Kares said:

I'm sorry but if you seriously think that "90% of Berklee students end up working at Target" you don't know what you're talking about. No, they don't. A vast majority of them end up working in music, at least a third of them end up building a successful career solely in music – they will be professional touring musicians or teachers or whatever they chose. Being a teacher, for example, is a happier and far more rewarding place than becoming a star for a lot of people! Not everyone is striving for money and fame. (A friend of mine has 2 degrees in music and is a very highly skilled and amazing artist – she's even young and beautiful, yet she never wanted to be on stage, she's far happier teaching children!) And the ones that do end up at Target can either thank themselves for that, for not putting enough work into their chosen careers or a lot of them simply lack the complex skill set (business skills, social skills, determination etc) needed to achieve success.
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Berklee, just like any other school on earth is no guarantee for success and it certainly won't do the work for you if you want to study there. And in some cases it cannot even give you the training you'd need (like another friend of mine who's been asked by Berklee's teacher on his first day whether he'd like to teach there instead of being a student because he was already a world-class musician winning the best soloist prize at Montreux... needless to say he left Berklee after a year because there was no point...), but still, it is one of the highest rated music schools for a reason.
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The two things that a lot of people here don't seem to realise and have been bothering me for years on the org are:
1. Music > popular music. Some of you will need to broaden your horizons as most of the comparisons I read on prince.org are limited to popular artists and sometimes I get the impression that people don't even see past the popular genres.

2. Commercial success in music has very little to do with musical talent and skills, except in rare cases such as Prince's. Still, talented as he was, he never would've achieved worldwide fame simply with his music, he needed management, marketing, controversy, image etc, etc too. Playing in bars or the Superbowl is NOT a measure of musicianship or talent or skills. It is far more complex than that and comparing artists based on this criteria is ridiculous.
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[Edited 5/15/18 11:21am]

The quote that I bolded was the point I was trying to make. 90% is an exaggeration, but you still get my point.

The second bolded part - well that is true for anyone, surely? Who has achieved worldwide fame simply with their music? In fact who has made a good career with 'just their music'? The other skills which you listed (business skills, social skills, determination etc) are needed no matter what branch of the music industry you hope to make a career in.

I make a living as a musician, so believe me when I say, I am fully aware that a world famous star is far from the only career in music. I am also fully aware that not every musician even wants be a 'star'. Hence why I never said such a thing in my initial post. I just said that the majority of people who go to music school don't end up doing what they wanted. As I said before, 90% may be a bit of push.

jjam said:

The main problem is that a lot of teachers either forget/aren't aware that they are there to inspire. Nothing worse than being taught by a teacher who doesn't want to be doing it and makes that clear in their behaviour.

I do not understand people who teach when they're just not right for it. It's painful to witness.

dandan said:

PeteSilas said:

they don't make no money,not many of them anyways. Including Mr. Cardenas, I last saw him the very night Prince died, playing purple rain and hating it, in a bar in south seattle, with a tip jar out that I generously placed 20 bucks in. His dislike of Prince was still there as he said "let's play some bowie, he died too" and the drummer glared at him and said "let him have his day". that night was surreal and i must say, they killed Purple Rain, not a dry eye in the house.

Oh man, I was actually being a bit facetious with my 'his career has amounted to him playing covers in clubs for $50 a night' comment!

Apparently I couldn't have been more on the money! That's amazing.

i have to say it was strange, I requested Purple Rain the week before, kinda poking at Cardenas, I had no idea what would be happening with Prince in the next week, this was before the moline incident i believe. So, i unwittingly gave them a rehearsal of the song, as I say, they killed it the next week. A lady came to the stage and informed those that didn't know that Mark was in the movie.

jjam said:

PeteSilas said:

ya, and i hate teachers, i've said it directly to some teachers, feeling be damned "I never had a teacher worth a damn". Unfortunately, we are all socialized to believe we need them, we really don't, not all of us anyways. You are your own best teacher, the rest is more about power and place than "teaching" fuck em all.

The main problem is that a lot of teachers either forget/aren't aware that they are there to inspire. Nothing worse than being taught by a teacher who doesn't want to be doing it and makes that clear in their behaviour.

teachers aren't really respected in the us for whatever reason, i can remember since i was a child hearing them bitching about their pay, going on strikes, that kind of leaves an impression too, nowadays we have all these freaky women teachers fucking students (i wouldn't have minded that kind of teaching myself). The theory is, people who teach in public schools are generally bottom of the barrel material. That's what they say anyway.

dandan said:

jjam said:

The main problem is that a lot of teachers either forget/aren't aware that they are there to inspire. Nothing worse than being taught by a teacher who doesn't want to be doing it and makes that clear in their behaviour.

I do not understand people who teach when they're just not right for it. It's painful to witness.

not hard to understand at all, strictly for the money, like a lot of people who sleepwalk through their day jobs.

GaryMF said:

dandan said:

opening chord is Dm7. Wendy said its B♭sus but it isn't really because there is no suspemsion and the major 3rd is implied. In the song its not a B♭9 chord because there is no dominant 7th. its a B♭ add 9

ufoclub said:

dandan said:

Yes, but Béla Bartók couldn't compose and perform something like Darling Nikki or If I Was Your Girlfriend. He simply wasn't capable of conceptualizing and realizing something like that.

