Genesis - Burning Rope - Piano Sheet Music + PDF
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- Опубліковано 18 лют 2021
- PDF can be found at www.buymeacoffee.com/ElektrikHob
Some useful gumpf; click on SHOW MORE (just below).
I’ve already done most of what I consider are Tony’s best Genesis tunes (Fifth, Moon, Vine, Undertow & Afterglow) but I personally believe this to be his masterpiece. I feel that Slippermen (which I’ve also done) may have been possibly his most original creative writing, but BR is first and foremost simply(!) a majestic song!
The main theme, the powerful instrumental sections, the delicate verse and above all, the arrangement are as good as anything ever written in the rock/pop field and, IMHO, rival a lot of the great classical composers like Rachmaninov for shear melodic and harmonic beauty and grandeur. Even the throwaway link to get from the middle instrumental back to verse 2 is rather lovely even if it IS totally out of the blue!
Anyway, enough eulogising as I suspect many, if not most of you, will already feel the same way :)
I’ve not attempted to just play what Tony plays on the piano on the ATTWT studio recording. Instead, rather like with Fifth & Vine in particular, this is how I play it myself. The way I play this is how I play many of these Genesis pieces. i.e. mainly based on Tony’s playing (in this case, piano/organ & synths) along with, again, for this song, some of Phil’s vocal melody and even some of Mike’s bass guitar fills and lead guitar lines.
I’m sure you’ve already noticed that the intro is faster than the original and the rest of the song is just a little quicker too. I’ve tried playing it at the original speed (it’s even slower on the live recordings I have!), but for solo piano, I really don’t think it works.
Of course you can play it any speed you like! That’s one of the reasons I don’t put tempo markings in at all. I’m guessing you’ll all have a pretty good idea in your heads as to how you think it should sound, so my PDF is really just a starting point (giving you the important notes & chords) for your own creativity :)
Hopefully you’ll also have noticed in the PDF that I give an arrangement of all the sections. This is actually how I normally ‘chart’ out any songs I work out for myself or any of the bands I’ve been in. i.e. I have the chord names (NOT all the dots!) for each section and then a list of which order the sections go in along with any alterations that are needed. I personally find it’s easier to visualise a song that way. I hope none of you find that it’s far too different to the usual repeats/DS al fine etc. that usually come with popular sheet music transcriptions… If nothing else it does save on paper a bit :)
Intro.
I play this with 4-note (sometimes even 5!) chords throughout (mostly all with the right hand; sometimes 3 in the right and 1 in the left) as I find it’s the best way to get the richness of the chords across. But if the 4-note RH chords prove to be a bit of a struggle, then simply drop the bottom note as it’s just an octave lower version of the top note. You’ll still have all the harmonic information. It just won’t sound quite as ‘thick’ obviously.
Instrumental Chorus and Chorus.
Same advice as for the Intro above. The main thing is to make that top note melody really sing :)
Verse.
There are many ways to play this really. This is one I often use, but sometimes I do an even more arpeggiated version (using the same melody and chords of course). Perhaps you already have your own style of playing that you could adapt this section to… Also, the 2nd verse in this video isn't played exactly as written... ;)
Pre-Chorus.
It is what it is :) You can safely ignore Mike’s little chromatic turnaround at the end of bars 57-59 if you like.
Instrumental section.
Give it some welly from bar 81 onwards!!
Also, be aware of the big key change at bar 92… To my mind there really wasn’t any easier way of dealing with a C#/Db minor to C#/Db major tone centre change at this point; Db minor for the first half was DEFINITELY out (8 flats!!) and C# major for the 2nd half, although perfectly feasible, would still have needed a double-sharp in bars 96 & 98.
Talking of which, you’ll notice a difference in the bass line for each of these two bars. Bar 96 is simple to play to the extent that it’s rhythmically like all the preceding bars. Bar 98, however, contains Mike’s actual syncopated 1/8th note bass line. Trying to play this while playing triplet 1/4 notes with the right hand is bl@@dy difficult!!
But it’s there to try if you want to REALLY mess with your head! Otherwise just use bar 96 instead :)
Outro.
To be played loud and majestically!! (until the delicate last 4 bars of course) :)
Finally, use the sustain pedal VERY liberally throughout the entire piece!
It's scored, as usual, with Sibelius 7.5
A firend of mine who's trying to play this has smaller hands and she's asked if I could do a version without one-handed four-notes-spread-over-an-octave chords (like in bars 11-17). As suggested in the notes, dropping the bottom note is the easiest and least harmonically damaging thing to do, but I appreciate it may be hard to just ignore any notes that are actually written on the page, especially if you're used to reading sheet music exactly as it's written. So I knocked up a PDF without the above style of chords. It got me wondering whether anyone else would benefit from this so I've made the PDF available - see above 😊
Thank you so much! The 36 year chord search for this song is officially over!!!!
can't believe you actually fulfilled my request - thank you so much!
