Reviewing bad music notation tattoos and products

[@DavidBennettPiano]

📌SMALL MISTAKE: at 8:39 in the playback of how the music sounds I played B natural when it should have been B flat. Of course, the music still sounds nothing like “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” even with the B flat, but I thought I’d mention it. Thank you to the commenters who brought the error to my attention. 😊

[@nathanjasper512]

Driving people with perfect pitch crazy? 😂

[@JScaranoMusic]

@@nathanjasper512 you don't need perfect pitch to notice that when you can hear the rest of the notes.

[@skywatcher5741]

Please can you answer this? Billy Eilish, What was I made for? sounds so similar to something else at the bit "and I.......". It's driving me nuts.

[@RascalMcascal]

Don't worry.. my stupid ass thought at 10:18 it was gonna say "I'm a creep" not fab dad...

[@skyscratcher4264]

STOP MAKING MISTAKES!

[@gustavsturksteinwall4027]

the hills are alive with the sound of mugif

[@Vivi-Mage]

In public and I almost laughed out loud at this 😂 had to stop myself

[@oldvlognewtricks]

Thank you for the mugif 🤣

[@elice-raimei-6358]

mu.gif

[@Mr-wd2wn]

Mugif

[@liamannegarner8083]

I'm not over the Amadeus Cafe that had all of Mozart, in the public domain, to write on the menu cover, and wrote the Flintstones theme. I'd almost believe it was on purpose.

[@marshwetland3808]

😂😂😂😂

[@R.Akerman-oz1tf]

Is G-A-D-D-A-D an actual guitar tuning? ((corny: E(signature) gad, Dad. )) No one says E-gads anymore.

[@THernane]

@@R.Akerman-oz1tf It is and it sounds kinda nice actually.

[@yesSirIWill]

​@@R.Akerman-oz1tf Could be! Pretty sure D-A-D-G-A-D, or celtic tuning, is a lot more common, though. As in: "Da-ad!? Gaaad!"

[@R.Akerman-oz1tf]

I'm learning TYSM. I was being sarcastic about the T-Shirts, trying to resurrect old quips; Egad & Daddio.@@yesSirIWill

[@jackcutler3413]

The reason Lady Gaga got that tattoo is because the notes on the stave are GAGA, not for the melody itself. I’m surprised you didn’t pick up on that!

[@merseyviking]

Before she got it fixed it could have read BCBC!

[@maurmi]

Yes, it seemed pretty obvious

[@josephwest124]

Said the same thing. I honestly hadn't read through the comments before I posted mine.

[@RomanGonzalez-vw3wl]

This is a music channel, not a stupid wanna be channel, may be for that.

[@nikitademodov3446]

There's no clef, so it doesn't spell anything.

[@drumhead98]

Ruthless. Flexing on their tattoos. When he started playing the music on the tattoo with a guide hitting each note killed me.

[@DavidBennettPiano]

😂

[@thomasboonty852]

The all you need is love tattoo also has the key signature marked with an E#, which is definitely not in G major

[@inf1n1typlus1]

New G major just dropped

[@biggnate]

At 8:38, when you played the music to Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, you missed the flat in the key signature. That B flat changes everything. If you play the music in the correct key signature, you will find that the written music still sounds completely wrong.

[@jeroenrl1438]

😂😂😂

[@althealligator1467]

8:20 I know you probably know this and just used the wrong words, but for anyone who doesn't know, it's not multiples of 2 or 4 (which could incude things like 6 or 12), but specifically powers of 2 (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc)

[@DavidBennettPiano]

Yeah, I misspoke there. You’re correct 🙂

[@BeeSharp47]

Technically it can be 1 too, but that's quite rare. I think I've only seen it once or twice in modern music.

[@zesta77]

@@BeeSharp47 Yep. also... 1 is 2^0, so "powers of 2" still holds true.

