I need to learn "Keep it to Yourself" by Sonny Boy II in one week as a request for a friend's birthday. Now I am all for learning it by ear and all that, but I do not have to time to do it right now.
So I was wondering if anyone here knew where there were tabs, or a how-to video, or anything to help me with this.
Here is the song:
Last Edited by on Mar 16, 2012 7:06 PM
i learned this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8KhyLE76Hw
that live video is laid back cigarette music you can play anything to a groove like that. are you singing? just get sonnys duckquack and some of his one trick pony riffs and just do it how you can. let the guiding spirit of eleggua (sonny boy) guide you and make offerings before the gig. maybe a sonny boy ebbo would help.
If that doesn't work, I tried some different combinations of Google searches, I found this, but WOT doesn't have enough info to rate the site as safe or not and it's set up with downloads, so without downloading I can't tell if it delivers what the Google link says, but you can decide for yourself how risk averse you are.
From Google:
Lyrics for : SONNYBOY VIDEOS Songs Free Download Pages 1 www.songsrip.com/search/lyrics/1/SONNYBOY+VIDEOS.html Download songs and lyrics like SONNYBOY VIDEOS for free,SONNYBOY VIDEOS songs free ... Every riff comes with conventional notation and harmonica tab. ... Sonny Boy Williamson Keep It To Yourself Bye Bye Bird Getting Out Of Town ...
There are also some books out there with tab for it:
That isn't that hard of a tune to pick up. You don't have to do it note for note for it to be effective. Out of all of the Sonny Boy tunes, this might be one of the easier ones. Plus, its all there in the video.
fastes easiest would be take it to the crossroads get away from people and computers and practice. youll be in fine form. and butterflies in the stomach are your frend.
I can't say this without it sounding harsh, but it's the simple truth. There isn't any "fast, easy route". Just keep playing the song over and over and learn it bit by bit. It's more than doable in a week if you apply yourself. The whole tune is only about three minutes long and there is probably less than sixty seconds of harp in it. If you sat for just one hour and just listened to the harp parts you could play them over many times. So in a week you could listen to it and practice it hundreds or even thousands of times if you really want to learn it.
Reading this thread has reminded how often we hear the phrase "I just haven't got time".
When it comes to learning harmonica or anything else come to that matter, five or ten minutes of focused learning is more useful than an hour or so of noodling around. How much time in a day do we all spend on the internet or watching TV? If we spent a fraction of that time doing some focused learning we'd all be much further down the path of where we want to go than we currently are. Some people like Christelle for example are highly motivated almost to the point of obsession and practice for many, many hours each day. For many people this simply isn't practical of course as "life" gets in the way. Those people could quite easily find at least twenty minutes a day to practice though if they really wanted too.
Of course when people use the phrase "I just haven't got time". What they really mean is "I can't be bothered and want it all handed to me on a plate". Nothing in life that's worthwhile is ever easy. You have to work at is to get good at anything. You have to be honest with yourself and realise whether you are really willing to put in the effort to learn, or would rather simply be a bystander and wish that you could do it but can't be bothered making the effort.
Look at people who are semi pro or amateur players like Aki Kumar, Jodanchudan, and a multitude of other players. They all have one thing in common. They make the effort and use focused learning to achieve their goals. They set short term goals and use them as stepping stones to reach the bigger picture.
Let's take Jodanchudan as an example. Adam posted his "Throwdown with the Pro's" challenge and four days later Jodanchudan posted his video submission in which he not only copied Adam's solo note for note, but also captured Adam's style and the intensity with which he plays. Not an easy feat by any means. He achieved it though using focused learning, listening to and playing the piece over and over again until he got to where he wanted to be.
Jodan is a "head cutter" that's an unfair example ;) just kidding folks... I don't know Jodan personally but I am aware that he is a serious student of the harmonica and does what it takes study wise to get the job done right!