One of my favourites too. This is so beautiful on the piano. Can't wait to have a go
Thank you 😊
You did it! Thanks so much!
Excellent work . i play a version based upon a multi instrumental score version I found somewhere in the web . Your version is really like the original one.! Greetings from Argentina .
This is awesome. I love this piano version of this beautiful song👌
That was Magnificent. Musical Excellence. Thank you for posting.
Beautiful job as usual!! A number of years ago I learned this from the album. Your version is more elaborate, I have small hands also so compensated when I could. I also agree with your assessment of this being one of, or Tony's best tune!! I saw this two of these shows back in 78 & this was amazing to hear live!! Thanks!!!
...Though I will add, some of us of a more specifically pianistic bent (and the M10 span to to with it) would love to isolate the piano as well, lol.
But truly, this is an excellent transcription of this glorious song.
Wow! I have to try it out immediately!
Beautiful transcription! As always, you nailed the voicings! IMHO WAW and ATTWT contain Tony's most gorgeous compositions. Since summer I'm also a piano teacher, both classical and jazz (in the widest sense), but I doubt that any of my students even know Genesis. Anyway: pristine work! Thanks for sharing!
wow !!!! excellent!!!!
Thanks for this great transcription of what for me is an outstanding track that wouldn't have been out of place on the W+W album.
Probably written at the same time and left off to leave room for a Hackett piece... (and I say that with the utmost respect)
@@davekyle6096 I don't know but I'd hate to think that they had this one in the can and left it off in favour of something like Your Own Special Way!
(YOSW is okay but I think of it as the kind of track that would have been more suited to the B-side of a single rather than featuring slap bang in the middle of a superb album.)
masterpiece!
Up there with Tony Banks greatest compositions, and that's saying something...
I'm glad to discover that I'm not the only one who has such a high regard for Burning Rope. It seems that there are actually quite a few of us.
Me too most definitely!! 👍🙂
As I said in the video description (SHOW MORE above), I think that Vine, Fifth & Moon are all fabulous but Rope is possibly his finest song!
excellent!
Hi Elektrik Hob, your version sounds really good with this piano reduction, I would say there's no need to reduce it even more :) If only I could make it sound just like this for solo guitar... Maybe I'll have to try harder. Thanks again for sharing the sheet music, it's very useful for musicians like me who want to play the music of their favorite bands on one instrument.
Another masterful transcription EH, really good job! As usual for me, I would score a couple of time signatures/note lengths differently (I learnt theory back in the 70s!), but you have a superb ear for Tony's work. How about 'All in a Mouse's Night'? Or 'Battle of Epping Forest'? I look forward to whatever you choose!
Which ones? I'm genuinely interested to get someone else's perspective :)
PS. I remember us chatting about Apocalypse in 9/8 :)
@@ElektrikHob You know what, EH, the whole thing's so good I'm not going to score it just to show you what I mean! However, my old-fashioned training would make me score these things differently:
1. Sequences of dotted notes, eg bar 40, weren't popular when I was learning. I'd score (UK names) dotted quaver, semiquaver tied to quaver; I would probably beam them per crotchet rather than minim.
2. 6/4 time signature... this for me is compound time, and should only be used if you're feeling 2 dotted minims per bar (compare two dotted crotchets for 6/8). Where you use 6/4 I would either score as 3/2 (three minims) or, as you do in bars 12-13 as I bar of 4/4, one of 2/4
3. I understand why you're using sextuplets in the dramatic contrapuntal ascending bass/descending chromatic chords, but it looks clumsy to my eye; although it would mean more stuff on the score, I'd use two lots of triplets per bar.
4. Lastly - and this is the one where my eyes bled a bit - Bar 84, Eflat major chord over a Csharp bass note? No, no, no, no! However much we hate double sharps, that has to be a Dsharp major chord, not Eflat.
Really small things, and, of course, anyone could argue that your way is just as valid. Now I'm going to get back and have another look at Riding The Scree to score the bar-feel of the keyboard (like I did with Apocalypse!)
@@sigil5772 All your points are perfectly valid and indeed I will change the score with regards point 2 as 6/4 is incorrect because, as you rightly say, it indicates compound time; although I will always argue that 9/8, in a modern context, doesn't always have to be compound as in our discussion about Apocalypse... 😉
With regards point 3, while I agree that two triplets would actually look better, changing from one sextuplet to two triplets is a right pain in the proverbial in Sibelius and seeing as it was Sibelius itself that generated the sextuplets...