[@frtzkng]

@@zesta77 inb4 some mathcore band puts out a piece in 1/0.5 time (2^-1)

[@jolliron]

I'm a big fan of the sign my music teacher had up in her room that said "students while the teacher is talking: (whole rest with fermata)"

[@Typical.Anomaly]

3:30 With the top ledger line added, if it's a treble staff, it spells her name: G A G A

[@matthiasheymann]

I had an online merch store for piano fans in the past. When trying to source products, almost always from China, these kind of mistakes happen in the MAJORITY of cases, they are not the exception. None of these "designers" have the capacity to understand how a piano keyboard looks and how notes are supposed to look; it is quite mind-boggling. The fact that they get the piano keyboard wrong in more than 50% of the cases is particularly astounding, as this does not require "reading" skills. It really showed me that some brains are just built differently.

[@Chris_the_Muso]

Yeah, that's pretty sad, really. On the one had "music is the universal language" but then you have the reality that musical language is anything but universal.

[@rueburch2856]

I like how you used Japanese as an example, because that's another genre of messed-up tattoos (backwards, missing or extra strokes on the characters, made-up characters, or just weird words). 間違えている indeed!

[@Hourstone]

So nice to see someone comb through this, great vid

[@Allen2]

"I need a ... quarter rest." You could have asked for a whole rest, now get back to work.

[@TheMister123]

3:45 - I wouldn't give this one a hard time simply because it's obviously meant as a kind of pareidolia. It doesn't matter tha the clefs are based on other letters - they still **LOOK LIKE** S and C.

[@DavidBennettPiano]

Yeah I agree 😊

[@JScaranoMusic]

That's what I was thinking when I turned them upside down to look like J and S. 😂

[@jonessperandio]

A lot of shitty artists in my country use a stylized G clef in their logos to represent the letter S. Makes me cringe every time I see it.

[@jojawesome_]

m u [Segno] I [Cut or common time] would work better.

[@CarlSong]

The "artistic rendition" of the saxophone at 5:52 is about as accurate as the piano that follows it.

[@condolcezza5850]

I have a periodic table of music notation. I got this gift for Christmas and love it to death. There’s just one issue. It shows a rest symbol in the box above the word… *arpeggio*. Either they meant to put the arpeggio symbol, or the word “Quarter rest”. Not just this, but I have a cover for my desk for when I move into college in the fall, and it shows a bunch of music theory stuff; circle of fifths, scales, chord progressions, etc. They have a keyboard on the pad too… With the treble cleft having “GBDFA” like the bass on the bottom. Bruh 🙄

[@noscrubbubblez6515]

Reminds me of an old Tom and Jerry cartoon where in moving animation they take the manuscript of written musical notes off the page and run around -and the orchestrated music correctly matches what the cartoonists have done (incredibly detailed and clever). Also later watching rock groups fingers to see if they bother miming the chord shapes to songs they promote. John Lennon can be seen in a few vids purposely not aping along to the vocal or piano playing -as a joke, while Paul cracks up.

[@frtzkng]

I think in the first one Jerry replaced the notes with ants and directed the ants to move around

[@ND62511]

Fun fact: the Japanese at 3:17 effectively translates to “making a mistake”

[@knucklepilled]

i never thought about this as a video idea, but it exists and i love it

[@Pyroific]

* *double checking my treble & bass clef tattoos are facing the correct way* * phew 🥳

[@parallax_review]

@3:28: Because it spells GAGA!

[@wifty362]

But it didn't specify which clef. It would only spell G A G A, if it was in treble clef. It would spell B C B C in bass clef.

[@themathhatter5290]

...if you add a treble clef. If you add a bass clef, it's BCBC

[@mandysberi]

@@wifty362 True, but you are overthinking it. Most instruments are in the treble clef by default, and considering she is a female singer, she can only be in the treble clef - so it could be implied.

[@wifty362]

I'm not overthinking, it's just basic knowledge.@@mandysberi People use the treble clef mostly nowadays, but the piano also uses bass clef, while the viola uses alto clef. In old times, people used to use the soprano, mezzo and alto clef for singing.

[@woomy8971]

​@@wifty362 i feel like most people default to treble clef (at least i do as a flute player) but yeah people who play or sing bass clef music might be confused at first lol

[@mysteryawesome.]

You forgot to mention this tattoo, 2:00, has another mistake, inventing a new key signature as well with just an E sharp!

[@TheMister123]

2:21 - Hey, at least that mistake is correctable. "Hey, tattoo artist. I just need a dot right here."

