Customer Reviews

Alison Krauss & Union Station -- So Long So Wrong: Guitar/Banjo/Vocal

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I think the book is good as a reference tool for some of the notes played. However, let's take the song "Happiness" for example. There are actually 2 guitars playing in the record, one in the center channel and one panned to the right channel. Although the TAB combines the best of the two, it's actually notating the harder way of playing either. The main guitar in the song was the right channel and that guitar had a capo on the 2nd fret to allow some of the notes to be played open. The filler guitar was played normal without a capo, but the book transcribes how to play everything without a capo which makes what would've been open strings harder, if not impossible to play along with the record. Like I said, a good reference, but not a bible. There are other more accurate TAB books on the market. Hope to see one for their "Forget About It" album, though. That would be nice.

I'm dissapointed that this book is scored for only either guitar or banjo, not for both most of the time. Some of the great picking in many of the songs, including the title song, is given only as chords. The following is quoted from the book:

"The songs in this book include both the guitar and banjo parts. On songs that have primarily guitar backing, with some banjo, the guitar chord grids are indicated throughout the arrangement and banjo grids are shown under the title. On songs with primarily banjo backing, the banjo chord grids are indicated throughout, with the guitar grids under the title. In addition, we've arranged the mandolin and fiddle solo's for guitar."

Somtimes only chords are given for both, but most of the hard stuff is written music with TAB staff. I think they should have much more written though.

I'm a huge fan of AKUS and this book was perfect. Not many tab books include tab for both Guitar and Banjo, but they managed to do it with this one. I'm mainly a banjo picker myself but also play some guitar. What was great is not only did it include the tab for guitar and banjo, along with music notation, but also it had an image of the chord layout for each chord change. It really came in handy for some of the really strange chord progressions that I personally never had to do before. Excellent for all levels of musicians.
Also if you don't have the CD for this yet, GO BUY IT! It's my personal favorite of all of AKUS's stuff.