Neil Young -- Decade: Piano/Vocal/Chords [Sheet music]

Neil Young (Author), Carole Cuellar (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1994

A survey of his long career -- 136 pages, lots of photos, and 35 rock 'n' roll greats: Cinnamon Girl
* Harvest
* Heart of Gold
* Sugar Mountain
* Southern Man
* Ohio and many more.

Product Details

• Sheet music: 136 pages
• Publisher: Alfred Publishing (November 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0769208258
• ISBN-13: 978-0769208251
• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 8.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,327,161 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's all here, if you can play the notes., April 11, 2003

By 

Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Neil Young -- Decade: Piano/Vocal/Chords (Sheet music)

The songs in this book are dated from 1966 to 1976, though the book didn't appear until 1978. Neil Young has a long history in music, and it has been easy for other performers to pick up and do songs that have been scored as this book has, with a separate treble staff for the vocal parts, and chord charts for guitar chords throughout. A footnote at the beginning of "The Loner" explains how to make the guitar different, "Tune first and sixth strings to D (D A D G B D)" (p. 29) to play the chords in that song. This is not the same as "Sugar Mountain," "Tune all strings down one whole step to a D-based tuning." (p. 21).

I had an early video of his "Rust Never Sleeps" concert, in which Neil Young sat down by himself at a piano and played, note for note, the song "After the Gold Rush" as it appears on pages 54-57 of this book. The last page is mainly devoted to singing the line, "Flying Mother Nature's silver seed to a new home in the sun" twice, after "All in a dream, all in a dream the loading had begun." I realized that it would take a lot of preparation to get that far, but the time which I devoted to reaching that destination was some of the most worthwhile musical efforts that I have ever attempted.

There are 35 songs in NEIL YOUNG ~ DECADE. Fans of particular concerts, like WELD, might consider most of these songs very early in Neil Young's career. The book is copyright 1978, Weld didn't come along until 1991, and only includes "Cinnamon Girl," "Cortez the Killer," "Like a Hurricane," and "Tonight's the Night": only four of the 35 songs in this book. Fans of Buffalo Springfield might appreciate "Expecting To Fly," and people who sing harmony might see if matching the notes in the book is easier than trying to pick parts off the recorded version. The piano introduction for the song "Cinnamon Girl" has the kind of bass line that I find most interesting in the written music, jumping around slightly before it becomes the melody, and a vocal harmony is also provided. This book helped me learn how much is going on in music besides the melody. The complications for the song "Southern Man" take pages 58-61, while "Helpless" fits on pages 62-63 fine. I have a tendency to like songs called "I Believe in You," and the song on pages 64-66 asks the question like he is really worried about "Am I lying to you when I say that I believe in you?" "Oh, oh" coincides with "la la la la" after that.

Then we get "Heart of Gold" on pages 71-73, "Ohio" on pages 74-75, "Old Man" on pages 78-81, "Harvest" on pages 90-94, "The Needle and the Damage Done" on pages 96-99, and I already mentioned some of the more recent numbers. The last song in the book is "Long May You Run" from 1976, suggested for Bright Country Style. You might have heard a few of the other songs in the book, but these are the ones I think you ought to play, if you want to learn something. I hope you can play them better than I can.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun for Beginning Guitar Players, July 6, 2005

By 

J. McAndrew "Jeffrey C. McAndrew" (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Neil Young -- Decade: Piano/Vocal/Chords (Sheet music)

Chords are easy enough and songs fun to play. Knowing so many of the songs makes it easy to figure them out on my guitar. Pure fun.

Jeff, the stay at home strummer

5.0 out of 5 stars It is what it says it is, September 7, 2009

By 

Stephen Maestas "toooldtorockandroll-tooyoung... (Albuquerque,NM) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Neil Young -- Decade: Piano/Vocal/Chords (Sheet music)

I am just starting out on guitar and I really appreciate this book. I doesn't have any long solos transcribed, but there ain't room for them without sacrificing something else. You learn the chord structure, the melody, piano accompanyment and best of all, the chord fingerings and guitar tunings. If I want to learn the exact way the song is played, I play along to the CD over and over again. This book will get you past the rudiments of learning the song, you have to do the rest.