[@DavidBennettPiano]

😂

[@kwakerjak]

I think the “Treble clef as the letter S” tattoo explains the tendency to draw them incorrectly - I bet a lot of people think it’s supposed to be a capital S in cursive handwriting, because those do bear a strong resemblance to backwards treble clefs.

[@carolm.ferreira3699]

Wow, oh my God!! So fun and instructive in the same time this video!! I liked it! 😊

[@thesmashfloydian]

The deadpan “excellent humor” at 9:49 killed me lol

[@Laura-vl9iy]

If I knew that the treble and bass clefs where letters, I forgot that fact many, many, many years ago. I love your videos,

[@juanibiapina]

That deconstructed picture is amazing!! A human being for sure made that and put some good work!!

[@YouennF]

2:31 The F# in the key signature is also misplaced

[@dr-ozone]

So glad you included the infamous Christmas ruler! I think you forgot the Bb key signature when playing it

[@HattoriHanzo62]

at 5:30 the mug has 7 lines instead of 5!

[@cjtsang]

i've been reading sheet music since i was 4 and yet i never knew that the treble clef is a stylized G and the bass clef is a stylized F ( it's also likely that i did know this as i was learning how to read notes, but promptly forgot as i got older...) 😵i always thought of them as "those funky looking symbols at the start"

[@UC-Music]

Love this new video type 😂 Learning while laughing!!

[@teho1536]

3:25 the notes spell out GAGA (it can also be seen in her profile picture)

[@VeggiesbyEos]

"We've got a really mangled treble clef here, I really don't know how it managed to get that bad"😂😂

[@LL-bl8hd]

I wonder what that "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" music actually was? The chords looked at least somewhat logical.

[@AblemanSy]

I have the first line of Elgar's cello concerto tattooed on my left arm. Looks amazing and is quite accurate as I just took it out of the original sheet music.

[@althealligator1467]

4:26 there's another one of those actually, the natural symbol which is used as the dot for the "i" is a stylized "n."

[@DavidBennettPiano]

Actually, I believe the natural mark is a stylised “B” as it dates back to when there were two types of B, “hard B” which was B natural, and “soft B” which was B flat. 😊😊

[@piguy314159]

8:38 the audio plays B naturals instead of B flats

[@alternativeglasto]

Came here to say this!

[@Deth69Destruction]

Gaga's tattoo it's "GAGA", but makes no sense without the treble clef

[@tedl7538]

David, you're not mentioning the third mistake on the tattoos at 1:57, which is that the key signature clearly has its sharp on E instead of F. I'd love to hear that surreal mode but I'm afraid it contains a duplicate note at the beginning, unless we're giving up equal temperament 🎵🎶

[@royalex21]

2:17 Also the key signature is on an E space, not an F line. 7:22 Also I have one of those Difficult Times shirts

[@DavidBennettPiano]

Which time signatures are on your shirt? 😊

[@royalex21]

@@DavidBennettPiano6/4 and 13/8

[@AndreiMarentett]

Ah yes, Mugif 4:28

[@syth108]

I read that present treble clef can possibly be derived from both G and S. "A possible addition to this evolution was suggested in a 1908 article in The Musical Times, which argued that the contemporary form of the treble clef is a result of 17th century notational technique in which multiple symbols were used indicate both pitch and vocal sound, with “G, Sol” being a common combination that was eventually shortened to G.S. and then “gradually corrupted by careless transcription” into the treble clef." Don't know if that's true, but it certainly does look like a combination of both letters more than just a hyper-stylized G

[@audreyfaye5262]

I have a teacher that has the same tie at 5:40, and i was just looking at it in class and was like... thats wrong

[@DroggeIbecher]

6:17 even in the later pictures of keyboards there is a part where the middle black key overlapps just 1 white key in the middle. in other words: to many white keys again. or did i get this wrong?

