Boston Foreplay on a Lowry Prestige

[Nutball]

This should be helpful: https://youtu.be/bd_m08b_2Uc

 

 

[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/bd_m08b_2Uc

[Throbert]

This should be helpful:

At about 1:05 boston plays chords while this guy twiddles around.

This is getting old people consistently playing it wrong like they

just ignore how it was actually played.

 

[video:youtube]

[Nutball]

I've found people tend to play chords at 0:46 & 1:18 till the descent when it is actually individual notes

[J. Dan]

The transcriptions and debate are hilarious, I posted this a long time ago because I was impressed that the guy worked in all the parts using a Lowry Organ including drums, guitars, and everything using his feat...as if it isn't challenging enough just playingnthe organ part itself.......and here we are years later debating the basic organ parts, lol. In my mind, just makes it that more impressive that not only did he do those parts (properly) but also worked in the rest.

[Kent_x1]

Time to dust off the thread one more time for the folks interested in the transcription part of it.

 

I decided to finally learn the song and I'm not that good at playing by ear so I have been looking at the various you tube videos and like the other folks on this thread I have noticed how each tutorial has a little different transcription of the song. In searching for the best transcription I came across this thread and the handwritten transcription. I also came across a video of Tom Scholz playing the song solo!

 

Check out this video, starting at 1:35 he goes into the song. At around 2:18 he goes into a variation that is not part of the original album version.

 

 

For the parts between 1:35 - 2:18 I'm not 100% sure if he is playing it true to the album version but it sounds like it. This is my attempt at a transcription but like I said I'm not very good at playing by ear so if your hearing something different on the video of Scholz playing solo please comment. I've highlighted the areas that are different from other versions I've seen. It's not the entire song either, it's meant to convey what I'm hearing based on the Scholz video.

 

Boston - Foreplay.pdf

[Nutball]

Youtube terminated my account, I think they have a robot doing it, and has deleted many people's accounts of people that I know over the past year. Some got their's back by arguing the robot can't tell their account isn't spam. It was too late for me to try getting mine back...well, I didn't care enough to actually try, YT sucks anyway.

 

Anyway here's my transcription, maybe not the most efficiently written since I'm a beginner at reading/writing sheet music, but I tried to get the tempo, timing, and all as close as makes sense to the original CD version. Tom actually varies speed quite a bit and gradually slows down, perhaps unevenly, during the final chords, likely based on feel more than a specific intended timing.

1449.pdf

[MotiDave]

Time to dust off the thread one more time for the folks interested in the transcription part of it.

 

I decided to finally learn the song and I'm not that good at playing by ear so I have been looking at the various you tube videos and like the other folks on this thread I have noticed how each tutorial has a little different transcription of the song. In searching for the best transcription I came across this thread and the handwritten transcription. I also came across a video of Tom Scholz playing the song solo!

 

Check out this video, starting at 1:35 he goes into the song. At around 2:18 he goes into a variation that is not part of the original album version.

 

 

For the parts between 1:35 - 2:18 I'm not 100% sure if he is playing it true to the album version but it sounds like it. This is my attempt at a transcription but like I said I'm not very good at playing by ear so if your hearing something different on the video of Scholz playing solo please comment. I've highlighted the areas that are different from other versions I've seen. It's not the entire song either, it's meant to convey what I'm hearing based on the Scholz video.

 

Boston - Foreplay.pdf

Tom is such a bad ass

[Kent_x1]

Nutball, Thanks for sharing your version, our versions are pretty close. After watching the video (starting at 2:11) some more I think your measure 35 & 36 is correct and I had it wrong. I'm wondering about your measure 37 & 38, do you think Tom is playing it differently in the video vs the album version? I'm not sure about 37 but 38 on the video looks/sounds different than what you have.

[GovernorSilver]

Wait, the Jon Bowen playing in the OP video... is that the same guy who did the Solaris synth? Sure looks like him.

[Marzzz]

Wait, the Jon Bowen playing in the OP video... is that the same guy who did the Solaris synth? Sure looks like him.

No, the guy playing the Lowery is Joe Bowen.

[Nutball]

Nutball, Thanks for sharing your version, our versions are pretty close. After watching the video (starting at 2:11) some more I think your measure 35 & 36 is correct and I had it wrong. I'm wondering about your measure 37 & 38, do you think Tom is playing it differently in the video vs the album version? I'm not sure about 37 but 38 on the video looks/sounds different than what you have.

My sources were the original album, a 1979 Giants Stadium performance video, and Rockband or some video game's version which seems like they used some advanced software to accurately transcribe the album version and replay it from some artificial system. I can't remember if I heard the group of 4 notes on the CD, but I definitely heard, and saw it played that way twice in the '79 video. I thought it was a mistake, but it seemed intentional. I may have also heard it in a modern version too.

 

Commonly, people hear and mistake those individual notes for chords. When slowed down, and watched in videos it is clearly not chords. The album version is very hard to transcribe because it was made by copying, mixing and rewriting several tapes in a studio as far as I know.

 

Watching the video, I see he was holding the high note during the repetitive sequence towards the end. I don't think I heard or saw that originally. I'll have to compare that video against my other sources sometime when I'm in the mood.

