Does anybody know of Alice's resturant guitar tab that is accurate to the origional song from the album ? I have found differen versions ( including this site ) of the tab and they are all different.

George

Well, this works for me on the keyboard:

In G (Keeping it simple, sweetheart)


G C A7 D7 G

G C A7 D7

G C C A7 A7

G C A7 D7 G


Repeat ad nauseum or for 18 mins., 20 secs, whichever comes first!

Don't confuse anyone! The above is in C... and uses the G as a walk up to the C and there's a C to return to at the end on the line (not shown) before you begin the walk up again on the following line - hahaha

You should hear it from there. But as far as TAB goes, I don't actually play it the same way every time, so that's why there's different TAB versions - the chords are the same - just the fingering changes depending on hmmm ah The weather I guess.

adg

Thanks, Arlo! Never said I was a musician, although I will admit to being confused most of the time. At least I got the progression right.

Every Thanksgiving I play "This Land Is Your Land" with my kids singing for our Family. Every year I threaten them with "Alice"... Perhaps this is the year.

Christian

G// C/// A7/// D7/ G/ C

G// C/// A7/// D7/// G///

C/// C7/// F/// D9 (a fancy D7) ///

C/// A7/// D7/ G/ C

So this is how I notate. It's my own way of thinking about this stuff so bear with me. Each chord is worth one beat, and each slash is worth one beat. In Alice (4/4) the first beat is silent and the run up to the C starts on the 2nd beat (happens to be a G chord there) - the notes with brackets for each 4 beat measure are like [ /, G, A, B] - [C ///] each slash or letter is a beat and the 2nd measure starts with C. That's where you start singing "You can get anything..." Instead of the letters for beats I just add more slashes where the proceeding chord is the same. The last C chord above connects to the first G above.

So I may have over simplified it, but that's the story and I'm sticking to it, more or less. If you want to play along on the record, you'll have to put a capo on the guitar. If you're playing a piano, well.... Good luck.

adg

Hi ADG! Nice to see ya back on here babe! Thanks for the info. I've figured out how to play Alices on piano & dulcimer by ear. It probably doesn't sound a bit like your version & I'm not about to play a dulcimer or piano for 18 minutes straight lol but we tried anyway... <g>

Arlo, your notation is cool for us non-musical types! The ONLY other place where I ever saw similar notation is in "Rise Up Singing", my handy-dandy cheat book that I would be lost without. Did you get the idea from there? Like Cheryl, I too play by ear and have to rely on single-fingered chords on my Panasonic digital keyboard because I'm too much of a blunderer to learn real chords with my left hand.

Please, no jokes about playing the keyboard by (or with) ear; I've heard just about all of them.

Oh, I nearly forgot to ask you. Do you still have the Kurzweil keyboard? There's no sound like it. I had a chance to pick up a used one in a local music shop for about $1500, but it would have been like giving a Lamborghini to a little old lady!

I actually play by music, having taken both piano, organ & guitar lessons. But I figured out how to play them by ear & in recent yrs got into playing autoharp (Thanks to Sue for turning me onto autoharp), mountain dulcimer & canjo (can banjo) by ear. I am learning canjo chords which since my 3 string canjo is tuned GDG would be for a dulcimer tuned DGD. So far I've learned the chords A B C D E F G G7 & EM on canjo. I xeroxed out of my parents copy of the Presbyterian churches hymnbook some copies of the index of hymns so I have a list a songs to play from. Didn't even bother to copy the music lol. Just needed the titles so I could play by ear. So anymore I play by ear reather than by music. We appreciate Arlo sharing his knowledge on here.

It's ok Arlo, Mikey plays fingerstyle piano.

or better yet, Slide Piano and Stride Guitar

i learned this song from the tab on this site. for months ive been trying to learn it and hadnt really put any effort into it. so i woke up this morning and said dammit im gonna learn it. so all of about an hour later it was up and running and now im busy trying to sing to it. its funny how i cant remember the lyrics to a complete song, yet i can remember all the lyrics to a song that 18mins liong. go figure

I just happened to catch "Alice's Restaurant" on TV one day, and when It came to the point where Arlo was playing his 12-string in his New York (?) apartment, (and Alice was sleeping/weeping on the couch), ..... I immediately went to eBay to search for the movie on VHS or DVD.

I DID find it,..... on DVD.

So that's how I picked up the chords for Alice's Restaurant. I kept playing and rewinding through that scene... watching Arlo's fingers,..... until I knew what the heck he was doing.

..... (Only he plays it SO much better than I do,..... I'm a little clumsy).

Reading the tabs here, it seems much easier than watching them fingers.

I've always really liked the intro to "Ring-around-a-rosy-rag", does anyone know how to play it? (I'm sure the folksinger does ) Also, concerning "Which Side" (another personal favorite), the chords listed on this site don't sound quite right. I'd love to know what the real chords are, unless of course they are right and my ears just aren't working.