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

Not even the entire thing, just the long ascending (mostly picked) lick, at about 1:54:

1 Like

I just did it but it turns out my camera didn’t record, I think it would spoil the moment if I tried to capture it again.

9 Likes

@Roy_Marchbank played and transcribed it:

I think you may overestimate the playing level of the average forum user, if you think that many people can learn and perform Shawn Lane songs on a whim lol.

5 Likes

This is awesome! Section 6 is what I’m interested in so this should help a ton.

1 Like

Shawn is a bit like a nuclear physicist from the 33rd century who came to earth to teach us a few lessons. The average player is just not going to be able to achieve his very fastest speeds unless he has exceptional skills.

And Roy Marchbank is someone who has those twitchiest of fast twitch muscles. Don’t feel intimidated ot defeated though. It would be easy to just give up but take it one note at a time and never stop!

Oh no worries there man, I feel pretty humble knowing that the phrasing is not something I’ve worked on before, and it looks pretty hard. I’ll try it when I get back home in a few days.

I just realized that the video that was linked is the dude that was called out for playing along to midi (I think you can hear it some in the video too). Wondering if those are good fingerings then…

I guess if you can play it, let us know how good the fingerings are.

Biggest hurdle I have so far is the lack of patterns compared to the usual stuff I play. Here’s a clip of it sloooooow.

1 Like

At 50% speed, feeling a little more “logical” for lack of a better term.

First full speed attempt

5 Likes

This is the fretting that I ended up with:

1 Like

Same as @Prlgmnr. Well, almost.
I just recorded a 99% perfect versh but as I was going to post it here on the forums my dog stepped on my wife’s boob while she slept in the bed next to me.
I had recorded it about a half hour before we went to bed. Her sleep reflex was to swing wildly her arms and her right arm hit me in a flurry of karate like strikes. I blocked a large portion of those hits in a ninjai fashion but a stray pinky poke me in da eye!

I still had one good eye and was about to post that tough solo but the culprit dog at that moment decided it was time to run across my testicles to escape possible persecution for boob stepping my wife.
In a fit of pain I inadvertently hit the delete button. Now it seems like too much work to play but again. Sorry!

4 Likes

You’ve made this thread worth it, thank you.

You’ve made the thread worth it by actually doing the thing.

2 Likes

I just saw the the tab I uploaded contained one mistake. If you’re bored, feel free to call it out. Here’s the corrected one:

1 Like

You are the only person I have seen online actually playing that lick in a live environment. Fantastic!

2 Likes

Thanks @aliendough ! I saw a few dudes on YouTube do it, must’ve been a beast since they covered the entire song!

1 Like

Hey pepepicks no midi on Roy’s videos. Asked him myself. So Fingerings are totally good for GPFlying, got the transcription off his website, you can trust it. Any problems pm me. I can’t play like I used to due to arthritis but I could tackle a few Shawn Lane solos in my day. His tones not too hard to get either.

Not asking this to fan any flames or dispute the above and I don’t want to derail the thread, but seeing as you have spent time with him and may know - why does his tone sound so unnatural? Does he think that his tone sounds this way and if so? Is theee a functional reason or just that he likes it?

1 Like