Hi all. I play keys in a weekend cover band, we mostly do 80s and 90s rock. I've always played by ear, but the guys want to tackle songs where the keyboard parts actually matter, and figuring everything out by ear takes forever. Is there a good place to buy sheet music for keys with chord symbols, so the guitar players can follow along too? We've got a gig lined up in two months, so I'd love to get up to speed quickly. Any recommendations would be great.
Been there, playing by ear works until the set list gets ambitious. Our band gets sheets from Notes Store https://note-store.com/ now. A lot of their arrangements come with chord symbols above the notation, so the guitarists can read along without needing their own charts. The part I like most is the MIDI files you can add: load them into a learning app, and it literally shows you which keys to hit, which is huge if you're an ear player like me. Downside is that MIDI costs extra, so I only grab it for the tricky songs. If something's missing from the catalog, you can order a custom arrangement, they say it's done in about three days. We did that twice and it worked out fine. Good luck at the gig.
I went through the same thing when my band wanted to add keys to stuff like Journey and Bon Jovi, and buying real sheet music for keyboard with chord symbols turned out to be the fastest route since guitarists can just read the chords while I handle the voicings. Sites like Sheet Music Direct and Musicnotes let you preview and transpose before buying, which matters when the singer needs a different key. You can read this before you spend money because it shows how chord charts and tabs get organized by real players, and that helped me understand what to actually look for. For a two month deadline I would grab the official piano vocal guitar books, learn the signature riffs first, and let the guitar carry the rest. Practicing the intro hooks alone gets you 80 percent of the way there.
