Grey Pianos Flying

General Music Discussion
#1

Hi folks, I really hope you and your loved ones are all well and keeping safe at this time!

I have spent years trying to learn this song by Shawn Lane and have always struggled with the fast run at the end of the main solo. The old REH transcriptions are notoriously wonky, and I have been trying to learn the Roy Marchbank version recently:

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Trying to play 32nd notes at 110 BPM is brutal using these fingerings!

Anyway, last night, I stumbled onto a tab that someone had made years ago (credit not given purely because there were no details attached to the file!):

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What a difference! When I start this off with an upstroke, it is SUPER fast to play! There are no repeating notes to memorise and count, and a lot of it is just spotting simple shapes and patterns. I know the same could probably be said for any piece of tab, but I found the shapes in the second one a lot simpler and more intuitive. (I ignore the hammer ons and pulloffs in favour of picking the whole thing - this way, when I reach the final run of three notes per string, I am starting each 6 note chunk on an upstroke!)

It just seemed a lot easier to get into my brain too - after years of struggling to even memorise the notes, I managed to cram most of this into my head in about 30 minutes last night and could remember the whole thing after an hour or so! (Again, personally, I opted to ignore the hammer ons and pulloffs as this also made it easier for me to keep in time with the metronome!)

Sorry if this is something you guys have seen countless times, I was just pretty excited at how much easier this is, and was wondering if it might help others to put this song to rest.

The only thing is that this isn’t just like Roy’s tab with the fingerings changed. It actually uses notes that are completely different! Although the rest of the solo is played almost the same way in the two tabs, when it comes to this run, the 2nd tab uses notes that are about 2 whole tones higher than those in Roy’s version. Can someone with a better ear than me tell which versions sounds closer to the original track? Do you think Shawn would have played it this way? I am always worried I might be favouring something that is easier to play over something that actually resembles the original track. :frowning:

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#2

If it helps anyone, I made a (very poor quality) diagram of the sort of the shapes and patterns I saw in this when I was trying to learn it. I know that this doesn’t really make sense in a musical way, and I will still need to get the phrasing and timing right, but when it comes to actually learning the notes and getting them in my head, after years of failing I was able to commit this to memory in less than an hour.

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#3

I think many of us fall victim to wanting to replicate our heroes, note for note. While this is noble it may cause us to miss the point. They played what felt good to them. Unless they were really trying to challenge themselves, I doubt they sat around trying to find the most awkward patterns they could come up with. They were making music. Often times, it’s totally “off the cuff” too. It wouldn’t necessarily be played that way again. What we hear on recordings is a moment in time. For players like Lane, we’re hearing him ripping through stitched together patterns that he knew inside and out. The music just flowed from him.

This is a “quote of a quote”, but I absolutely love one line of this article where Shawn says (again, through someone else’s memory of a conversation) "If something is difficult, find an easier way to do it. Don’t get hung up; use any means necessary to express yourself"

So, sorry. That’s my long way of saying I think you’re on the right track :slight_smile: Keep finding the easy way! The fact that you’re playing Lane pieces gets you off the hook should anyone think you’re taking an easy way out, in general.

#4

Also, @kanzenseiha1I forgot to give you a big “welcome” to the community and thank you for posting this.

I just remembered there’s been another thread on this very piece. Just linking it here in case you find any of it helpful/interesting.

#5

Thank you guys so much! You are both really kind and helpful!

Thank you Joe - that quote makes so much sense to me!

#6

@kanzenseiha1 the first tab is mine, what I ended up using based on Roy’s video tab. @joebegly linked my thread:

Request: someone play Shawn Lane's "Gray Pianos Flying"

And this is me playing my version:

Edit: switched from insta to YouTube since it formatted strangely.

#7

Oh hey sorry - I have linked the wrong file in my post - it was supposed to be his original one xD I have updated the link! Oh dang, this is clean! You are like a billion times faster than me haha

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#8

This is a great point and where my thinking is at the moment. Yesterday I posted a clip of me practicing my version of the Cliffs of Dover solo. Its probably far from note-for-note (and needs a lot more practice) but I’m aiming for the essence of it so that if someone heard it live by EJ, they would love it (he never plays it like the album either!). I have made notes for the big widdly run fit with what I can pull off on a good day - I want it repeatable and robust. I have managed to nail it a few times way better than the video I posted and when it lands, it feels great, more importantly it feels at one with the song vibe. Is it like exactly like the record? Nope! Close? Possibly… worth playing? Hell yeah!

If I had the choice of playing something 95% accurate with 100% skill and conviction vs 100% accurate with 5-10% chance of messing it up, I would take the former any day…

Here is the link if you wanna laugh…

https://forum.troygrady.com/t/cliffs-solo-practice/46944/6

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#9

Thanks man, just keep troubleshooting and working on it. If you want to post some vids or something I can help out, I found a few fingerings that work if your strengths / weaknesses are different than mine.

#10

Oh man, I would never laugh at this haha This is amazing!!!

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#11

Nice ! That ending is very similar to a run I’ve been working using the same 6 note e and B string scaler ascend 3 and 3 at the end.

I just tried the run from that second tab and it’s really cool but I need more practice to get it fast.

Chunking is always a must for me when learning a run like this. I used to try and rely on the notation for how the notes are grouped to achieve this but it’s normally wrong or different to how a guitarist would or should chunk it.

Learning to play something exactly like the orginal is played is something I will do if I have the time and energy.

If I have a song to learn for band practice or a gig and I’ve gotta work and only get 2 hours in the week to learn it then I will take the easy way for sure. But now for example I am not working I’ve got time to burn so I’ll try and push myself to do it how the original guitarist did it.

Can be demoralising though when you find out you just can’t do it like the original guitarist. You start off thinking hey I’m human and the other guy is human, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to do what they do. But the original guitarist is normally an extremely talented human who has a natural command of the guitar that you just don’t have (speaking for myself here, I’m not a natural).

And it doesn’t help that there are subtleties like how the other guy is picking or fingering that you won’t see just from listening. So, it’s valiant to try but not a disgrace to fail.

#12

Might I ask for a time stamp for the part of the song this tab comes from?

#13

Hey no worries at all - in the album version, it’s the run that starts from 1:58