Bruce Springsteen -- Keyboard Songbook 1973-1980: Piano/Vocal/Guitar Paperback – June 1, 2011

This is extremely well done. Music is VERY complete and detailed for piano. KUDOS to those who put this together.. And 25 songs for $16 is more than a bargain.. Hopefully there are more books by this company!

There are so few note-for-note keyboard books, and kudos to whoever said "So what if Springsteen plays the guitar? These are great piano songs." Never mind that I'm not skilled enough to play these songs well...it's just nice to know that I could possibly someday play all the right notes and never wonder "how do you do that on the piano?"

As others said, this book is an accurate representation of what you hear Roy Bitten playing on the albums; not some cheesy sing-along like you’ll find in other sheet music books. This makes it enjoyable just to play solo, without any singing or accompanyment. This book also has a good selection of some of Bruce’s best songs, that you’ll actually want to play- not too many oddball selections. The print is large, clear, and easy to read.

This book has what I've been after, which is a good-looking shot at a note-for-note transcription of New York City Serenade. I've been through the first well-known bits and they seem very good (I'll refrain from saying perfect as I don't know).I haven't bothered with much else yet, so many will find this review only of limited use at best, but I did want to remember take a moment to mention that I think I found this one transcription (which is why I am giving it 5 out of 5) in case others are also trying to find it.I took a look at Thunder Road a minute ago, but I can't speak yet to how how it matches up to the piano part on the well-known recording. I am used to just doing more of a chord-based feel-my-way-through it thing, so adjusting to evaluating a note-for-note transcription may be a bit more than I will go for.

I ordered this for a gift. It appears to be exactly what I was looking for. I don't read music so I can't comment from a musical perspective. The book encompasses a wonderful collection of songs that any Springsteen lover would like.

This is a SUPERB documentary because it is obviously not acted, as everyone in it either ignores the camera or is totally oblivious to it...This film gives viewers at treasury of insight regarding the creative processes and the studio production of a record...Springsteen and E Street have some funny moments!!!

Great songbook for Springsteen enthusiast !

