Finding Keyboard Parts for Songs

[Dapper Swindler]

Sorry if this is a newbie question but I've looked on google for hours and can't find the answer.

I have been told to find the sheet music for the keyboard parts of some songs, specifically:

Closing Time - Semisonic
All I Wanna Do - Sheryl Crow
Fade Into Me - Mazzy Star
What I Got - Sublime

I am NOT looking for keyboard or piano arrangements of the songs, but the actual notation for the keyboard or piano parts used in the song. For "Closing Time" this is pretty easy to figure out on my own (BGBGDGDGBGBGCGBG). But I have no clue for the others (Don't even hear keyboard in "What I Got")

I'm not sure if this information is readily available and I just don't know where to look or if it's impossible. I've given up Googling, hopefully someone here can direct me.

 

[letsel]

Might be a tough one. It's generally easy to find sheet music for classical pieces, but not so much these.

The only advice I can give is to try and look for guitar pro files of the songs you want(you can get a free trail of guitar pro), some of the guitar pro might have the parts you are looking for, but since guitar pro files are user made, there is no garuantee.

 

[GigMan]

Sorry if this is a newbie question but I've looked on google for hours and can't find the answer.

I have been told to find the sheet music for the keyboard parts of some songs, specifically:

Closing Time - Semisonic
All I Wanna Do - Sheryl Crow
Fade Into Me - Mazzy Star
What I Got - Sublime

I am NOT looking for keyboard or piano arrangements of the songs, but the actual notation for the keyboard or piano parts used in the song. For "Closing Time" this is pretty easy to figure out on my own (BGBGDGDGBGBGCGBG). But I have no clue for the others (Don't even hear keyboard in "What I Got")

I'm not sure if this information is readily available and I just don't know where to look or if it's impossible. I've given up Googling, hopefully someone here can direct me.

Dapper Swindler (great screen name, btw) -
Since you mentioned that you listened to the Sublime song and don't hear keys - I think you probably have a decent ear, you just have to develop it.

The Sublime tune has nice "waoah-wah" type of keyboard thing going in the back (starting on the 2nd beat, every 8 bars) if you listen closely - you can find some cool kind of sound that's close to that, even a modified organ patch.

Cheryl Crow usually has nice organ timbres behind her tunes - I don't have that tune handy to listen to it for you but my suggestion is to try to pick out organ parts that may be going on.

Closing Time has an obvious piano riff - just learn it by ear, forget the sheet music. In fact, most of the time you're better off to be able to pick out parts by ear unless it's something really complex... most rock songs are not (complex). I play in a wedding/banquet band & we do cover a lot of rock tunes but also the ballads & standards - that's where I need music charts, for things like "Unforgettable" and others that I just haven't learned by heart (even though I should, since we do them at every gig).

 

[EJFan]

I'm going to give away one of my trade secrets here ...

Whenever I've gotten REALLY stuck (which is more often than I like to admit), I go out and find a reasonable sounding MIDI file of the song in question. I bring it into a sequencing program, isolate the keyboard tracks and look at the notation.

If the song just flat doesn't HAVE keys, I'll look at the other tracks and try to harmonically complement the bass line, guitar chording, horn riffs, of whatever I can find to bite on.

As my ears have improved over the last few years, I find I have to do this less and less, but it's resulted in endless compliments ... such as "you're the first keyboardist I've ever worked with who really busted his butt to nail down the right line for that song."

Funny thing is, I usually wind up duplicating just enough key riffs to "cop the feel" of the piece and wing it on the rest ...

PLEASE don't rat me out to my band, LOL!!!

 

[Dapper Swindler]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the tips. I'll let you know how things work out.