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350 of 357 found the following review helpful:
 Fantastic collection, meticulously transcribedMay 24, 2000
This is an amazingly complete and accurate collection... musicians attempting to learn and to replicate the Beatles sound will not be disappointed. Included are all instrument parts, all vocal parts, and chord names above the staff, with tablature for the bass and guitar parts. What a bargain! At times, the authors were able to capture some subtlties in the music which had gone unnoticed by me... but a careful re-listening to the song revealed the score to be surprisingly correct. Regarding some of the complaints in other Amazon reviews, which made me a bit hesitant to buy: 1) Size of the print: it really is not that small, and it is quite legible. 2) Supposed inaccuracy of chord names: it appears that there is a general chord name above the staff, but more detailed guitar-part scoring in the staff... they were not trying to name the exact chord every time... in some cases not every string is being played. 3) Complaints about the inclusion of 'tab' for 'musical illiterates': tab actually includes, concisely, information which standard notation cannot show easily... like exactly which string/fret to use, out of several options on the guitar. And, by the way, Paul McCartney STILL does not read or write standard notation himself. NOTE: I also compared this book to Hal Leonard's "The Beatles" (21 songs, in their "Transcribed Scores" series), and was amazed how much better The Beatles Complete Scores is.
211 of 216 found the following review helpful:
The best book there isMay 09, 2000
By L. Power
"nlp trainer"
I have owned at one time or another the 4 Lennon McCartney song books.
The major flaw with those books was that they replicated the melody line and attached a chord, but in most cases they came nowhere near the actual arrangements. This is particularly true on piano based hits such as Hey Jude, Let it Be, Yesterday, Lady Madonna, Back in the USSR etc.
This book gets the original arrangements as played by the Beatles which are generally much better and actually easier to play a lot of times. You can discern McCartney's piano style which is not technically difficult. After all you are accompanying a voice and not playing a melody.
So when you play Let it Be it sounds so much better, and with Hey Jude you think that's all he did to make that sound. Lady Madonna enables you to sound ridiculously accomplished playing something that is technically quite easy. Obviously I am approaching this from a piano player's viewpoint.
As far as guitar is concerned, it has very authentic transcriptions, certainly on the fingerpicking songs such as Blackbird and Julia, which are not that difficult to reproduce.
I have found this book to be unbelievably helpful. You are getting some of the Beatles trade secrets here. You finally get to see the outside the box thinking that separated the Beatles from the rest. I rate this book the best sheet music investment I have ever made, and a must for any aspiring musician. The genius is in the details.
I hopethis review was helpful.
59 of 61 found the following review helpful:
Excellent book.....very well done job!Nov 16, 1999
By misterzero
If you read the reviews below, most people will sufficiently let you know about the minor inaccuracies in the orchestrations, vocals, etc. From what I've seen, however, 99% of the songs are dead-on accurate for the guitars and bass. If you want to learn how to play guitar, here is a way to learn from the best! Same with bass....and even piano (though anything other than "Let It Be" will be challenging for a newcomer to the instrument). If your band wants to be the next "1964", here is their owner's manual! The only thing that this book is lacking is the type of guitar and amp you should be using when playing the song in question! Only two things that make my teeth grind: 1) They will show a C# barred at the 4th fret, go to another chord, then come back to the C#, but now its barred at the 2nd or 3rd fret (even though the handwritten chord letter is correect). This is probably not the author's fault, but rather some lackey forced to write this stuff down. 2)While the transcriptions are accurate, some are shown as played with a maximum amount of difficulty. Prime example is "Blackbird"...there is a much simpler way to play the same notes EXACTLY, without having to make comparatively difficult fingerings. I would definitely recommend spending some bucks to get this book...if even to see the transcription to "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)"!