Here is a linkLINK to book that deals with a lot of Sonny II songs, including the one you need.
mary had a little lamb and on top of old smoky were fast and easy. doing something with bent notes and soul and tone is not. billy shines may have the best counsel. get the groove and go ahead. get the lyrics close if you're singing it but there's no need to go letter perfect. the feel is the deal. ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
Well, if you've got good control of your 2 hole whole step bend and your 3 hole half step and blue third bends, and you can cop the groove, you can get the basic feel of most of the tune playing those notes and moving to the 4 draw every now and then at the proper time. That's not tab, but those are the notes that'll work. You can do some chording or not and the tune will still work using those notes if you get the groove right.
FWIW, I usually find it more effective to develop an original interpretation of a tune rather than trying to replicate THE original note-for-note. Get the right notes over the right chord changes and make it your own. You won't play SB's version as well as SB, anyway, so why do a second rate imitation? Make it your own using the original as a guide rather than a template. Just a suggestion.
Now, the original recorded version has some licks that are much more difficult to copy:
But, this is not the version that SB is playing live in the vid you posted.
Last Edited by on Mar 18, 2012 9:00 AM
no recording artist ever does a cover exactly like the original. sonny is a god with signature licks learn some licks. heres 3 gods sonny boy/sonny terry/little walter dont learn them note for note. pick up what you like and use it on your stuff others stuff and covers learn to feel youll know when to use it. i dont play john lee hooker note for note i cant. but i still use nigerian tricks that he did dr ross did and the recently discovered and recorded hill country artists in the 90s. probably the oldest music system is indo persian notes which are based on animal sounds like C is a peacock E is a goat B is an elephant. they didnt have tuners or tuning forks in the stoneage. sonny grew up in the country babies crying, goats cows, horses(A in india)TRAINS! one of the oldest images of a musician is a shaman with a deers head surrounded by animals with a songbow in his mouth. youre a magician and like pan when you pick up that harp youre in tune with the natural world connected to everything. its not about you. you shouldnt even remember what you do on stage. you dont perform its a form of possesion. it takes over you and it seems like you play well. but once you stop to think open your eyes to look at someone in a crowd, think about work car trouble etc. thats when you hit a trainwreck and you suck. you need to tune everything out while sucking the universe in. you must submit and admit you are nothing but a dust spec in the grand scheme of things. and it takes more than you your brain and study to freak people the hell out. get busy close your eyes and enter the world of dreams. and above all FEEL feel it yeah.
"it's not about you. you shouldnt even remember what you do on stage. you dont perform its a form of possesion. it takes over you and it seems like you play well."
Well, i don't know whether or not you "shouldn't" but the reality is if you are playing well you often don't. If you are playing what you feel and working off what the musicians around you are doing, you almost become a conduit for the music as it happens in the moment, especially if the other musicians are good or at least compatible. You don't get any of that if you are playing along with canned back up tracks which seems to be such a popular thing around here.
But yeah, the masters who recorded all this great stuff most likely never played it the same way twice themselves. That's why I have never understood the obsession so many players have with learning this or that solo note-for-note.
Last Edited by on Mar 18, 2012 1:33 PM
its all about possesion and losing your mind, blues is african music and you need this inside you http://soulmindbody.net/store/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/eshumask.jpg just ask the spirit of sonny boy to take over and he will man.
So am I trying to figure this out, but don't have the right harmonica. Can anyone tell what key it is in? I think it is somewhere between D an F# (I lost my A harp, so I can't test that).
I am going to try to work on the song most of today since I slept through my only class... so I will probably post a couple more times.
I didn't get around to it until recently, but it isn't going very well. I don't have a good ear, and I don't think I have the harmonica of the right key.
Did you go over the article in the first link I gave? They went over some of the licks in it, tabbed out.
Bugsy, I'd practice with a regular D in second position (it will sound an octave high, but that's alright for learning, and then, depending how you are performing it, just play it on the lowest harp you have (unless you've got something lower than a low D). There is software that will pitch shift a song for you if you want to practice along with it in a different key. Audacity will do it, and it's free, but there are probably programs that do it easier. You might have to find a program to strip the audio out so you can turn it into an MP3 (or find a site to download the MP3). Someone else might know a better software solution to get something you could pitch shift.
Bugsy - How long have you been playing harmonica? It can take a while to develop your ear. Like Nate says try using a regular D harp to pick out the licks. The most important thing it to get the feel of the track right. I wouldn't worry too much about copying it note for note.