Of course, your point 1 is correct in that the theoretical way to do things is not to cross beat boundaries. But I use it in this piece to emphasise any 3+3+2 rhythmical device be it dotted ctotchets (bars 99-100) or dotted quavers (bar 40) as I feel it gives a better indication of what’s going on than the tied equivalents.
As for point 4, again yes, you are quite right that in a C#m key centre the chord should be D#/C#.
Unfortunately, nearly every musician I’ve ever worked with in a non-classical context would always call the black notes C#, Eb, F#, G# and Bb no matter what key the piece was in! They would be wrong to do so at times (like here for instance) but I’ve often taken the easier route to save having an argument.
But I will change it to the correct chord in this instance and hopefully everyone will understand that an Fx (double-sharp) is the same note as a G on the piano keyboard :)
Hope you read my message Hob!!
You have turned a promise to reality!! One of my favourites songs of Genesis, that is posible to play for normal piano players and drumers ( imposible mission for a normal keyboard player to play for example "The Colony of Slippermen" or for a Ballad drummer to play "Down and Out" from " And then where three".....
Dont know if you remeber l mention last year " this" song of Genesis, as a desire . ( Also mention Wot Gorila, but that is very hard to play for a simple drummer)
I have a little time to try it, before l sell my Sonnor drum, because of pandemia economic crisis. This year is comming harder than 2020
I owe you one!! And l will reward you in some way.
I read your comment below the PDF
Your piano is great, it covers all the melodies going around in B. R
This song just emotion when listening to it. It ends pentatonic. And have a sección that sound ( for me) like american music ( like far west, or just New World Sinfonía of Dvorak with a Slovaquian feeling. Other part sound like " chacarera" of Argentine")
Congratulaciones!!!
Thanks! 😎
I'm so appreciative of you for making this and all other Genesis/Banks transcriptions - very excited to start learning this wonderfully underrated piece! Well done 😁Any hints on what to expect in the future?
There's already a hint in the notes to this video... 😉
I guess I must be driving myself insane looking for the hint 😉
@@abacab0080 👍
Awesome job and many thanks for doing this! I have 2 questions: 1) why do some of your postings (ie Slippermen) exclude chords (ie Gm7))? I rely on such chords to play these.
2) Your postings are far superior to the “official” Genesis sheet music books. I own the ATTWT sheet music book and it’s awful. It omits entire sections. Why is that?
1) That video and the only other without chords (Skies intro) were done getting on for 5 years ago and to be honest I just forgot to add the chords!
But I've just updated both PDFs 👍
2) I believe it's because the "official" sheet music has absolutely nothing to do with the band themselves.
I think I'm right in saying that, in general, the publishers who own the rights to the sheet music employ people to transcribe the music.
I should imagine that these minions have loads of music to get through and so can't put in anywhere near the amount of time and effort that I'm able to.
Also, they only usually transcribe the 'easy' bits (though they often get those wrong too!) and, for Genesis amongst others, none of the complex instrumental sections.
To be fair, Genesis music is certainly some of the most complex rock/pop music there's ever been and it's not just the publishing company that struggles to create accurate transcriptions; many, many Genesis transcriptions/performances that I've come across on the interweb are somewhat lacking in accuracy too...! 😉
This was the main reason that I started this endeavour all those years ago 🙂
@@ElektrikHob thanks for adding the chords to Slippermen and for your detailed explanation of the corporate sheet music situation. The Firth of Fifth sheet music famously omits the piano intro, which is preposterous.
I’m really hoping that for your next video, you post the chords to “In the Air Tonight”. (Kidding on the last point). :).
Cheers!
ITAT. 😂
Chorus Dm C Bb C
Verse Dm Am Bb F
all over a D bass
Nice Job. How about transcripting Kayleigh from Marillion ?
Thanks 👍
Sorry, not a fan of Marillion at all (apart from a small liking for the first album and a lot of respect for Fish's lyrical abilties) so I won't be doing any of their songs. But to be honest their stuff is really easy to work out (no outside-the-norm chords) so why not give it a go yourself...? 🙂
Here's a basic chord chart that you could start with:
Intro: Bm A/B
Verse: Bm A F#m G
Chorus: D A/D G/D D C G D
@@ElektrikHob I prefer paypal for payments. Is it possible ?
@@antoine3679 Yes, PayPal is fine. Just use my email address which you can get by clicking on my avatar (which will take you to my UA-cam channel homepage) and then clicking on ABOUT (assuming you have a YT account and you're signed in) where you'll see a 'For business enquiries:' line and my email will be revealed if you click where asked. Thanks 👍