SFTM Question

MikeS

Student Of The Blues
Staff member
@Griff I'm looking over Solos From The Masters Albert King "Sky Is Crying" solo and I'm having trouble reading the count in bar ten keep finding 14 beats in that measure..
12/8 time
5 8th notes 1,2,3,4,5
1 qtr note 6,7
4 16th notes 8,9
2 8th notes 10,11
1 qtr note 12,13
2 16th notes 14

Am I misreading notes 5 & 6?

SFTM_Albert_King_Bar_10.png
 

dvs

Green Mountain Blues
The notes you've labeled 4 & 5 are grace notes, they shouldn't be numbered. Count them as part of the quarter note F# on the 14th fret.

They are smaller than the regular notes - that's how you can identify them as grace notes.
 

MikeS

Student Of The Blues
Staff member
That certainly would fix the count, but they are not shown as grace notes in the tab & Griff always shows them in the tab..
So you are saying that it is a pre-bend grace note & a tied grace note leading the the quarter note? ( don't think I've ever seen two grace notes together.) Very strange.
Usually when I see notes like that on the regular staff, it means that they are ties from a previous note.
 

dvs

Green Mountain Blues
No, I just said they are grace notes. I didn't go back and listen to it so I don't know how he plays it.
 

Griff

Vice Assistant General Manager
Staff member
@MikeS even though they don't appear, necessarily, as grace notes in the TAB, that 14th fret (at position 4 in your diagram) is, in fact, a grace note in the notation.

It's a little weird, but this is one of those things that we have to learn to work with because of the limitations of notation when it comes to guitar stuff...

In order to release a bend, 2 things have to happen, a starting note, and an ending note with a strike (that's the up part of the bend) followed by the release.

The "up" part of the bend, happens silently, and effectively instantly - thus the pair of grace notes to indicate the full step bend up, and you'll notice the first of the two grace notes is in parentheses to indicate that it is not struck. This is just how pre-bends are written in standard notation... ugly but true.
 
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