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Time for tab box set - open letter to the band

lucylespianlucylespian Posts: 2,403
edited September 2011 in The Porch
Ed, MIke, Stone, Jeff, Matt, Boom.

Listen Up !!

Now , with the re-issue of the Ten album marking 20 yrs, it's time to publish a box set of tab of all your songs. You have the power. You can do it right. You have done everything else from bootlegs to posters to travel and concert tix packages in Hawaii. The tabs are the last bastion.
Now is the time, puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese !!
Music is not a competetion.
Post edited by Unknown User on

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    JulienJulien Posts: 2,457
    This is not a bad idea... i'd buy it (If it also includes bass tabs)
    2006: Antwerp, Paris
    2007: Copenhagen, Werchter
    2009: Rotterdam, London
    2010: MSG, Arras, Werchter
    2012: Amsterdam, Prague, Berlin
    2014: Amsterdam, Stockholm
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    finnanniefinnannie Posts: 1,186
    Great idea. :)
    Won't let the light escape from me.
    Won't let the darkness swallow me.
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    Excellent idea but I think their reply to a similar question was : "Use your ears ..."
    My ears don't allow me to transcribe songs very well so I need tabs :)
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    That would be awesome ...Count me in ... and I've got ears , but would still love to have the tabs...
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    JulienJulien Posts: 2,457
    Excellent idea but I think their reply to a similar question was : "Use your ears ..."
    My ears don't allow me to transcribe songs very well so I need tabs :)

    Ears need exercise.
    Before, I wasn't able to transcribe a song just using my ears.
    It got better with time and practice.
    2006: Antwerp, Paris
    2007: Copenhagen, Werchter
    2009: Rotterdam, London
    2010: MSG, Arras, Werchter
    2012: Amsterdam, Prague, Berlin
    2014: Amsterdam, Stockholm
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    Julien wrote:
    Excellent idea but I think their reply to a similar question was : "Use your ears ..."
    My ears don't allow me to transcribe songs very well so I need tabs :)

    Ears need exercise.
    Before, I wasn't able to transcribe a song just using my ears.
    It got better with time and practice.

    I should have mentionned that I'm playing guitar for a year and a half so my ears are not well trained yet but it's slightly coming. I can notice when a tab is wrong ... that's a start.

    Official tabs are sweet !!!
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    Count me in. As good as the stuff is on GTW, I would like to see the "official" versions of the Mike and Stone interplay.
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    HeavyHandsHeavyHands Posts: 2,130
    To Pearl Jam,

    Do it or not, you no doubt realize there are people out here who have been asking for this for a long time. Not because we're too lazy to give your albums a solid listen and learn to play by overcoming all the mistakes on the learning curve, because many of us no longer have the time to devote to the art of deciphering an album one song at a time. Many of us have been in your listening audience from the beginning. Over that 18 year period we've had to make concessions about how we choose to relegate our time. Unfortunately being able to sequester ourselves in a room and spend hours at a time with our headphones on sitting on the floor and learning a song one chord at a time until our hands fail is not one of those things which has managed to survive intact in every case. I mean that genuinely. (Those of us who have spent countless hours dissecting and digging through the mix to pluck out that one gem of a solo or bass line know what I'm talking about ;) ) The desire is still there though.

    Lord help me I'm just not that good at playing guitar. I'll never pound out an "Alive" or a "Life Wasted" or a "Nothing As It Seems," but I still have the desire to learn more of your songs and further my appreciation of your song writing process and appreciate the compositional choices you have made as artists. To be blunt, we non-passive listeners would love to learn more about the songs we already know and love so well.

    None of you owes us listeners anything and we're well aware of that. You certainly don't have to put a tab collection out. It does seem like a logical next step considering the history of how many other bands and artists have done it. And furthermore, with the careful attention each of you pays to the quality of art you produce (see: lucylespian's first post above), it seems that this could be another opportunity for Pearl Jam to display to other bands what high-class treatment of their fans truly is.

    For what it's worth the only other band who's complete catalog of tab I would consider buying is the Beatles, and I already have that. Really.