[@dcflake5645]

Feeling called out with all my mangled treble clefs I used to draw when doing my music A-Level. Those things are hard

[@ptheorist4670]

6:19 definitely looks like it was machine-generated. Any graphic designer with even the least amount of knowledge about pianos would have done it better. Like, I get mixing up the order of black and white keys, or what side the note beams go, but that is a monstrosity. And I love 7:30 because those are indeed difficult time signatures for many people, and it looks like whoever designed that _knew_ that. It looks like those were chosen on purpose 😆

[@JJschannel255]

Ok

[@pup64hcp]

3:21 I think the joke is that, if you assume it's in treble clef, it spells GAGA

[@monoverantus]

I have a similar gripe with a very popular channel who made a very succesful video about my favorite soundtrack, where most of the sheet music in the video were either wrong or upside-down.

[@JJ-bj3sy]

which video was it?

[@JScaranoMusic]

5:04 that's not just reflected. The notehead is the right way around but the stem is on the wrong side. If you just flipped it, the notehead would be angled the wrong way.

[@briansadler5225]

Also with All You Need is Love, the key signature has one sharp (correct) but the sharp is on an E instead of an F

[@Bladavia]

I'm pretty sure that the treble clef is even a G and a D tied together, not just a stylised G.

[@d3w4yn3]

Your mastery of child psychology is matched only by my vulnerability to it! Now I want to learn how to read sheet music!!! Well played, good Sir, well played!!!

[@speedygd]

My cousin owns the keyboard tie. I asked him 'are you aware that your tie is missing a key'. He said 'yes, I just like wearing it to annoy people and see if they'll pick up on it' and I find that hilarious

[@dhpbear2]

6:30 - One word for this: Higgledy-piggledy :)

[@stevenodonnell2446]

The lady Gaga tattoo spells out 'GAGA'

[@5688gamble]

You missed that the clef was positioned wrong in the second one too, it is meant to sit on the G line, it's a G, it is meant to mark where G is, it is just kinda sitting around below the staff.

[@wong4728]

You are simply the best. This video is great. I am learning. Thanks

[@thornhill67]

I've seen a variation of the "BAND GEEK" design that didn't have clefs. That way one would assume that the bottom stave is bass, so the message doesn't work.

[@cheery-hex]

fun video! those last ones were quite clever :)

[@lionellines6351]

On both of the All You Need Is Love ones, the G Major key signature was also written incorrectly, featuring a solitary G-sharp instead of an F-sharp.

[@DrMackSplackem]

Some examples of 'questionable scoring' can be found in Stravinsky's L'Histoire Soldat. For some reason, (I think it's in one of the marches) in a passage with a steady beat and an unwavering time signature throughout, he arbitrarily resets the bar line whenever a new voice is added, even though this only makes the other parts harder to read. Why? Who knows, perhaps he was just having a bit of fun there.

[@MichaelPuterbaugh]

l'Histoire is full of moments where there's a regular ostinato that suggests one time signature, and irregular rhythms in melodic voices that suggest others. In notation Stravinsky favors the melodies to determine how the music is barred (and thus how it's conducted), even though as listeners our ears might be more anchored to hear the ostinato as the prevalent rhythm.

[@DrMackSplackem]

@@MichaelPuterbaugh Perhaps that's the case, but I'm talking about a section of music that is continuously rhythmic and relatively unchanging (and decidedly pre-melody). Let me put it this way: Nobody transcribing that piece from a recording would've altered the meter, or have even known where to do so. It was just a funny and arbitrary thing for a composer to put extra effort into writing into the score.

[@nicholasnethercote7071]

I sometimes sing You Are My Sunshine with that higher note, it works just as well.

[@anyamccullough2844]

A couple things to add! The GAGA tattoo can still be criticized to a small degree, because there is no clef and therefore we technically don't know the notes are G and A except through other context. Me being someone who mainly reads in treble clef and enjoys lady gaga got it pretty easily but just saying that there is criticism to be had here, if desired. The other thing was the key signature in one example having an e# instead of f#! Very fun video 🥰

[@five-toedslothbear4051]

3:20 love it! I am in fact learning Japanese, and today I learned a word. Not going to spoil what it says…

[@demoncanondllyf]

8:15 The yellow lines are over the treble clefs and it gives me anxiety

[@ombrenightcores]

I once found a piece of merchandise that said it was Jingle Bells but it was actually Yeah! by Usher

[@Charlie_Xplorer]

Very fun video and idea, & I would like to see a part 2! As a person with a tattoo the first segment was kinda painful tho...😂

[@ericrakestraw664]

I remember seeing a T-shirt with the famous four-note motif from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony transcribed on the front, but the fourth note was mistakenly notated as an F instead of the correct E-flat. Brett and Eddy made fun of the error on their KZbin channel, TwoSetViolin.

