PDF can be found at [ Ссылка ]
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
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