By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin"They'd say, 'Oh, you mean
you're sold out.'
" 'No,' I'd say, 'There is no
sheet music for local bands.'Keith Sakaguchi Speaking about the days
before he created Power Chord Music books and began
transcribing songs by local bands.
Finding
the right note
A new book series prints music
By Burl Burlingame
recorded by local groups
Star-BulletinWHEN Keith Sakaguchi worked in a music store several years ago, nearly every day someone would walk in and ask for sheet music for the latest C&K tune, or the hottest Peter Moon melody, or whoever was filling up radio waves at the moment. "And I'd have to say, we don't have any," remembered Sakaguchi. "They'd say, 'Oh, you mean you're sold out.'
" 'No,' I'd say. "There is no sheet music for local bands.'
"And then they'd stare at me like I was obviously lying to them, and they'd walk out shaking their heads," said Sakaguchi.
The days are gone when sheet music was sold instead of records at the music store, generally by a piano-playing teen-ager demonstrating the latest from Tin Pan Alley while other kids sang along. Ancient history!
The rise of guitars as the instrument of choice in the 1950s and '60s called for new methods of writing out music. Unlike the training involved for other instruments, any kid with a couple of chords under his belt could play a melody. Which meant that many guitarists have little training in music or sight-reading. This led to something called tablature, generally a six-line staff below the traditional five-line music staff. The six lines correspond to guitar strings. Numbers on the lines indicate where on the guitar neck to play the note.
Even complicated melody lines can be sussed out in this manner.
Transcribing music is a laborious process, and the double-transcribing that tablature calls for meant that little local music could be prepared in this small market. "It's really tedious," said Sakaguchi. "But writing them down one note at a time is the only way it can be done."
Computers to the rescue! Smelling a niche, Sakaguchi discovered he could enter the transcriptions into a music-writing program and the program would do the tablature as well. The "sheet" music created could then be tweaked until it matched the original exactly. Low press runs took care of the rest.
Sakaguchi created Power Chord Music a few years ago and began transcribing songs by local bands. His first "book" contained tunes by Country Comfort, the second by Cecilio and Kapono, and the third - just released - has melodies from Hapa's first album. There are also 14 "single" sheets in print, and the music is available at locations like House of Music, Harry's, Music Mac, Island Guitars and Hot Licks. Prices are $12.95 to $14.95 for the books and $3.95 for singles.
These aren't runaway best-sellers so far - they average a few hundred sold - but fill a niche and will for years to come. Sakaguchi licenses the music from the publisher (music publishers don't actually publish music anymore; they're rights controllers) and they agree on a royalty to the artist.
The advent of the world-wide web may completely change the way sheet music is distributed as well, Sakaguchi points out. Online sheet-music providers like Sunhawk actually download the transcribed music for a fee, complete with an electronic "watermark" so it can't be easily duplicated. This will eventually cut out the middlemen and distribution. It means that a kid in Siberia or Ecuador or Utah with an itch to play Hawaiian music will be able to do so, note for note.
Power Chord's site is http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/powerchord/
GOT a sudden hankering to play something by Led Zepplin? Can't figure out that Ventures guitar lick? And what the heck are the lyrics to The Ramones' "Beat On the Brat With a Baseball Bat"? Since the corner sheet-music store has pretty much vanished, your best bet may be the Internet. You can't always get
what you want, but OLGA helpsOLGA stands for On-Line-Guitar-Archive, a massive, world-wide repository of warehoused e-mail. What's special about this e-mail is that it contains information about songs that are suitable for guitar - lyrics, tunings, chords, tablature, mandolin or bass tablatures, even the occasional snotty comment.
OLGA is available at http://olga.net but accessing the songs is easier through the American "search engine" site, http://www.harmony-central.com. This site is mostly general music links and information; click on the "tablature" link to get the OLGA database.
Then type in the name of the group or song, click "go" and sit back. You'll get a list showing song and artist, followed by various down-load sites scattered around the world. You'll get the information in "text" format, like e-mail.
Keep in mind that these transcriptions aren't the official sheet music; they're someone's idea of how the song goes, so you might get up to three or four versions on the same document. Most of the notes also warn you that this information is for private use only.
Since OLGA is filled by volunteer labor, don't expect every song ever written to be in there. Most aren't. But guitar-crazy bands like Led Zeppelin, The Ramones and The Rolling Stones have massive listings.
The shorter and vaguer the query entry, the more songs turn up. For example, entering the word "Hawaii" shows that OLGA contains a Beach Boys song about Hawaii, tablature for the Ventures' "Hawaii 5-O" theme, and John Prine's "Let's Talk Dirty in Hawaiian." That's it. You want slack-key, you'll have to transcribe and up-load it yourself.
For example, while testing OLGA we discovered that one editor's favorite song, The Archies' "Sugar Sugar," had no listing, which was a real shame. But her next request, the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want," gave us seven pages of detail on the tune, including alternate lyrics, various tunings of Keith Richards' guitars over the years, and the observation that "Mr. Jimmy" was obviously Jimi Hendrix.
But OLGA is constantly growing, so keep checking. Last week there was no transcription of The Royal Guardsmen's "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron," this week there is. Can "Sugar Sugar" be far behind?
Burl Burlingame, Star-Bulletin
