Bert Jansch - Bert Transcribed: The Bert Jansch Songbook

Very, very thorough..... I was a big fan of Bert Jansch and used to play with Rolly Brown... a long time ago... he was always the friend who could de-mystify complex things (musically). How wonderful to find him as a part of the team that produced this highly accurate and accessible work. I could rave on... but I am working on Reynardine right now... BRAVO!!!

Great book.

Great selection of songs and the transcriptions are really well done. The foundation provides a ton of info on Bert, his style, the songs, his equipment. It's a really well done book and I'm absolutely obsessed with it right now.

Looks good. For the serious Bert Jansch fan!

Disclaimer: I was one of the "Bert Transcribed Group" who collaborated on the transcriptions in this book. Having said that, I had no part in the layout, typesetting, or introductory notes so I feel like I can write an unbiased review based on those. I just received my complimentary copy in the mail today, and I was extremely impressed by the overall quality of the volume. It's beautifully laid out and the notation (standard and TAB) is of top quality, you couldn't really ask for more. But in fact you do get more - the book has a wealth of information on Bert, his guitars, his playing techniques and his musical style. Even as someone who has been playing Bert's music for almost 20 years, I learned a lot just from a brief reading of the technique section.Each song is wonderfully engraved in an open, spacious style which is easy on the eyes and a joy to read from. There are introductory performance notes, and lyrics are also included where applicable. The songs included represent a good overview of Bert's music, and also cover a wide range of difficulty from the easy picking of Running From Home all the way to advanced level works like Chambertin. No doubt some will be disappointed not to find their particular favorite in here, but it would be impossible to fit them all in! I hope to see more volumes in the future, however.As for the transcriptions themselves, well having collaborated on them, I can vouch for their accuracy and authenticity. Most were based on previous transcriptions which other members of the group and I had done previously, and we went over them with a fine toothcomb. Many hours of deep listening went into their perfection, and in this age of YouTube we were able to consult the fingerings of Bert himself by closely observing videos of him playing. The transcriptions in this book are better than anything you will find for free online, including the ones I did myself back in 2003 which are widely available as ASCII files on tab sites. We were able to revisit our old transcriptions, correct many errors and revise fingerings to a much higher level of accuracy, more in keeping with how Bert would have played them himself. Working on these transcriptions made me realize just how powerful the collaborative workflow is - multiple heads most certainly are better than one!All in all this is a fantastic book, well worth the money (and some of the proceeds go to the Bert Jansch Foundation - a very worthy cause!) It's an absolutely essential purchase for any guitar playing fan of Bert Jansch, and would also make a wonderful gift. Don't even think twice about buying it!

I purchased the Kindle version because I was interested in one transcription I was too busy to do myself. The quality of the editing is average -- wrong fingerings (the numerals to designate fingers aren't correct), TAB doesn't correspond to the notation (one subsequent notational error). Because this was likely done first from TAB, some of the notational conventions aren't precise (stems going in incorrect direction for various voices). I had to copy the notation into a software application, redo the notation to make it functional and logical, listen to the original version a few times, watch a few hackney YouTube performances, and write in my own fingerings to finally arrive at what is now an accurate transcription. The recordings that go along with the Kindle version are pretty bland -- typical folkie finger style playing that's not of very good tone quality (i.e., the guitarist's tone, the recording quality of fine), but I imagine I'm being persnickety because I studied classical guitar for many years and transfer those techniques to steel string acoustic to get a tone along the lines of Bensusan and other 'better' finger style guitarists. That all said, check out the Table of Contents and if you really need to play something that you cannot find on the Internet (as TAB for those of you who only read TAB) then this is the Jansch collection for you.

Fantastic guitarist and songwriter. Performers today should look this material up.

This will be a treasured book for me. It's unlike any other music book I own, with the rich details it provides about each song. It also has beautiful photos of Jansch's guitars.I will spend a lot of time with this book in the years to come trying to learn to play like one of the all time greats on acoustic guitar.

Uses tab to learn Bert Jansch songs. Bought as a gift, which went well.

A beautifully presented text. I have learned several of the easier songs, e.g., Blues Run The Game, and hope to master some of the more difficult ones, e.g., Blackwater Side, during my lifetime :-) However, all the information is here, the rest is up to me!

Non esistono in italia molte pubblicazioni su Bert Jansch, purtroppo. La biografia di Colin Harper non mi risulta sia mai stata tradotta in italiano, ed è comunque di quasi 15 anni fa. Resta questo "Bert Jansch Songbook" realizzato molto bene, ma destinato a chitarristi o aspiranti tali. Se si suona la chitarra, e si ama Bert Jansch, il libro è fondamentale, direi imprescindibile. Le trascrizioni sono molto precise, quasi maniacali. L'ambizione è quella di riuscire a riportare sulla intavolatura ogni più piccola sfumature del tocco di Bert Jansch, e il risultato va spesso aldilà delle aspettative. Ho trovato un solo errore, nella discografia, relativamente alla canzone "Let me sing", dedicata da Bert Jansch a Victor Jara, nel libro definito "attivista politico cileno". Basta una semplice ricerca su wikipedia per scoprire chi era Victor Jara, ma pazienza. Segno dei tempi anche questo. A parte questo sassolino che mi sono voluto togliere, il libro è davvero molto utile e bello, e lo consiglio caldamente.

Excellent recueil des partitions de Bert Jansch