So 'Every little thing she does is magic' has popped up in paces a few times recently, and its a great song. And had a serach for the sheet music. There always seems a lot of inconsistencies on the sites regards the key. It's a pain for me as I have to transpose into 3 keys as it is, and this does not comes naturally to me, though it gets easier.
 From the same site, both listed under the piano versions, so should be transposed.
 


The first one is in D and the second in Eb.
When I look as this tab site, someone has written also in D, but with the use of Suspended chords, which sounds nice. But the sheet above in D desn't use suspended chords, but the version in Eb does (of course it doesn't matter if what key it's in, if they are suspended, then they are suspened) so no consistency on the Key or Chords.
http://www.e-chords.com/c...hing-she-does-is-magic
 

Piano arrangements of rock/blues/pop are often pretty strange, with the harmonies worked out not as a repeating riff but by combining all the notes that happen at the same time then working out what chord that is. Somewhere I've a Rolling Stones book from the 70s that has over a dozen different chords in Honky Tonk Women which change almost every beat and have no indication of the actual riffs at all.

As for keys, sometimes a key is picked because it better fits the 'classically defined' vocal ranges of bass, tenor, soprano etc. than the original. Or is easier to play on the piano. Or because whatever the arranger listened to the recording of the song on wasn't playing back at the correct speed. There's also the possibility that the sheet music is simply wrong.

And then there's the countless recordings from the days before electronic tuners that aren't in tune with A=440Hz and fall between two keys. I've not checked, but if Every Little Thing was recorded somewhere between D and Eflat that might explain things.

It's a bit crap, if I learn a melody, I should be able to play along with the original recording. I'm expecting to by the transcript of the original song and it kind of sold that way, they haven't indicated otherwise. Unusually for the Police, this was composed on the piano in the first place and also featured keys.
 
I think downloaded sheet music is overpriced as it is, so I at least expect it to be correct. 

Hi,
 
I'm not sure that you are looking at music and its human factor.
 
The music "notation" was divised wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy after the music itself, which should tell you that most music notation is an "approximation", and not necessarily the exact thing, and it is especially bad, when the interpretations by individuals enter into the fray of the music, which can be done live, but would not be necessarily accurate on paper at all.
 
Listen to an opera, by different conductors, or singer even, and check out the major differences in them, not only in interpretation, but also in details.
 
I've always thought, and I am not a student of "notes or chords" (or care to be, ever!), that music is about the "person" and not the notes and chords. TODAY, this is very visible with all the computer stuff that can tell you this note and that note by its sound and vibration (whatevahhh!!) and in the end, all it is doing is taking away the human feeling and desire and love for the piece of music. BUT, a lot of the music behind the person is getting hidden, also!
 
To me, and I am not a musician, just a lover of music (!), this is important, and it doesn't matter to me if Jon Mc is playing Cm789d or Keith is playing 17 notes on the keys! It's the feeling and flow before it and after it that matters, not just one note or a set of notes, although in this day and age, we use that as an "identifier" for copyright garbanzos and farts!
 
I, personally, and I AM trying to learn an instrument, do not see an issue here, but the more complicated staff should tell you that there is an interpretation with the note extensions, and you can go listen to the song and compare the two. And then you can learn the single notes and realize that the bending and stretching of the notes is the real issue. With that said, someone will comppose somthing on paper with all the extensions and bends and what not, and of course, most musicians will fail to "get it" and interpret it "correctly". It is much harder to interpret an individual feeling, and not likely to show on a piece of paper that well!!!! Remember that!
 
One other thing ... when I saw Stevie Ray Vaughn, I found out something rather interesting ... the bass player, was a fun, nice goon, and he accidentally got his bass tuned a half down ... and Stevie gave him a look, smiled ... and they had a new song! THAT is musicianship and then some! But it should tell you that sometimes ... things happen, and the best musicians ADAPT ... !!!

Sheet music and midi files have ALWAYS been notorious at having incorrect and widely variable attempts at representing popular songs.
 
When I was 7-8 and taking piano lessons, I would buy sheet music for a pop song, and want to learn to play it, but what they printed on the sheet music wasn't even close to how I KNEW the song actually went - I had a good ear.  I used to fight with the teacher all the time, because I would use the sheet music largely to get a general sense of the chords, but would tailor my playing of the song to better match what I could hear from the actual recording of the song.
 
MIDI files have the same issues - particularly the free ones.  
 
Further complicating things is that many times in days of old, tuners were not used, and/or the producer or engineer might speed up or slow down a song for either space or 'feel' (speeding a song up a little would take less space or time on an album, but would also alter the pitch).
 
Lastly, singers are famous for wanting something instantly transposed to a different key, usually immediately prior to you being asked to play it live for them to sing to.  Grrrr.
 
It will likely always be a frustrating issue.  I bought a really nifty program called The Amazing Slow Downer, for $50, that includes the ability to adjust the speed of playback of a given song, without altering the pitch - which along with its ability to loop through sections of a song file make it ideal for using to learn a song by playing along with it.  (you can also make pitch adjustments in 'cents' and such to compensate for slight tuning variations from recordings that had either not used a tuner or had their speed slightly adjusted for whatever reason, resulting in a pitch change.
 
Bob Bone
 

I think your expectations are a bit high, you should maybe take 99% of commercially published sheet music (other than classical stuff) with a pinch of salt and use it mainly as a guide to speed up your own learning of the song and confirm/amend what your own ears are telling you.   Unless it's produced specially as note-for-note (as in books of guitar parts/solo transcriptions etc) it will be aimed at a broad range of abilities and will probably be simplified, in a lot of cases this is unavoidable, not laziness or shoddiness on the part of the publisher.   Even with pros playing stuff done by pro transcribers/arrangers there will usually be room for debate over things like chord names, which are essentially a shorthand.    It's rare to get a commercially printed lead sheet or transcription that you could put straight on a stand on stage and play the tune from.  
 
It's got better though, I remember in my teens buying sheet music for the Beatles, Hendrix etc that in retrospect was laughably bad and inaccurate, and wondering why it didn't sound like the record.

This is an simple 80's pop song, it should clear what key it's in and if it a a major chord or a suspended chord with an altered route. It's not a complex song. Someone looking to buy this is looking to buy how the song was composed. There is no consistence from the same music provider.
 
If I was looking to play a jazz standard, I'd want the standard chord progression. I may alter the voicings and extensions to inject my own personality into it, but I want the standard to start from.
 
 

Clearly the two exemplars you show do not represent the same arrangement, and it is likely that neither is an accurate transcription of the recording. Chord names can be problematic because they are contextual, the same notes may be called different chords to match historical rules for voice following. But the individual notes and rhythm of these two are just plain different, not just in different keys. There is always more than one way to do an arrangement, and the fact that the original song author is credited in no way indicates that this is how he played it or wrote it. 

Bapu avoids this issue by only playing in Am...

craigb
Bapu avoids this issue by only playing in Am...

And getting us to dance to it!  !!! Yeah !!! Good exercise, too!