80s and 90's sheet music wanted

[Kolakube]

Anyone know where I can find such things. I seem to remember being able to buy entire books years back. Like an LP would be released and you could buy the sheet music book to go with.

Im just after charty classics. In particular, Human Leagues Dare LP, Duran Duran's Chauffeur, any Pet shop boys or erasure. Just general stuff really.

If anyone has anything for sale or can point me in the right directing id be grateful. The digital download stuff online is more classical and Robbie williams. AM I really such a dinosaur expecting to find 80's stuff with ease?

[The Bunk]

...have you tried Chappell's of Bond Street (although they're now in Wardour Street)? From my experience, if it exists, they have it.

http://www.chappellofbondstreet.co.uk/?source=adwords_brand&st=chappells%20of%20bond%20street&gclid=CKSd6b25vaACFQIslAodQVTNLw

Rose Morris in Denmark Street also has a lot of sheet music. If you Google Rose Morris, an online sheet music store pops up too...

[Kolakube]

Thanks for the links friend. Neither have any Human League or any Duran Duran. Gave up after that.

Appreciate your time, thanks again.

[Rhys Llewellyn]

Well the very fact you're willing to pay is very novel in this day and age!!

Instead of spending that money on a few songs books, why not buy a programme that allows you to view pretty much any track in existence on a stave, which will allow you to print it out too if you desire (and playback, edit,slow down etc...)

Something like Sibelius is probably overkill, but Guitar Pro is pretty damn good and has extensive coverage. I'm yet to come across a song I've wanted to learn which hasn't been transcribed on there. (It displays all instrument parts, not just guitar).

I'm sure there are dedicated pianist programmes out there, I'd say this is definitely the route to go. Maybe Google a list of the top sheet music programmes, then look around the net for each one's availability to help you make your mind up by which programme seems to host the most files of your liking.

By that I mean, say for example I wanted to find the Roxette track "It Must've Been Love" for my prog of choice, Guitar Pro. I'd go to Google and type in "it must've been love guitar pro" and I'd see many sites offering the transcription for free download. So look around for each programmes unique file type and see which one seems to be most popular with the songs you want before committing to purchasing the prog.

Trust me, there's PLENTY of 80s out there

[Kolakube]

Hello Rhys.

I honestly did not know such software existed. So with guitar pro I could play it a track and it will write out accurate scores for me? Surely this must be sketchy at best? I mean how does it tell all the different instruments playing at the same time?

Im downloading the demo to try it out.

Thanks for the heads up.

[. . . Delete This User . . .]

http://www.music-exchange.co.uk/

these guys supply most of the music retail stores with sheet music on a rotating sale or return basis....

it stands to reason they'd have a wider range than most

[Madman_Greg]

http://www.sheetmusicdirect.com

has one human league piece of music

its online downloads

but they normally let you view page one, which can quite often get you on track with a tune

you will need to install the viewer plugin to see music, you will get prompted to install this

[Kolakube]

@ Rhys - Tried both pieces of software and found them m both to be absolutely god awful. Thanks for you time replying and trying to help, I dont mean to sound ungrateful. Only thing I ca think of is I wasn't using them correct. I analysed various MIDI files and MP3s and the scores went even close. They must get alot of returns.

@Idris - Thanks, ill keep my eye on the link you sent.

@ Greg - Let me guess without even looking. Its "Don't you want me" ? Everywhere has that song but none of the others. Think its down to it being a Karaoke fav

[jrbcm]

Kolakube - sheet music for pop songs in that era (and still) is bleedin useless. It's usually poorly arranged and the chords are wrong half the time. Years of piano teaching taught me that. The only stuff that works is b0ll0x like 'Promise' - Beverly Craven coz it was written for solo piano.

Just wondering why you'd want it....?

[Kolakube]

Why id want it.

To play along my favourite old tunes mate. Would give me great satisfaction. Im currently taking piano lessons but grow tired of the crap I have to play there.

[jrbcm]

Oh ok - but it won't work for a million reasons. Better to pick out the synth lines etc. by ear. Let your piano teacher focus on the boring but important stuff.

The material a good teacher gives you is carefully designed to take tiny technical steps. Playing your fave tunes with anything less than above Gd.8 technique needs them to be extremely well arranged in a comfortable key and there is very little material available like that.

eg. say, Pet Shop Boys 'It's a Sin'

The original is in C minor. Starts with a Cmin chord, C in the tune.

It's a bit complex for a newb to figure out what with 3 flats etc.

So a good arranger for easy keyboards might put it in to A minor (it will then be mostly white notes apart from the odd G sharp). So the the tune starts on A (with A minor chord), and it goes through nice simple shapes AMin-Dmin-GMaj-Cmaj etc. Your left hand could just play thirds like this: A+C, D+F, G+B, C+E etc. Only catch is that you can't play along with the recording (unless you set your keyboard up to transpose).

Problem is, the sheet music you buy has not been thoughtfully arranged like this, and only some tunes will work out so comfortable to play even after some thought.

[Kolakube]

Yeah I see your point fella. It doesn't look like its even possible to get hold of sheet music anyway and the audio to sheet music software was worse than me playing by ear (if thats possible)

As for playing by ear its something im terrible at. Ive been on for ages trying to work out the right hand side of the Chauffeur by Duran Duran.
Honestly, ive taken it as far as I can but it doesn't sound right at all. I wonder do I get the wrong start note and the rest of it goes wrong after that but is correct to the start note like some sort of anchor point?

If you or anyone had time id love to be put right on this and maybe Id learn something as ive even input the notes into my sequencer and changed the notes I think to be wrong to everything around and they still sound wrong. I finally have it so its sound the least wrong I can get it but it still isnt correct to me. (If this makes sense, difficult to explain)

Anyhow here is the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c2m-LITWGo

(please excuse daft video, well it was the 80s. haha)

I get...

A,A,E,A
B,B,G,B
C,C,G,C
B,B,C+,B

(Notes going up. so EG B is mentioned twice. First time it is an octave lower than the second. Sorry but I dont know a better way to write this at this point.)

[jrbcm]

Kolakube - you'll have to get your teacher to help you out - sorry, I don't have time. But if you're struggling with that clip it's maybe coz it's completely out of tune and falling between two keys.

[The Bunk]

...as someone has mentioned above, a lot of officially published sheet music is inaccurate when it comes to playing along to the songs themselves. I've got a copy of the sheet music to "What's The Story" and it's almost useless. And Chordie / Olga (if it still exists) has some highly imaginative transcriptions, often in completely the wrong key.
A good piano teacher ought to be able to help. I've just started taking lessons and my teacher has worked out "All The Way To Memphis", for which I haven't found a tab / sheet music anywhere. He's just done it by listening.
It obviously is a more costly way of doing things but you'll end up playing the right thing rather than wasting money on a book that is ultimately wrong...

[1337andyc]

I use musicroom.com for 80's and 90's stuff.

Plenty of it on there.

Also worth locating the midi of the tune you want, if you have Logic or similar to import it into - in effect you buy the midi file, import it, and logic converts the dots to sheet music for you - and you can print it etc...