Sorry for the double threads my internet is screwy right now. But 1 more quick question. anybody have any tabs for the invisible surfers? I love their style.

I am actually pretty interested in this as well. I ordered that Hal Leonard book based on Joelman's recommendation. Are there any good DVD's available? I really like good DVD's as a learning tool.

I am reviving this old thread to say that after spending some time with the Hal Leonard book and some other tab books It appears that the Hal Leonard is off on a couple of the songs. Penetration for one is a whole half step off the whole song. It's a nice resource because it has a disc to play along with but I thought I should mention it in case being fully accurate matters to anyone looking into this book.

Anyone have any other suggestions after all this time. I would still be interested in a DVD.

I should also clarify (because i didn't realize that both books I had were Hal Leonard).

There is a big Hal Leonard book called Surf Guitar that is very good and seems to be pretty accurate. There is another HL book called Surf Guitar Play Along that has the bad tab.

Also I agree about the tab thing. I am currently taking lessons and trying to learn past just reading tab but sometimes I like it just to get me rolling. Once I locate the first part I can more easily figure the rest out on my own.

The thing about tab is they can tell you the notes to play but does not tell you how you should be playing those notes.

Brian
And Johnny_Alien, Penetration is widely believed to be sped up on record, so it isn't too surprising the tab would be off by that much.

Penetration by the Pyramids is in F#. Penetration by the Ventures is in G. Surf bands have covered both versions quite often. You need 22 frets on the guitar to play the lead in G, since there is a very high D.

Ivan

PS Totally agree about learning by ear.

Ivan
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From Surfin' Guitars book by Bob Dalley:

Steve Leonard, the writer of Penetration, says:

"I took Pipeline and analyzed it and transformed it into something different. I changed the key to F#, so I could lift my finger and add the seventh. I recorded that F# riff and played different melodies to it until i found one that sounded good."

I don't remember if the Pyramids recording was sped up, but I do remember thinking that they did play it in F# - so the book is not actually wrong!

Ivan

Ivan
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zak
I am really against tablature. I think it just postpones training your ears to pick out what you hear on recordings. Most of the tablature I've seen (for any genre of music) is either simplified or inaccurate, sometimes wildly so.

The best thing you can do if you're learning to play is to train yourself to learn off recordings. It's difficult at first, but it's far more rewarding than having someone tell you where to place your fingers. If you learn a song from tab you've learned one song, if you learn to use your ears you've taught yourself how to learn any song. Of course it will initially take longer than someone telling you where to place your fingers, but the payoff is well worth it.

I've done all I could to wean my guitar students off of tab and they were all very grateful eventually. In my opinion it's a crutch that prevents you from really learning the instrument.

I would tend to agree with this too. Most tabs I find are very simplified and or wrong. But that being said, I do use them sometimes to "get in the ballpark" on certain songs use my ear to modify what the tab is showing me. One of the big things that helps me is watching live band doing songs I like to learn. One of the most difficult things with doing it by ear is tunings other than standard being used. Iused to go nuts early in my ear training playing off of old Ventures records untilI I realizd that they usually had their guitars tuned about 1/2 step higher than standard.

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IvanP
From Surfin' Guitars book by Bob Dalley:

Steve Leonard, the writer of Penetration, says:

"I took Pipeline and analyzed it and transformed it into something different. I changed the key to F#, so I could lift my finger and add the seventh. I recorded that F# riff and played different melodies to it until i found one that sounded good."

I don't remember if the Pyramids recording was sped up, but I do remember thinking that they did play it in F# - so the book is not actually wrong!

Ivan

I see the point here but it seems to make more sense to tab it to sound like the recording. That's just my opinion though.

And I didn't mean to open a can of worms here I happen to agree about the downfalls of tab but like I (and a previous poster) said before, it is good to at least get you started on the right path. Once I know the general key I can get most of the rest although i am still pretty new to the guitar game (I played bass pretty much exclusively).

Anyway since the original poster was a beginner such as myself and others reading this might be the same I thought I would alert to the downfall of the one particular tab book since many might not even realize the keys were incorrect. I wouldn't have known had I not been working on it with the teacher and saw it was different in 2 of my books.

well put Joel, thanks for the reality check.

Danny Snyder

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Formerly a guitarist in The TomorrowMen and Meshugga Beach Party

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