the Astonishing guitar tab book

[Mosh]

There's a decent guitar tab online for every DT song out there, I'm sure The Astonishing will be the same way.

[Donmac1989]

What the heck? Just selections? I find it very funny how Hal Leonard can do the whole Stadium Arcadium album in a tab book, but there can't do the whole Astonishing album? So dispraportionate...

[Mosh]

I suspect these books don't sell as well as they did ten years ago. The new Maiden album didn't even get a book, I'm pretty sure that's the first time since the 80s.

Stadium Arcadium was also a much more well known and popular album. It's all about what sells, they probably didn't want to include more pages because it'd drive up the price.

[Donmac1989]

Personally I'd be willing to pay the higher price for the whole album tabbed out minus the NOMAC tracks. Maybe to two copies, a selections and a full album transcription. Oh wait someone already suggested that lol. But I second it!!!

[PetFish]

If sales are slowing down then they need to adapt and I feel they should already have gone digital and made digital versions for tablets available for around $10/album and also make old ones available for free if you have your proof of purchase.  They could even make single songs available, now *that* would be awesome.

I emailed them a few years ago asking if they're planning on it and they said they have no plans but plans change and it just seems silly that they haven't already done it.

I'd love to be able to just put my iPad on the stand and easily flip through the pages without having to worry about the book closing up or fanning open or whatever.  Could also turn pages automatically if you're playing to the song.

[Mosh]

I agree, my best guess is they don't want to go digital because of piracy. Unfortunately it seems like they'd rather not do a book at all than go digital (Iron Maiden).

People willing to pay extra for the whole thing (I would include myself in that camp) are probably an incredibly small minority.

[goo-goo]

I agree, my best guess is they don't want to go digital because of piracy. Unfortunately it seems like they'd rather not do a book at all than go digital (Iron Maiden).

People willing to pay extra for the whole thing (I would include myself in that camp) are probably an incredibly small minority.

I kind of agree with you but Adobe has their digital signature thing that if you buy an ebook (or pdf) with that digital signature, you can only open it with that piece of software. But yeah, it's a bit hard because of the piracy issue.

[Mosh]

It's still very easy to get around that sort of software. At least less effort than scanning each page of the book.

But also at that point you're better off finding a guitar pro transcription which I'm sure also contributes to these books not being as popular anymore.

[RaiseTheKnife]

I would be willing to work with Hal Leonard to crowd fund the entire release.  Maybe enough people signed up with pre-sales there is a way to make it happen.

[jsbru]

The Answer is like 10 seconds long Should be easy to figure out.

All the more reason they should have included it!  You could probably fit the whole song on two pages.  It would take Petrucci three whole minutes to explain the chord voicings to the transcriber.

The thing with DT is that they use a lot of unique and unusual voicings, so even for a simple diddy like The Answer, it's nice to have the official sheet music.

[jsbru]

There's a decent guitar tab online for every DT song out there, I'm sure The Astonishing will be the same way.

I don't know if I would say "decent."  There's a lot of mistakes in the online versions.

[Mosh]

I would be willing to work with Hal Leonard to crowd fund the entire release.  Maybe enough people signed up with pre-sales there is a way to make it happen.

If that was doable, I think I'd be more interested in crowd funding the two LTE albums. I remember reading that the guys who do the DT books have already transcribed some (if not all) of that material.

[PetFish]

OMG LTE FFS

I'm SMH that these haven't been done and would be perfect for a "selections from" format.

[Mosh]

If they could sell the book for JP's solo album I'm sure they could do LTE too. Maybe has something to do with the music being recorded for a small label? Not sure how the publishing works with these things.

[Donmac1989]

This just in on the book, it seems there may be some hope. They are taking about releasing a selections for the keyboard. So therin I feel there may be hope for a full guitar book

[Mosh]

The keyboard book is out already. Why does that give any hope for a full guitar book though?

[MarkX]

Individual digital, printable tabs from The Astonishing are available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.us/search/search.action?keywords=Dream+Theater&resultsPerPage=75&sort=date&instrumentId=30|&formats=TAB   There are 95 different guitar tabs on that site

[smegolas]

Individual digital, printable tabs from The Astonishing are available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.us/search/search.action?keywords=Dream+Theater&resultsPerPage=75&sort=date&instrumentId=30|&formats=TAB   There are 95 different guitar tabs on that site

awesome find.  would these be the same tabs from the same guys that are doing the book?

[MarkX]

awesome find.  would these be the same tabs from the same guys that are doing the book?

I cant say for sure but the few I've looked at they appear accurate and look like the Hal Leonard format

[smegolas]

its here...

https://www.halleonard.com/product/viewproduct.action?itemid=160579&lid=1&keywords=selections from the astonishing&subsiteid=1&

[MarkX]

its here...

https://www.halleonard.com/product/viewproduct.action?itemid=160579&lid=1&keywords=selections from the astonishing&subsiteid=1&

Maybe, but my preorder hasn't been delivered.  I got the keyboard version earlier this week but the guitar shows a ship date of the 10th. Besides that the sheet music direct site lists individual songs and other albums for immediate use.

[Mosh]

Well I listened to The Astonishing today and paid extra attention to the songs that weren't included. This might be an unpopular opinion, but they included all the important songs. Anything else (Save for maybe one or two songs, Ravenskill in particular) would be a waste of paper. The completist in me wishes it was all there, but logically it makes sense not to have everything in there. The rest of the songs are pretty simple and easy to figure out by ear. Even with JP's different acoustic chord voicings, there are still only a handful that he chooses from (mostly just putting the third in the bass).

[RaiseTheKnife]

Really surprised that X Aspect is not in the keyboard book, such a beautiful song for piano, and a highlight on the album for me.

[Donmac1989]

I wonder if they will do a full transcription book, I really hope that they put this one out to fill time for them to make a full transcription edition?

[MarkX]

The Astonishing guitar tab book was delivered last night.  It has the exact tabs that are available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.us for anyone that is only interested in a few songs.

[bosk1]

I remember the Passion & Warfare book when, instead of transcribing something that couldn't be, they got an artist to do a cool drawing for "Ballerina 12/24".

  I have that book.  I know exactly what you are talking about.

As do I.  And it was for Alien Water Kiss. 

THAT is an astonishing tab book.  I was looking at my copy just the other day.  So amazing.

Good catch.  That goes to show how long it's been since I looked at that book.  But then again, I didn't look at it much.  I spent like an hour working on the main melody lead in For The Love Of God, and then promptly gave up on the entire book. 

[RaiseTheKnife]

Received the keyboard book last week and the guitar transcription last night.  Between the two, there are 20 songs, so pretty good coverage.

Another thought:  There's a great opportunity for Guitar World (or another guitar magazine) to feature one of the UNPUBLISHED tabs in a future issue.  Guitar World often prints a JP interview accompanied by a transcription as part of an album's marketing campaign. It could be a great selling point if a song (perhaps "2285 Entr'acte" or "Road to Revolution") were a magazine exclusive.

[PetFish]

Ordered mine from the music store (Long & McQuade for all the hosers here).  It ended up being $38 and the Las Vegas over/under odds for The Astonishing are 31.5% on how much of Petrucci's stuff I can actually play.  Money well-lost, though.

[PetFish]

Book came in yesterday, picked it up today, got home, got everything set up and ready to go and then I did what I usually do... sob gently as I follow along with the music knowing I won't be able to play most of it.

Even the things JP does that *sound* simple have way more going on than you realize until you can have a visual representation of it.  The guy is astonishing, always has been, always will be.