Customer Reviews

Nick Drake Song Collection (Music)

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MUSICIAN'S MUSICIAN

As anyone likely to be in the market for this book will already know, Nick Drake was possibly unique.

Nic Jones was an astonishingly original guitarist, master of wild tunings; Gordon Lightfoot a consummate songwriter; Art Garfunkel a sensitive and distinctive singer. But none of them combined all these attributes as Nick Drake did. Only Joni Mitchell seems comparable, and she didn't record until her late twenties; Nick made Five Leaves Left when he wasn't even old enough to sign the recording contract, and five years later he was dead.

Nick's music, then, is more than the sum of its parts, the melody, guitar-work, lyrics and voice interweaving to produce an "emergent phenomenon" -- the Nick Drake magic.

How did he do it? If we expect to find a clue, it should surely be in a book like the present one. Here, however, we have some good news and some bad news. First, the good news.

CONTENTS OF THE BOOK

Nick's legacy is three studio albums, some alternative- and out-takes, plus a few odds and ends, mostly collected on Time of No Reply. All the tunes from the main albums are notated here including the instrumentals from Bryter Later. There are also five songs from Time of No Reply: the title track, "Rider on the Wheel", "Black Eyed Dog", "Hanging on a Star", and "Voice from a Mountain". "I Was Made to Love Magic", "Joey", "Clothes of Sand", "Mayfair" and "Strange meeting II" are omitted.

The book is intelligently and attractively designed. There is a thoughtful preface by Nick's preferred arranger, Robert Kirby, and then the complete lyrics are given, interspersed with many interesting and unfamiliar family photographs of Nick.

The songs are then presented in staff notation, grouped by album.

Now the bad news. The format throughout -- unfortunately for guitarists -- is vocal line plus piano. Guitar tunings and capo positions are specified, and chord symbols and fretboard diagrams appear above the staff, but there is no tab. Even "Horn", a pure guitar piece, is presented on a piano staff.

Also unfortunately for guitarists , the songs are notated at absolute pitch -- so that (for instance) "The Thoughts of Mary Jane" (which Nick plays in A capo'd at 6) appears in E flat.

And so we come to the crucial question:

HOW ACCURATE ARE THE TRANSCRIPTIONS?

I haven't yet had a chance to work right through the book, but the melody lines appear to be accurate, as do the lyrics -- something one should be able to take for granted, but often can't.

However, the accompaniments are not Nick's but arrangements by one Roger Day (it says in small print at the end). Where the guitar part is easily played on the piano -- as with the aforementioned "Horn" -- they are reasonably close; but this is not often the case with Nick's music. To be brutally frank, many of these arrangements could fairly be called travesties. One of the constant joys of discovering Nick's music, is that if you can only find the right tuning, many of his pieces almost play themselves. But here, most of that is lost.

For instance , "Road" (bizarrely labelled "Radio" on my copy of Pink Moon, incidentally) is a miniature masterpiece; the transcription, however, is a mere shadow of the original, and even the bass line is wrong. Furthermore, I'm not even convinced that the tuning given (DGDDAD capo'd at 4) is correct; it makes parts of the piece (the original, that is) virtually impossible, or at least very difficult. EADEBE capo'd at 2 seems to me more likely, and certainly much easier.

"Horn", on the other hand -- a very simple piece -- is completely accurate.

SUMMARY

If you're a pianist, or if you're just interested in the lyrics and melody lines, then this is a good, even an excellent book.

If you're a guitarist who wants to know what Nick played, however, then things are less rosy. It seems to me that an honest effort has been made to present information for guitarists; but it just isn't adequate.

You can certainly use this book as a starting point. If you have the time, energy and inclination, you can (as I have done, out of curiosity) copy a piano part here into a notation program such as Finale or Sibelius, and transpose it to the original guitar (i.e. sans capo) key. If you keep the voices in separate layers, you can then copy and paste the bass and treble clefs into a single guitar (8vb treble) clef. However, you will not in most cases get a correct guitar part without a lot of tweaking.

"More than accurate"? I think not.

The sad part of all this is that no one can now publish accurate guitar transcriptions without inviting a copyright infringement suit.

Great Book of music from a genius that is finally receiving recognition that is 30 years overdue. Although I myself am a Keyboard player, there are still some good arrangements for keys such as Day is Done and Fly. However, many of the pieces, a keyboard player would have to work out for themselves, as Nick Drake on many of his songs, used various guitar tunings, which does change the character of the piece. Overall, this music book is a must for any Nick Drake fan !!

Trying to transcribe the utterly otherwordly sounds that emanated from Drake's acoustic guitar has proved fruitless to those of us who've attempted to figure out what tunings he uses on a particular track, what kind of guitar (6 or 12 string), what chord voicings/fingerings, etc. Luckily, we now have this book. It's more than accurate, and it has unlocked the secrets of many of the songs that musicians have probably given up trying to learn to play. So invest in this book. It's beautifully produced, also, with a nice layout that includes lyrics and photos.

Also, for guitarists who can't read music, there are chord tabulatures included. From what I can tell, everything is in the right key, and you're also prompted to use a capo on certain songs.

Finally, and just a "good neighbor" note from a longtime acoustic guitarist, Drake often tuned some of his strings higher (deliberately) to get different open tunings. There are ways around this (like tuning all the strings down a whole step, then slapping on a capo so you'll be in the right key but without the danger of having a taut string snap on you). Be careful if you tune your strings higher than concert pitch because they can break if you play with a lot of attack and rhythm. Use a light touch if you're tuning, say, your D string up a whole step to E, because most guitars aren't designed to hold that kind of tension on the neck, which can slowly begin to bow over time unless you remember to tune all the strings back to concert pitch when you're done.

Best of luck if you take the plunge. It's worth it!

Quite a good book

A few quibbles

Firstly, theres not more from after the 3 albums Nick recorded in his lifetime. So to play Black Eyed Dog, for example, you'll have to find the Way To Blue guitar tab book (you only need the top 3 strings for Black Eyed Dog, incidentally)

Also, most of the songs composed in his lifetime were not in standard tuning (aside from, say, Poor Boy) - so take that into account if you're struggling to learn some of his songs, as you might have to retune your entire guitar, or use a capo (like I do on Thoughts of Mary Jane, while retuning the 'G' string
by a half step!)

But this is a very good book, although it does not have tab, it will help you learn the songs. Also, its not just a book of the songs, there are a few pages of pictures.

Also, the focus is on the 1st 3 albums, so don't be expecting too much from the later collections like, uh, A Collection (which has Plaisir d'amour), Made to Love Magic (which has "Tow the Line"), Time of No Reply (which has everything).

So bear that in mind, but I think this is a good place to start to learn Nicks songs on Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter and Pink Moon. Either that or snag old issues of Acoustic Guitar or Guitar World Acoustic or Total Guitar magazine to work out the chords you play!

This book is out of print and seems to be available only on import. Or on eBay. It does not look to have been published here in the US. Probably by Omnibus