Hey now I actually listen to Béla Bartok in the car... just speed it up and he could have made something like Darling Niki or If I was Your Girlfriend... but minus the vocals. Or maybe speed up Ligeti? I’ve just scanned this thread... but in my experience most trained musicians who know all the theory, categories, and structure... are still at a complete loss in coming up with something cool and interesting. I think people don’t realize that ultimately all that categorization and technique is actually what followed. Holding onto those rules and musical intelligence seems to really trip up the flow of creatively resonant sound. That one little bit about Wendy saying Prince didn’t know what he was doing with the change on the outro of “Mountains” but succeeded because of instinct kind of pulls the wool from the “ears” so to speak. You could read that as the innate urge to try musical things instinctively without intelligence is the primary way interesting music is made. “Act on instinct”

Oh man I agree wholeheartedly! Hence my verbal ridicule of Mark for saying Prince didn't know the basics!

You're right, true creativity and excitement rarely comes from people who are constrained by their knowledge and adherence to the 'rules'.

One of my favourite quotes is from an engineer who says something like:

'Prince would grab the EQ knobs and twist them to add some excitment here and there, he didn't know or care what he was doing specifically, he just cared about how it sounded and how it made him feel.'

I love this, because it really emphasises what matters in music (especially pop music). 99% of people who listen to the music aren't musicians, so anything technical and indulegent for the sake of being difficult is utterly lost on them, and it just ends up being a piece that doesn't make them FEEL anything. People only know if they like a piece of music or if they don't don't like it. They only know if a piece of music resonates with them and makes them feel something, whether that be happiness, sadness, lust, anger, anything! They can't tell you why it does and they don't care what clever thought has gone into the chord progressions or the dotted 16th note syncopation of the guitar part haha. Prince was amazing because he never forgot that, he was always about the feeling and capturing emotion in a recording. He's been very outspoken about his first record and how it was too perfect, too clinical, and how he didn't want his recordings to sound like 'an LA record'. So it's no surprise that For You didn't reall connect with people. It's also no surprise that his first reallybig hit was Little Red Corvette. That song is badly recorded, clipping, scruffy guitar work, unbalanced mix etc. But fuck me is it a great song performed with conviction - and that's all that matters because that's what translates to people!

SanDiegoFunkDaddy said:

opening chord is Dm7. Wendy said its B♭sus but it isn't really because there is no suspemsion and the major 3rd is implied. In the song its not a B♭9 chord because there is no dominant 7th. its a B♭ add 9

I don't agree.

I play it on piano (usaing a wurlitzer sound) as a Bbsus2 over a Bb.

Right hand: Bb-C-F Lef hand: Bb

Sounds perfect to me and that's a Bbsus2

jjam said:

Sorry, I must have been on crack earlier. It's

e 1st fret (3rd finger)

B 1st fret (2nd finger)

G 3rd fret (4th finger)

D open string

A 1st fret (1st finger)

Interesting you said that , cause I started playing this the way everyone had said , but for some reason I instinctively wanted to put that note A# in it too. I dont even know if its right but it sounds fuller when i play it that way.

You are the first person Ive seen say to play that and I was doing that too.

I dont bar the first 5 notes on 1st fret either , I let the d ring open.

[Edited 7/2/18 5:53am]

bonatoc said:

It reminds of all the getting-it-wrong covers of WDC out there.
They all omit the G#, they all go :

A min - G - G - A min

A min - G - G - A min

It's G sharp diminished (implying E major dominant), for SKipper's sake!

Technically speaking, the sound and function is an E7/G#. The chord in question is an E7 with a G# in the bass. A G# diminished chord does have 3/4 the notes of an E7, but the implication is clearly a V chord leading to i, not a vii diminished implying a dominant chord. It doesn't really matter as the sound is the same, but in the key of B major the second chord of Pop Life is D# minor, not Eb minor. #FORGIVEMEFORMYOCD

Kares said:

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These song books are always inaccurate to say the least, often totally wrong. They are aimed at amateurs who want a simplified, easy-to-play piano version, and for that purpose, they are OK. But they shouldn't be used for reference.
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The first three guitar chords on the score sheet are inaccurate, but usable. The fourth chord is totally wrong though.

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Anyway, the basic chords of Purple Rain *as played by Wendy* are:

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e ....... 1 ....... 1 ....... x ....... 6
B ....... 1 ....... 1 ....... x ....... 8
G ....... 3 ....... 3 ....... 2 ....... 10
D ....... 0 ....... 3 ....... 5 ....... 8
A ....... x ....... x ....... 3 ....... 6
E ....... x ....... 3 ....... 1 ....... x
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On the album it does sound like there's a B♭ in the bass in the opening chord, but when Wendy plays it these days, she omits it.
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[Edited 5/10/18 3:24am]

The third chord (Fadd9), has no third present in the intro. Wendy only plays the low 3 strings. The notes are F-C-G. If you are unable to hear this, you can see her doing it on the First Ave show where it was actually recorded, though it is pretty clear just by listening to the record that the A on the G string isn't there.

Er, the A is there on the released version on the 3rd chord.