[@Elektrochoke]

I learn so much from you! Thank you

[@Leo-st9ti]

In the shirt at 5:00 you’re flipping it the wrong way that’s why

[@jonaslind9505]

1:58 The eighths in All You Need Is Love are swung, so I wouldn’t have mixed dotted-eighth-and-sixteenth with eighths like that. I’d have chosen one of them (both are commonly used for notating swung eighths) and stuck with it throughout.

[@JScaranoMusic]

My grand staff is upside down, but that's because it's a reflection. Also it's supposed to look like JS.

[@Allen2]

Lady Gaga has GAGA on her arm, assuming a treble clef. In bass clef, she's DEDE, or in C clef she's ABAB.

[@ornleifs]

Loved this - I have a Sheet Music Appreciation group on Facebook where I have often posted similar things - this video will of course be posted there.

[@Kriegter]

I mean, the one at 4:14 can very narrowly pass as "Magic" and said magic shapeshifts the bass clef into a C

[@bernhardwall6876]

"C" for "Common time" (i.e., 4/4).

[@althealligator1467]

Congrats on your most unhinged video so far though man.

[@BidetToYou]

In the first example we also have a quarter note on the and of 2 in each measure, which, while not technically incorrect, is just very bad practice for readability and absolutely goes against convention.

[@BidetToYou]

Also this is a "shame on you, David Bennett", but the accidental on the B in the You Are My Sunshine tattoo would carry over to the subsequent B, so there should not be a step down.

[@STERNWAERTS]

i think the GAGA tattoo is a great little idea that works, but the fact that it was wrong AND fixed, oh boy. i would have just left it, would've been kinda quirky.

[@WayneKitching]

Lady Gaga is a trained musician, so it would have bothered her.

[@althealligator1467]

​@@WayneKitching How'd she post it on the internet without noticing then?

[@carlos_takeshi]

Well, the other problem with the tattoo is there's no clef, so it could be BCBC, or really just about any other pair of notes, given the existence of C clefs.

[@LikeItDeep]

The staffs on David's shirt have too many lines and they run into each other and are devoid of notation. And the one around his neck isn't even straight and is missing the other four lines. He ought to get his own house in order before pointing the finger at others! ;-)

[@nstrug]

You should check out some of the uploads to Songsterr. Really mad things like swung notes fully written out, bizarre and unplayable fingerings in the tab, and no key signatures so everything written in as accidentals. I’ve a suspicion that many of them are done by people using software to convert AI-generated stems to MIDI.

[@zacharyleonard9413]

1:30 the treble clef is centred on the wrong line too

[@BamaRailfan]

I actually plan to get a sheet music tattoo, but im gonna be absolutely sure it's done right!

[@uffevonlauterbach]

You should make a video on irrational time signatures.

[@TheMister123]

9:15 - I'm disappointed that you didn't perform the glissandos in the bass clef. 🙂

[@pulykamell]

Arpeggios, not glisses, but I was waiting for that, too.

[@AndrewTaylorPhD]

My favourite thing in the "mugif" genre is a British quiz show that was supposed to be called DUEL but to indicate there was a big cash prize they styled it DU£L. The £ symbol is a stylised L.

[@drs-xj3pb]

I miss the LSD monetary system.

[@adamguitar1498]

Everyone always mentions how the treble clef circles a G, but never how it also circles the G an octave above, and how it's tails curl, circles middle C.

[@casanovafunkenstein5090]

I know that you're not really a guitar player, but the most egregious type of notation I've ever seen is when you get a songbook where the notation is accompanied by guitar chord diagrams, which are invariably put together without any consideration for how the player would physically transition between the different fingerings. It's probably really good for if you're composing or improvising a lead guitar part over the chord changes (because you can design the part as a solution for how to get your hands moving between these chord voicings using single notes), but nobody expects a straight cover of a pop or rock song to omit the regular guitar parts and replace them with an extended jazz fusion improvisation or some sequence of Hendrixy chordal fills.

