positions I used when the songs were recorded. The program that is best for this is Guitar Pro, though certain bends and effects are difficult to notate, even in an app designed for guitarists.

Some parts took a huge amount of time, partly just hearing and working out what I played, particularly on the live versions, given that I often haven’t listened to some of these tracks for 35+ years. So occasionally if I got it sounding correct rhythmically, I left the notation as Guitar Pro had entered it, even if I knew it wasn’t 100% 'correct' according to the rules. Given that I am not earning anything from the transcriptions, I feel they're good enough for people’s purposes.

The criticism has left me less enthusiastic about continuing with more transcriptions, though anyway at the moment I am extremely busy with non-musical family situations, soI don’t have time. My main plan was that the transcriptions were just an add-on to videos of me replaying these songs, but that’s a more difficult task, to do well, especially as I'm not an extrovert who loves seeing their face on social media etc.

Thanks for everyone’s very kind words!

This almost broke my heart. What you have given us here so far Neil is gold dust. 

I write bass-only custom content for Rocksmith (anyone who isn't familiar with it, think Guitar Hero but for real instruments). When putting together a custom, I need a Guitar Pro file. This gives me two choices - I can either use a GP file found online, or I can spend an hour or two putting together my own file note by note. Given  the quality of the GP files which are online, the second option applies 99% of the time. 

I've made customs of many Whitesnake tracks over the years and they're a lot more complicated to chart than your average bass line, so when I saw that you'd posted your own transcriptions of what you'd played on the recordings, it was like my birthday, Easter, Christmas and a Lottery win had all come at once. I could go back and fix all the parts I'd struggled to pick out.

Some time ago, there was a request for a bassline on another bass forum. By chance, I'd previously produced a GP file for the song, so i posted it. I was torn to shreds by the Music Police there who said I'd got the time signature wrong (12/8 not 4/4) and I'd made the cardinal sin of not displaying the notes properly just as you did. I wasn't best pleased, as I thought I was doing someone a favour.

At the end of the day, the guys and girls I produce the Rocksmith customs for don't give a toss about key signatures, time signatures or whether it's a single note or two tied together. All they want to know is where to put their finger and for how long. I guess quite a few people here feel the same way too. 

For what you've done so far, I really cannot thank you enough, and if you don't feel like posting any other scores then I think you have been more than generous enough to the bass playing community. 

Edited March 14, 2021 by JamesPrestonUK

[Ahmed]

On 14/03/2021 at 17:49, JamesPrestonUK said:

This almost broke my heart. What you have given us here so far Neil is gold dust. 

I write bass-only custom content for Rocksmith (anyone who isn't familiar with it, think Guitar Hero but for real instruments). When putting together a custom, I need a Guitar Pro file. This gives me two choices - I can either use a GP file found online, or I can spend an hour or two putting together my own file note by note. Given  the quality of the GP files which are online, the second option applies 99% of the time. 

I've made customs of many Whitesnake tracks over the years and they're a lot more complicated to chart than your average bass line, so when I saw that you'd posted your own transcriptions of what you'd played on the recordings, it was like my birthday, Easter, Christmas and a Lottery win had all come at once. I could go back and fix all the parts I'd struggled to pick out.

Some time ago, there was a request for a bassline on another bass forum. By chance, I'd previously produced a GP file for the song, so i posted it. I was torn to shreds by the Music Police there who said I'd got the time signature wrong (12/8 not 4/4) and I'd made the cardinal sin of not displaying the notes properly just as you did. I wasn't best pleased, as I thought I was doing someone a favour.

At the end of the day, the guys and girls I produce the Rocksmith customs for don't give a toss about key signatures, time signatures or whether it's a single note or two tied together. All they want to know is where to put their finger and for how long. I guess quite a few people here feel the same way too. 

For what you've done so far, I really cannot thank you enough, and if you don't feel like posting any other scores then I think you have been more than generous enough to the bass playing community. 

Well said James. I feel the same way and hope that Neil reconsiders and maybe even puts out a book at some stage. One of the most under rated players that there is. 

[Stavros]

Cheers Neil these rock🤘