The "Songs which are more difficult than they sound" thread

Alnico

@Gassage

He looks like he does a lot of hybrid picking with plectrum AND fingers !

As if things weren't tough enough.

Dominic

DEAD OR ALIVE - BON JOVI .......THE 12 STRING INTRO MOTIF...........

it's not difficult to play at all but its a complete bastard to keep in perfect time with drums etc ....................its also a very noticeable cock-up as a live tune 'cos you're very exposed out there on your own with it until the rest of the band kicks in AND you have to do it 3 more times !

Majorscale

stratman3142;990712" said:

Yes, I used to play We Are The Champions in a band and it's a tricky one. I've got a chord chart I worked out, if you want to compare notes.

Thanks @stratman3142, fortunately I have the song all worked out using a mix of tab from an old magazine transcription and a rather good Youtube lesson. My point was more in keeping with the thread in that Queen songs are often more difficult to play than they seem, those guys were all extremely talented musicians and composers.

quarky

Majorscale said:

My point was more in keeping with the thread in that Queen songs are often more difficult to play than they seem, those guys were all extremely talented musicians and composers.

I loved Scandal as a kid. Can't believe May did the guitars for that song in one take.

TheOtherDennis

Phil_aka_Pip said:

Rocker said:

The Boxer (Simon and Garfunkel) intro. Never got remotely close

while on the subject of acoustic music, I'd say 99% of James Taylor's guitar parts are hellishly difficult to play and get the same feel as him.

Mrs TheOtherDennis gave me the book of his greatest hits album, and I was determined to nail Something, on the basis that "I refuse to be beaten by a fucking hippy."

Needless to say... ">

viz

stratman3142 said:

Majorscale said:

@Fuzzdog said, Queen material in general is a lot harder and more complicated than it would appear. We are working on We Are The Champions and it's plainly obvious that Mercury and May are masters of their craft. Definitely not strum along music!

Yes, I used to play We Are The Champions in a band and it's a tricky one. I've got a chord chart I worked out, if you want to compare notes.

to me, getting the queen songs sounding good is all about using the right inversions.

Bucket

I'm just gonna throw this in - at 4:00.

I mean it sounds hard, but believe me it's even more difficult than it sounds. Really, really stupid. Can't get my fucking fingers around it to save my life.

vasselmeyer

"My Sharona" by The Knack. Sounds simple but the timing, especially with bass and two guitars can be a nightmare.

MikeDearing

Sunny by Bobby Hebb gets me - the chords are ok, but its the up a half step each verse that gets me... especially when I'm singing it.. its one of those that has to be "in" rather than read...   after verse 4 or 5 you've covered a lot of fretboard "real estate"

MikeDearing

oh that and any song where I've temporarily forgotten the first line.. not that difficult when the rep runs into hundreds of songs, this often happens when one song hasn't been in the list for a couple of months... funnily enough solos are easier to remember I find..

carlos

Spellbound by Siouxsie and the Banshees. All picked like McGeoch would have done it is super hard. Hybrid picked or fingerpicked it's fairly easy. I do the latter of course