[@Pimpet-wc5qu]

You should make more videos like this, it's wonderfull to watch 😊

[@uesbob]

The tattoo process involves flipping a stencil over and transferring the draft image to the skin, and the tattoo artist goes over that with the tattoo needle. So the mirror image could be explained that way.

[@Allen2]

Miranda Lambert, top American country star, singer, songwriter, guitarist, has a pair of crossed pistols with angel wings tattooed up her guitar chord (left) forearm; she's from Texas. Piper Ally has a full bagpipe on her leg. They opted out of music notation, interestingly, perhaps to avoid such critiques.

[@Perryz7]

For the second example, the treble clef is not on the correct line (shown on bottom, should be second line from the bottom)

[@marshwetland3808]

I thought you were going to do mistakes in actual sheet music. Like I was wondering what the heck is the rule for which note sticks out on the other side when you have a four-note seventh chord stacked. In my Brown Scale Book sometimes it's one side, sometimes the other, and it's not always the same note. If it were me, I'd make sure it's always the seventh, because that's where the semitone is gonna be (except for diminished, of course.... so many 7th chords now I can't keep em straight). But I wish I knew the rule, thought it might help me with sightreading.

[@MaggaraMarine]

Here's the rule: When you have two notes one step apart, the lower note will be on the left side and the higher note will be on the right side. This is regardless of stem direction. The placement of the other notes depends on the stem direction. If the stem is up, the notes are on the left side (so the higher note will be on the "wrong side"). If the stem is down, the notes are on the right side (so the lower note will be on the "wrong side"). The stem direction is determined by the note that's furthest away from the middle line. So, it has little to do with the function of the note, although the most common notes that are a step apart in a chord are the 7th and the root above. But depending on stem direction, it may be the root or the 7th that will be on the "wrong side". But you also have these steps in 6th chords, add9 chords, sus4 chords, etc. I don't think knowing this rule will really help with sight reading. It just makes the notation look cleaner. I mean, notes a step apart cannot be notated on top of each other because there's simply no space. And two notes a step apart are always notated the same way (higher note on the right side). The rest of the notes follow the normal stem direction rules. It's simply convenient.

[@marshwetland3808]

@@MaggaraMarineTHanks so much. Good to know it all. My bass teacher didn't know the answer to this and he's a pro level sight reader, so it would seem you're right that it is not necessarily helpful for sight reading.

[@marshwetland3808]

@@MaggaraMarine Thanks so much for that information. My bass teacher is a crack sight reader on piano and also teaches piano, but he didn't know this rule.

[@MaggaraMarine]

@@marshwetland3808 Yeah, unless you handwrite piano scores, you don't really have to worry about it. I actually also learned about the rule quite recently. But now it just seems obvious, because it's so simple - the other notes follow the normal stem direction rule. Only the two notes a step apart have to be taken into consideration, and even then it's really simple, because the lower note is always on the left and the higher note is always on the right. I guess it's easy to assume there's some more complex pattern to it when you don't know the pattern.

[@marshwetland3808]

@@MaggaraMarine I mostly played Bach so I didn't see a lot of chords like that, I think, but now in jazz they're kinda everywhere. Thanks again.

[@Vivi-Mage]

1:40 looks like it was meant to be an A#, but was just drawn a little bit upwards so the spacing is kind of ambiguous. Reminds me of when a music theory teacher I had would tell us to make sure to CLEARLY put our notes on the line or space, because it turns out people can sometimes be a bit muddy when it comes to note placement. Also, on the tattoo with the F clef used as a C, I can see why they would choose that as it is recognizable and looks kind of like a C… but why not a C clef, or the common time symbol?

[@LakeFX]

I have one tattoo, and it's a bass clef on a staff, around the bicep. No key signature, no additional notes. It's been my one true and consistent passion in my life, and I have zero regrets about getting it.

[@mandysberi]

This video of David simply rooooasting bad music notation is very satisfying!

[@jobo460]

The purple keyboard at 6:14 is still incorrect because there are too many white notes. The G#/Ab black note is on top of a white note also. Love the video! This is a little different from your usual content but it is refreshing and interesting. Thanks!

[@Teak67Teak]

6:03 Welcome to 14edo!