Alright. I've been playing the guitar for about 35 years. I was a kid in the 70's and I had neighbor friends who had older brothers. We all loved rock and guitars so we all aspired to become guitar players. It was as normal as competition in baseball or football for us. Learning new songs and playing them the way our guitar heroes did was the ultimate thrill. To nail it. That did not happen very often. I remember us being 12 and Richard (neighbor) played "Smoke On the Water" in E (wrong, it's in G) glowing with accomplishment. I knew it didn't sound right but I didn't know why. It never occured to us to just put on the record and check it out!I am now a professional muso and when I go to learn a new song from the annals of popular music, I want to get it right. So imagine my frustration when I google RAIN SONG TUNING and I get a lot of Richard-esque bad information! There's a you-tube of some 13 year old kid who's figured it out (almost) in standard tuning. He struggles and his hands change position a bit too often for it to look comfortable. There's just something askew and I can't tell what until I look at another youtube vid of Led Zeppelin doing it live. It is SO awesome and I can immediately see that Page's hands are way more set in position and relaxed. It's clearly NOT a difficult song for him to play. (Though some footage shows a fairly addled Page struggling to grasp the neck with requisite firmness.) There were three different versions of the so called Rain Song Tuning and I became impatient and confused til I learned that one was wrong, one was the tuning used on the studio lp and one is a LIVE tuning used in the vids of Zep that I saw. It is actually easier (for me, super musician that I am) to figure it out as I listen along with Pagey in the live tuning, which is, by the way, EADADE. So put on some SONG REMAINS THE SAME and play along with Pagey. Oh and young man, listen to the fucking records before you post bogusness!!!!
82times says
I had some run-ins with Robert Fripp's guitar craft tuning when I was a kid. My brain was never the same after that, I think...
Awesome story.
The Rain Song is absolutely one of my favorite songs of all-time but it could never be one of my favorite zeppelin songs... I wish that there could be another band with the energy and edginess as Zeppelin had. I have admired Jimmy Page since I was a kid, and I have been dying to have just a small jam session with him my whole life.. Anyways- back to the Rain Song, I realized at the age of 12 that the tuning was different, so I tried different variations, plus by watching Pagey's hands while he played live on The Song Remains the Same, I finally put my tuning keys in the right direction and low and behold http://timruble.com/?p=3 . I can never perfect anything that Pagey played. He is still the greatest...
Alright. I've been playing the guitar for about 35 years. I was a kid in the 70's and I had neighbor friends who had older brothers. We all loved rock and guitars so we all aspired to become guitar players. It was as normal as competition in baseball or football for us. Learning new songs and playing them the way our guitar heroes did was the ultimate thrill. To nail it. That did not happen very often. I remember us being 12 and Richard (neighbor) played "Smoke On the Water" in E (wrong, it's in G) glowing with accomplishment. I knew it didn't sound right but I didn't know why. It never occured to us to just put on the record and check it out!I am now a professional muso and when I go to learn a new song from the annals of popular music, I want to get it right. So imagine my frustration when I google RAIN SONG TUNING and I get a lot of Richard-esque bad information! There's a you-tube of some 13 year old kid who's figured it out (almost) in standard tuning. He struggles and his hands change position a bit too often for it to look comfortable. There's just something askew and I can't tell what until I look at another youtube vid of Led Zeppelin doing it live. It is SO awesome and I can immediately see that Page's hands are way more set in position and relaxed. It's clearly NOT a difficult song for him to play. (Though some footage shows a fairly addled Page struggling to grasp the neck with requisite firmness.) There were three different versions of the so called Rain Song Tuning and I became impatient and confused til I learned that one was wrong, one was the tuning used on the studio lp and one is a LIVE tuning used in the vids of Zep that I saw. It is actually easier (for me, super musician that I am) to figure it out as I listen along with Pagey in the live tuning, which is, by the way, EADADE. So put on some SONG REMAINS THE SAME and play along with Pagey. Oh and young man, listen to the fucking records before you post bogusness!!!!
Locating MOG account...
Comments (5)
The Rain Song is absolutely one of my favorite songs of all-time but it could never be one of my favorite zeppelin songs... I wish that there could be another band with the energy and edginess as Zeppelin had. I have admired Jimmy Page since I was a kid, and I have been dying to have just a small jam session with him my whole life.. Anyways- back to the Rain Song, I realized at the age of 12 that the tuning was different, so I tried different variations, plus by watching Pagey's hands while he played live on The Song Remains the Same, I finally put my tuning keys in the right direction and low and behold http://timruble.com/?p=3 . I can never perfect anything that Pagey played. He is still the greatest...