I know this doesn´t help you with your original question but did you try to figure out the notes yourself? I was never good at this but since I started playing surf 1 year ago I have learned 30+ songs with almost no use of available tab transcriptions.
Because of clean sounding, loud guitars with mostly single notes playing it is quite easy to find out what the guitar is doing.

But I´m still bad at finding out chords. I don´t know enough about different chords, voicings and music theory in general to get the proper chords. It´s always try and error and I´m often not even close.
But single note melodies are easy to learn.
give it a try.

A computer software where you can make loops and slow down playing speed without altering the pitch can be very helpful.

cheers
LoeD

here comes the WEST SAMOA SURFER LEAGUE

Did you try www.911tabs.com? You could also do a search for guitar books on Amazon. They offer some surf tab books (Ventures and Dick Dale).
Plus there are 28 surf tabs in the download section on this page.

The Hicadoolas

Last edited: Nov 21, 2012 08:01:05

LoeD wrote:

But I´m still bad at finding out chords. I don´t know enough about different chords, voicings and music theory in general to get the proper chords. It´s always try and error and I´m often not even close.

The trick to figuring out chords is to listen to the bass. In surf the bass is almost always on the root of the chord, especially on beat 1 of the bar.

Danny Snyder

"With great reverb comes great responsibility" - Uncle Leo

I am now playing trumpet with Prince Buster tribute band 'Balzac'

Playing keys and guitar with Combo Tezeta

Formerly a guitarist in The TomorrowMen and Meshugga Beach Party

Latest surf project - Now That's What I Call SURF

Brian wrote:

Hey Alex, that is great you are going to be in a band. Keep it up.

As you found out, there aren't very many tabs for modern bands in a small genre like ours. The best thing you can do though, is to stop relying on tabs. Get yourself some software that slows down parts and can loop without changing the pitch. Then go over parts over and over again. Write it down to create your own tabs. There is something about critically listening and then actively writing it down that really helped me out. Pretty soon you'll build up your ear and you can figure stuff out without tabs. It takes a lot of work and time, but you'll really improve as a guitar player as a result. Good luck!

+1! I guess that's what we all are doing here. I'm using CoolEdit, but there are plenty of programs out there that can slow down without altering the pitch. And like Brian said, you get used to it after a while.

The Hicadoolas

If you are looking for some more modern tabs I'll plug Danny " Daddy-O Grande" Amis

http://www.daddyogrande.com/tablature.html

I get what people say about trying to learn by ear but as a home player it comes down to time. As a single dad with two pre-teens my window for my own time is usually pretty small. Having sheet music speeds up the learning process a lot for me.

Personally, I'd love to see more current bands doing this.

"I'm sure this has been said a thousand times on this forum, but is there any software than can slow speed without changing pitch that's free?"

Yes - "Audacity' is free and will do what you want. I've never learned to use many of the other features of the software, but I use the ability to slow tempo all the time.

DannySnyder wrote:

Hey Alex, I don't even know what notes I'm playing anymore.

Why don't you tell mw what song you want to learn and I'll post a video close up of my guitar neck.

Oh you absolute legend man! I'm gonna have to say Requiem for a TomorrowMan! I heard it on the first podcast and it was one of the tunes that really turned me on to surf music! It's totally epic! (I'm jumpingup anddown as I type!)

Thanks for the support Brian! And thank you for creating this amazing website!!

I totally know where you're coming from BayState, well, I don't have kids, but yeah, time man time! There's just not enough of it!
Yeah I downloaded Audacity and started listening to Tsunami Struck at like 10% tempo, it was really trippy hahah, drums sound crazy that slow. I didn't know you could do tempo changes in VLC without changing the pitch, I'll have to check it out! I'll have to upload the tab here if I ever get it done!

Searches ebay

Play Guitar With The Ventures

Oh the Ventures are telling me to play by ear!

Trollalol!

Um yeah sites like this I've all ready checked, I can find tabs for classics pretty easily. May have to look into Danny's tabs a bit more, there are some good songs in there...

Baystate, thanks for posting about the Danny "Daddy-O Grande" Amis. I'll be purchasing those.

Sorry Alex, after I wrote that I went to look for my camera and realized it was gone. As I'm financially challenged these days I can't go out and buy a new one. However, a friend just offered me his old one, so in a few days I hope to be able to get that up for you.

Danny Snyder

"With great reverb comes great responsibility" - Uncle Leo

I am now playing trumpet with Prince Buster tribute band 'Balzac'

Playing keys and guitar with Combo Tezeta

Formerly a guitarist in The TomorrowMen and Meshugga Beach Party

Latest surf project - Now That's What I Call SURF