Despite the fact that he's primarily a guitar player, the piano has always been essential to the sound of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. On the first studio albums, Davey Sancious added jazz-flavored keyboards, while Roy Bittan, who joined the band for the Born to Run album, was so fundamental to Bruce's work that when the Boss fired the E Streeters in the late '80s, Bittan was the only band member he kept. This means that keyboard transcriptions of Bruce's work should allow piano players to test themselves a bit and play along to some classic hits. And for the most part, that's what this book does. So why three stars?1) Song selection: Yes, Born to Run is a masterpiece. And yes, Bruce wrote most of the songs on the piano, lending themselves to transcriptions. But in this book, the entire album (excepting Night) is included, which limits what can be included from other albums. Obviously, Thunder Road with its tinkling piano makes sense, as does Backstreets and Jungleland. Meeting Across the River is a piano showcase, but is it really one of the Boss's biggest hits (it's also a perfect example of point #2, where the album folio does a sufficient job)?There are other question marks in song selection: "Growin' Up" and "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" (off his debut album) are okay, but not essential, especially when it means leaving off "Incident on 57th Street" (from his sophomore effort) or even "Lost in the Flood." "Darkness on the Edge of Town" and "Prove It All Night" are fine, but where is "Candy's Room," which features the piano more prominently. The most glaring omissions are probably off the River album: Stolen Car and Drive All Night are piano driven, yet absent from this collection in favor of "Out in the Street." The oddest inclusion is three tracks off the "Promise" boxed set of outtakes from "Darkness on the Edge of Town." The title track merits inclusion, and I suppose "Because the Night" was a hit for other artist," but "Ain't Good Enough for You" is really nothing more than a nice primer for playing 60s rock and roll piano (it would be rewritten as a minor hit for Gary US Bonds as "This Little Girl").2) Are the transcriptions worth it? In general, yes, they are. They're good and I found only a couple of places where things were missed (like the obvious glissando in Born to Run), and it's almost always an omitted fill on a second verse or outro (repeat ad lib or something like that). That's a bit disappointing: The Billy Joel Keyboard Book, for instance, has little staffs at the bottom of the page to avoid having to have a piano score, so more of that would have been nice. A better job could have been done with the organ parts played over the piano, too (see the BJKB on "Captain Jack"). It's really a one-track piano book; Phantom fans will be disappointed.The bigger issue, however, is whether you actually need this transcription book. If you want to play note for note what's on the recordings, yes, I suppose it's helpful. But this book really made me appreciate how good the piano sheet music previously available for these songs is. There's very little here that surprised me. If you take a good look at the regular piano/vocal/guitar sheet music and listen to the album, I suspect you'd be able to figure out 90-95 percent of what's here. There are little bits you might miss, but not much more than that. So I'm not sure that I'm glad I purchased this.3) A disappointment to me is that some of these songs are stuck in my head from their live setting. It would have been more interesting to me to have the piano transcription of Thunder Road that opens Live 75/85, to say nothing of the (I think still officially unreleased) Prove It All Night with the piano intro leading into the buzzsaw guitar solo. The same is true of "Because the Night."The title of this book (1973-1980) makes me wonder if a second book is in the works. While the period from 1980-2010 accounts for far more than half of Springsteen's catalog, there are definitely fewer piano songs. Nebraska is a solo acoustic guitar album (unless you count the synthesizer coda at the end of the Japanese release), as are Tom Joad and Devils and Dust, more or less. There's some synthesizer work on Born in the USA, but not much piano. Not much on Tunnel of Love, a lot of synth work on the double albums of Human Touch and Better Days (again, a live version of Real World would be more interesting than the studio). There are a couple of tracks on The Rising (You're Missing stands out, as does Mary's Place) and the same on Magic. Not too much on Working on a Dream.So I'd like to propose that the powers-that-be follow their own precedent and include the Live 75/85 material in the next volume: It was released in 1986, so it would fit within the chronology. The Thunder Road and Racing in the Streets are fantastic. Two other choices I'd like to see included: "Stolen Car" off "Tracks" and the single version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." Also, do a better job with the organ and synth solos that pop up from time to time, a la the Billy Joel version.Edited to add:Some alternatives include buying the actual album folios, but also these compilations:The out of print Bruce Springsteen Complete for Piano (for guitar is still in print) contains everything up through Born in the USA and includes a bunch of outtakes. You can search for and order it through Amazon, just be sure it is the piano version. Bruce Springsteen Anthology  This has sheet music from the first three albums--a bit broader selection, including Rosalita and Incident on 57th Street.I haven't seen this  Bruce Springsteen: Sheet Music Anthology Book  but while the song selection is nice and varied (and has Santa Claus), the sample available on the Alfred website looks slightly "easy piano'ed" instead of the reliable and thorough P/V/G sheet music.

If you are a keyboard player and like the boss....this book is for you. Enjoy

If you are a Springsteen fan and play piano at all I would recommend this book. The transcriptions look to be highly accurate and I have been fascinated just looking through and following each transcription to the track.As a bonus many of the great Clarence Clemons sax solos have also been included in the melody parts.It is safe to say this is a book I will use for many years to come!

Sehr genaue Transkriptionen für Piano. Das beste Bruce Piano-Songbook, das es am Markt gibt. Auch die Songauswahl ist toll: Allen großen Klassiker der frühen Jahre bis "The River" sind vorhanden. Ich hoffe, dass es irgendwann auch noch einen Teil 2 gibt, mit den "neueren" Songs.Ich habe mir jedenfalls gleich 2 Exemplare gekauft: Eins zum spielen und eins für den Tresor.

tres bel objet du grand bruce springsteen. ne t arrete pas continu a nous bouleverser comme tu sais le faire alors vivement le prochain

spartiti per piano molto buoni e fedeli....anche se non manca qualche errore ma di poco conto. da prendere per i pianisti appassionati di Bruce