 

Had to peek at the video again, I saw the C key move, he definitely plays that triplet with an extra note.

[StankbellyPie]

So I found this thread (and more generally, the forum itself) last night, about six months after first unearthing the same videos people here have over a period of some 11+ years now.

 

This is great stuff. So painstaking, this process.

 

I was a very young kid when "Foreplay/Long Time" came out, but the entire Boston album is completely unforgettable to anyone with taste.

 

Before I decided at random to attack...er, master this song, I had never attempted anything close to its level of difficulty. I picked up serious playing in adulthood, and :really serious" playing during the pandemic. I have a Kurzweil PC361 that does everything I need it to do to hack through mostly '70s and '80s songs. My music theory knowledge itself far from comprehensive, greatly outstrips my playing ability.

 

It took me a day or more just to master the signature 6-note repeating sequence at the beginning.

 

Now, I can play what I call a passable full-speed version -- no mistakes noticeable to my dumbass friends -- about 1/3 of the time. If I played with a band making other noises to complement my own, I could get away with incorporating a veritable wealth of miscues

 

But that of course is antithetical to the entire point.

 

It will take me another few months to conquer the last 5% of the song, almost as long as it took to get to maybe 50% and again to 95%. It's always lonely at the top of anything.

 

What fundamentally drives me is grasping the sheer value of blind persistence. When I started running cross-country in 9th grade, I was average, but aspired in that weird environment to be the best--not in the world but in my smallish state. The path toward getting there--and I did get close--is a lot like this one. I can make up for a lack of talent or youth or whatever with garden-variety persistence....and a love, a real appreciating for every tangible step forward I can carry my musicianship.

 

For me the biggest sticking point is the measure right before the walkdown done twice (the triplets corresponding to G-flat, D-flat, E-flat and F).

Why? Because I don't like to practice! I could erase this deficit in a day, I bet. Maybe I will try today.

 

I also get this weird tendency to freeze in the last measure of the introduction, where you're holding the B-flat and walking the rest down. When my left 4th finger hits the C, my right hand really, really wants to bungle the six-note segment. I'll get over it.

 

For those with a chemistry background, to me, learning this is more like synthesizing a polymer from a limited set of monomers. I like that I can practice one part of the song in ways that helps the rest, which is not always the case.

 

Anyway, just appreciating the thread.

[Joe Muscara]

Welcome! Feel free to introduce yourself.

[The Real MC]

Even for an accomplished player, that song cramps up my hand if I am out of practice.

[EscapeRocks]

 

 

For those with a chemistry background, to me, learning this is more like synthesizing a polymer from a limited set of monomers.

Anyway, just appreciating the thread.

 

Perhaps we should go grab Klaatu and visit Professor Barnhart.

[StankbellyPie]

Even for an accomplished player, that song cramps up my hand if I am out of practice.

 

Yeah, a lot of the time I reach a certain frustration level, it coincides with a similar finger-fatigue level. However, learning this song along has led me to be a much more efficient fingerer, a phrase I never thought I would publicly release.

 

I like to imagine someone trying to play this on a slide trombone, probably a Simpsons character.

 

Or sometimes I'll play it in a slide guitar patch and tear up over Eddie Van Halen.

[Old No7]

...learning this song along has led me to be a much more efficient fingerer.........

Now that's funny -- good one!

 

Actually, it's a great segue into how my bandleader back at UMass would introduce Foreplay/Longtime when we covered it back in the early 80's, with yours truly on the keys. I wrote this one night as a joke -- under the influence of Jack, of course -- and the band loved it, as it includes all the tracks from their awesome debut album. So it quickly became the intro each time we covered it...

 

 

Our Rock & Roll Band has a real treat for the ladies tonightâ¦

 

Old No7 there at the Hammond is about to play Foreplay on his big organ for a Longtime until it starts Smokin" and he gets More Than a Feeling for Something About You! And for our Peace of Mind, ladies, instead of letting him Hitch a Ride back to his place, come on up to him and say: "Let Me Take You Home Tonight"â¦

 

 

Sadly, the cover proved to be more successful than the intro (for me), but we had fun with it...

 

Old No7

[MathOfInsects]

Just noticed that verse-riff is Jump. (Or vice-versa really.)

[Cherry Blackwolf]

On 2/11/2021 at 12:58 PM, The Real MC said:

Even for an accomplished player, that song cramps up my hand if I am out of practice.

Thank you!!! I was trying to tell bsndmates that no, we are not going to practice it 10 times in a row.

[Cherry Blackwolf]

Actually, it would be great to hear everyone's tips on playing Foreplay. I'm finding out (the hard way) that changing keyboards does a number on how legato it is. Some keyboards I find impossible to make it sound decent, becomes choppy. All responses will be appreciated!!! 

Actually, it would be great to hear everyone's tips on playing Foreplay. I'm finding out (the hard way) that changing keyboards does a number on how legato it is. Some keyboards I find impossible to make it sound decent, becomes choppy. All responses will be appreciated!!! 

[Old No7]

23 minutes ago, Cherry said:

Actually, it would be great to hear everyone's tips on playing Foreplay....

 

My best advice is to don't stop playing it -- play it each and every time you sit at the keyboard.  Make it part of your practice or warm-up, but play it often.

 

Old No7