58 of 63 found the following review helpful:
The Best Book of Its Kind - But Mis-Titled As "Complete"Nov 13, 2000
By Sean P. Laughney
This book is as good as it gets - period. All titles from The Beatles catalog of British & American releases (during the group's career together) are represented. That's the first major plus of the book - you get The Beatles' arrangements of all their covers from Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, etc. They are great fun to play and many Beatles' versions are better-known than the originals. I know of no other source for these arrangements. As mentioned by many other reviewers, you get a pretty heroic stab at scoring all the instruments heard on every song. This admirable attempt gets you on the right track (in the right key signature, etc.), but falls short on detail of all but the simplest (usually from the early years) songs. Clearly The Beatles had extensive use of multiple 4 track machines and eventually 8 tracks as they matured. This book "scores" usually only 5 parts. It would be impossible to score ALL the over-dubs and extremely lengthy to include all instrumentation, notes and George Martin's orchestral arrangements. So, I pick a bone with the authors using the title, "The Complete Scores". To me, that term means something very specific which is not appropriate for these types of recordings. The Beatles, George Martin and his engineers were awsome craftsmen. The layers of sounds we hear on the finished records are a one-time snapshot of their creative process - often with somewhat muddy results. For example, "I Am The Walrus" does have a guitar part - pretty lost in the mix and not represented in the book. I just don't think it's possible to get the "Complete" details on these recordings. To save space, the authors often have you incorrectly play a single part for each verse repeat. I know this is getting picky, but the building bass line is the counter-melody in "Something" and the dualing guitar fills in "The Ballad of John & Yoko" change as the song builds. Both are important to each song's development and resolution... In fact, if you really really try, you can find little errors in many songs; mis-titled chords here, incorrect licks there. The non-standard guitar tuning referenced in "Rain" I believe is wrong...BUT, pop in a CD and open the book - you'll get an extremely good idea of what to play. By scoring all the main parts, the authors make this book good as gold for aspiring cover bands. It may not really be "The Complete Scores", but this book is surely a treasure map to some of the finest and most creative recordings in pop music. I love it!
20 of 20 found the following review helpful:
 Anti-ologyMar 01, 2002
By cmcf
WORTH THE PRICE? YES! PERFECT? NO. - But still a very commendable attempt to score the Beatle's music. Considering that this book was written in 1989, you would have to assume that most of the work was accomplished using only the sharpest of musical ears and an old 33-1/3 vinyl record-player. The sheer volume of the book (1100 pages) suggests that years of work and preparation were involved. The bad news is that there are mistakes here, so even though the scores appear to be hand-written, there are what we call "typos". For example: The ending of "Cry Baby Cry" is missing (Can you take me back weary people...). Also, if a song is written in "repeat" mode, you only get the guitar/bass notes for the first time around. Finally, the transcribers took the liberty to just "guess" what the notes were (such as the orchestral crescendo in "A Day in the Life", but that was an impossible task anyway). The good news is this book contains the most exhausting note-by-note transcription I have ever seen of any Beatles book. Infinitely many more notches above the "fake-books" (which only offer lyrics, a simple piano accompaniment and guitar chords, all in the wrong key). The guitar solos are there, the horns are there; it even includes the sitars and tablas in the George Harrisons compositions... Hell, they even score Ringo's drums! The great news is that the book is so close to perfect, it has achieved "nik-pick" status. In other words, the only ones that complain are the perfectionists (like myself); even though we know way deep down inside that there is no way to score the backward sound-effects in "Tomorrow Never Knows". The format is a little strange. Staves are almost always reserved for vocals, guitars, bass and drums (which works for most songs), even though they are not used sometimes (leaving pages and pages of "whole rest notes" for the contempory songs). Each page yields an average of 12 measures of music composed on 9 parallel staves. The main reason I bought this book was because I was curious how anyone could ever decipher Revolution 9. It was an expensive gamble, but I won! If the book was perfect, I would have awarded it the highest score possible. If only they would only re-edited it... A job well done by those 4 guys (not John, Paul George & Ringo but instead to the authors; Tetsuya, Yuji, Hajime and Goro)! CMcF
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based on 240 reviews
