people who play instruments,do you find prince's guitar or keyboard ,bass licks hard to learn by ear?
to me when doves cry intro is very hard to play on guitar .wendy's live playing of guitar intro of when doves cry is funny and amaterish .

i find it more easy to learn to play by ear some songs by guitar shreaders then prince's licks.it's because prince plays very acuratte guitar solos that might sound like improvisations but its not the case.contraery to shreaders who most of the time play guitar excerises and up and down the neck of guitar fast scales/.
prince piano and keyboard lines can be also hard because of his frequent using of less popular chords and harmony progression.

I'v been playing guitar for almost 2 years and its a split with me. It all depends on how fast he plays the song. For example the question of you isn't all that hard, but i also find when doves cry hard to play. I think someone even told me that it was played backwards...idk.

There's a few rehersal tapes from SOtT and Lovesexy tours where Miko is working out the intro to When Doves Cry. No samples, and he nails it.

Not saying it's easy, but it can be done. I haven't been able to pick it out by ear, though. Then again, I suck arse at guitar.

thebanishedone said:

Can't really be properly recreated onstage as the original intro guitar track on the recorded song itself was reversed, however there do exist some transcriptions of the piece where it's played as if the original track would not have been reversed even to begin with.

The songs are generally easy to play alog with, but the details can be difficult.

Play in the Sunshine is a good example. The song's pretty basic, but when they shout "play! play!" and he does, it's tough to follow.

I've never quite nailed the intro to When Doves Cry, but it's so distorted the notes are unclear. As is I can make it recognizable at least.

Little things like the crazy guitar solo on The Future must be studio trickery.

Trying to figure out detailed arrangements like horn lines can be a real exercise for your ears.

no when doves cry isnt played reversed.if it was you would hear some sounds like u have on beatles and jimi hendrix records.
its played normal with prince's weir choice of notes.

Of course there is no absolute answer to such a question... it all depends on how well your ear is developed, what you know about musical theory, what kind of music you're used to hearing/playing etc.

For me, Prince's music (in general) is pretty easy to pick out, in terms of melodic, rhythmic and harmonic information (such as chord changes). In those aspects, Prince is really NOT that odd or inventive, but actually kind of mainstream.

The complexity and uniqueness in Prince's music is, most of all, in the arrangements and production. Songs like, for instance, "Eye No" or "My Name Is Prince" might have only one single chord, but the arrangements are very complex.

thebanishedone said:

It's reversed.

Novabreaker said:

Doesn't sound like it's reversed to me either.

NDRU said:

Is NOT reversed, nor does it even sound like it is reversed.

I dont think its reversed too.

Also it he uses an octivator, so it could b played any amount of ways!

Quite a few of Prince's songs are easy to pick just by ear, because he often uses things that are very simple. But other songs could take years to work out haha!

Depends on the ear.....but I'd say yes for the most part.

Fast guitar solos when reversed and with added delay afterwards don't sound like they were reversed, because the dealy hides the flipped attack of the picked strings. However, we've heard enough confirmations on this subject so far and it seems to be common knowlegde these days. I have always questioned that myself too, but sometimes when I listen to it it tends to sound reversed to my ears.

Of course what could have contributed to this interpretation is Prince's Rolling Stone interview from 1985 where he stated he could have made the ATWIAD album easily seem more explosive had he chosen to take the guitar solo at the end of "Let's Go Crazy", reverse it and start the record with it.

Well, okay I finally will do the research on this subject and sample and analyze the bit myself. It's time to solve the urban myth!

Can't say one way or the other. The echoing effects would indeed hide the reversal of the soundbit, and even if you reversed again a reversed guitar part it could end up sounding like a normal guitar part reversed if the delay and reverb had been applied to it.

It doesn't sound reversed, I agree. And it doesn't sound reversed when I slow it down either. Well...

When doves cry is basically a series of trills and slurs played at high speed with lots of Fuzz, recorded backwards.

workingupahiyellasweat said:

recorded backwards, now that's tough to do!

using your fingers and hands would be far easier