SeilerBird
Well-known member
Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin was released in late 1971. Sometime during 1972 I obtained a copy of the sheet music (rock sheet music was very rare at this point) and proceeded to learn it. I don't know how long it took me to learn it because I was terrible at reading sheet music (and still am), I can read it but not at performing speed, but I am guessing about a week. It is an extremely simple piece to play, it sounds great, it is a classic, and it really gets the chicks, so it has become almost automatic for all beginning rock guitarists to learn the piece. Which is why Wayne's World featured a sign in the music store 'No Stairway To Heaven'. Well it became my party piece. Whenever friends or relatives would want me to play I would invariably get to playing STH. The hard part to play was the guitar solo and the rhythm behind it at the same time. I could not do that so I began singing the solo while playing the rhythm. For my family they were usually drinking when I preformed so I would sing the solo the funniest way possible and it really cracked them up, especially my brother. Of course if they would have heard it solo they would have brought out the pitch forks and torches. The last group I was in played the song in a slightly different form (singing the Gilligan's Island theme to the instrumentation of STH) and I played it on stage many times.
So lately I decided to try playing it on the ukulele and I am having nothing but problems. STH feels like it was written on the uke. The famous intro is played on the top four strings of a guitar which are the same four strings that is on a uke. So in theory it should be much easier to play on a uke since you don't have play the first three chords as barre chords, they are in the open position on a uke. A uke is one fourth higher than a guitar. So you remove the barre and slide down a few frets and it is the same thing. However after the first three chords you play a D chord. My problems start when trying to switch to that D chord. My fingers automatically go to a D chord on the uke which is a G chord. Trying to convince my fingers to go to the real D chord has proved very tough. I have been working on it for the last week and I still can't get it right. No problem if I am playing it slowing and thinking about it, but if I try and play it on automatic pilot so I can sing I mess it up.
There are several other places where the exact same thing happens with different chords. I am also having real tough time with the G to F# pull-off that occurs in the 12th measure. On a guitar you play a normal D chord except your little finger is playing the high G and then immediately pulling off to the F#. There are only about a million songs that use this move because it is so easy and sounds so good. That is why they put it in there in the first place. However on a uke it is an extremely difficult move to make. The fret spacing is way too small to make it easy. So I am trying to find a way to fake it through there to make it come out alright. There is a lady, Cynthia Lin, who has STH lessons on the uke on YouTube but she dumbs down the entire song to make it easier for beginners to be able to play the song and I don't like playing it her way.
But it is a lot of fun because it sounds great on my 8 string since it sounds better having a low G instead of a high G like most normal ukes have and the 8 string has both.
Sheet music:
https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/led-zeppelin-stairway-to-heaven-tab-s27t1
Stairway To Gilligan's Island:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_vZF6_ChElTQUNZSzBhTDZsS0E/view?usp=sharing
So lately I decided to try playing it on the ukulele and I am having nothing but problems. STH feels like it was written on the uke. The famous intro is played on the top four strings of a guitar which are the same four strings that is on a uke. So in theory it should be much easier to play on a uke since you don't have play the first three chords as barre chords, they are in the open position on a uke. A uke is one fourth higher than a guitar. So you remove the barre and slide down a few frets and it is the same thing. However after the first three chords you play a D chord. My problems start when trying to switch to that D chord. My fingers automatically go to a D chord on the uke which is a G chord. Trying to convince my fingers to go to the real D chord has proved very tough. I have been working on it for the last week and I still can't get it right. No problem if I am playing it slowing and thinking about it, but if I try and play it on automatic pilot so I can sing I mess it up.
There are several other places where the exact same thing happens with different chords. I am also having real tough time with the G to F# pull-off that occurs in the 12th measure. On a guitar you play a normal D chord except your little finger is playing the high G and then immediately pulling off to the F#. There are only about a million songs that use this move because it is so easy and sounds so good. That is why they put it in there in the first place. However on a uke it is an extremely difficult move to make. The fret spacing is way too small to make it easy. So I am trying to find a way to fake it through there to make it come out alright. There is a lady, Cynthia Lin, who has STH lessons on the uke on YouTube but she dumbs down the entire song to make it easier for beginners to be able to play the song and I don't like playing it her way.
But it is a lot of fun because it sounds great on my 8 string since it sounds better having a low G instead of a high G like most normal ukes have and the 8 string has both.
Sheet music:
https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/led-zeppelin-stairway-to-heaven-tab-s27t1
Stairway To Gilligan's Island:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_vZF6_ChElTQUNZSzBhTDZsS0E/view?usp=sharing