[LAU] MIDI pedigree

[David Kastrup]

Michael Zoet <Michael.Zoet at zoet.de> writes:

> Am 05.04.21 um 15:24 schrieb David Kastrup:
>> ...
>>
>> Now here is the thing: all of them, as accurate and detailed as they
>> appear otherwise, get the central guitar riff wrong.  The second bar of
>> the central riff is a (broken) straight G major chord, g b d g.  The
>> guitar tabs have it.  The original single version has it (haven't found
>> other versions).  Tutorials have it.  But the Midi files invariably have
>> g c d g.  All of them, the simple and more complex ones.
>>
>> So I have two working theories: there is some other version of "(Don't
>> Fear) the Reaper".  The other is that all MIDI files have a common
>> ancestor that got it wrong and never looked twice, in spite of very
>> meticulously transcribing all the solos.
>>
> My guess here: the C is a mistake and it should be a B ;-).

Sure: after all, the original version doesn't have it.  But all the
_different_ MIDI files floating around in the public have it.  And that
suggests that while they have quite different amount of detail in them,
that they somehow started from the same wrong ancestor without bothering
to recheck.

> With a C in the G major chord it would be a Gsus4 major chord. This is
> definitely not what is played in this song as far as a I know it. (It
> is a long time ago I practiced it.)

All the guitar tutorials I could find for it say B, as do the single
version and the Agents of Fortune version.

> As you can play the open G major chord in different ways on the guitar
> for this song I would only play it with a G on the 6th string, B on
> the 5th string, a D on the 4th string, a G on the 3rd string, a B or D
> on the 2nd string and a G on the 1st string. (Even when you do not
> play the notes on the 1st and 2nd string in this song I would put my
> fingers there ;-).) But different guitarist have different styles how
> to play it...

It's pretty much presented in the same way by every guitar player I saw.

-- 
David Kastrup