    Best Wishes.
    "A lot more people are capable of being big out there that just don't give themselves a chance." -Stone Gossard
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    SomethingCreativeSomethingCreative Kazoo, MI Posts: 3,347
    we should get it for free, they owe it to us!
    "Well, I think this band is incapable of sucking."
    -my dad after hearing Not for You for the first time on SNL .
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    lucylespianlucylespian Posts: 2,403
    Very nicely put.
    I would like to add, that now that Ten is out on Rockband, there can be no possible objection to published tab books, on any grounds of commercialism or need for anyone to "use their ears". If playing the songs on few coloured buttons on a fake guitar is OK, then surely those of us who need a little help to play them on a real guitar deserve that. Apart from which, the music deserves to be presented in that way. My Led Zep box set with performance and studio notes is a treasure trove.
    Even if I could transcribe every note instantly with my ears, I would buy a box set before any re-release or T-shirt or poster.

    CB29798 wrote:
    To Pearl Jam,

    Do it or not, you no doubt realize there are people out here who have been asking for this for a long time. Not because we're too lazy to give your albums a solid listen and learn to play by overcoming all the mistakes on the learning curve, because many of us no longer have the time to devote to the art of deciphering an album one song at a time. Many of us have been in your listening audience from the beginning. Over that 18 year period we've had to make concessions about how we choose to relegate our time. Unfortunately being able to sequester ourselves in a room and spend hours at a time with our headphones on sitting on the floor and learning a song one chord at a time until our hands fail is not one of those things which has managed to survive intact in every case. I mean that genuinely. (Those of us who have spent countless hours dissecting and digging through the mix to pluck out that one gem of a solo or bass line know what I'm talking about ;) ) The desire is still there though.

    Lord help me I'm just not that good at playing guitar. I'll never pound out an "Alive" or a "Life Wasted" or a "Nothing As It Seems," but I still have the desire to learn more of your songs and further my appreciation of your song writing process and appreciate the compositional choices you have made as artists. To be blunt, we non-passive listeners would love to learn more about the songs we already know and love so well.

    None of you owes us listeners anything and we're well aware of that. You certainly don't have to put a tab collection out. It does seem like a logical next step considering the history of how many other bands and artists have done it. And furthermore, with the careful attention each of you pays to the quality of art you produce (see: lucylespian's first post above), it seems that this could be another opportunity for Pearl Jam to display to other bands what high-class treatment of their fans truly is.

    For what it's worth the only other band who's complete catalog of tab I would consider buying is the Beatles, and I already have that. Really.

    Best Wishes.
    Music is not a competetion.
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    LukinFanLukinFan Florida Posts: 29,005
    www.RLMcDaniel.com

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    I was womdering how long that would take :)

    lol........
    How I choose to feel......is how I am.
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    JammalamboJammalambo Posts: 1,321
    Pearl Jam really should do this.. I never understood why they don't have tabs for at least their first three albums, that have been huge commercial success.. Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden have official tabs for ALL their albums (well, except for Screaming Life/Fopp and Ultramega OK), so why not PJ?
    Of course, no one here mentioned that Ten has on official songbook published by Hal Leonard, but.. It SUCKS! The people who transcribed it must have smoked good pot when they wrote this book..
    Eventually, I honestly don't think that they have any intention to do offical tabs for all their albums, but.. It would be A FUCKIN' GREAT THING, even if I know all their songs.
    Please, Pearl Jam, at least think about it.. If you put your songs on lame videogames to please the younger ones, you could please us old-style guitarists, too :D
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    lucylespianlucylespian Posts: 2,403
    I think the problems with the Ten book possibly relate to the era in which it was published.
    You have to remember that 25 yr ago when I started playing, you could not get "as recorded" books at all. Everything was "piano/vocal/guitar" transcribed to a different key, and it all sucked.
    Given that Ten came out 20 yr ago, the book would have been published in the transitional period between he P/V/G days, and now, so doing things like the key to Even Flow so it could be played in standard etc is not so weird if you think about it.
    We take for granted that stuff will be "as recorded" today, but it's not always been that way, and I think that the Ten book was part of the learning curve for the industry.
    That said, it's time to change that, and bring out the rest of the albums. I'd even settle for a "best of" with maybe LOTL or LAMSG to base an anthology on.
    Interestingly, there are a few other published tabs floating around. I picked up Dissident and Daughter from www.sheetmusicdirect.net a while back. I think that's all there is though.

    Mods, is there any way to start a petition for this ?? It would be a good example of "noisy democracy". Hard for the boys to ignore that, given how much energy and belief they have committed to that over the years.
    Music is not a competetion.
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    HeavyHandsHeavyHands Posts: 2,130
    Bump
    "A lot more people are capable of being big out there that just don't give themselves a chance." -Stone Gossard
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