Hi all!

I began learning how to play guitar about a year ago. I got myself an acoustic guitar, took some lessons, learned some chords and now I am able to pick it up and play some songs I like. I want to learn how to play surf music and stumbled onto this site today. Hopefully you can help. What is the best way for a beginner to learn how to play surf music? As I mentioned, I know some basic chords but a lot of the stuff I see for surf music is TAB based. Are there any easy surf songs for a newbie to practice with? Thank you.

Welcome to SG101. I started playing 6 months ago at 46yo and have found lots of great info and friendly people here.

I started with the book Danny posted and it 's good one.

There are also some great song tabs here to some fairly eazy some harder.
http://surfguitar101.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownload&cid=9

try here too
http://www.martincilia.com/plain.asp?page=302

Learning to use tabs was well worth it for me lots of tabbed songs out there.

"Maybe there aren't any surf bands; there's only surf music?" Tuck

DannySnyder
Welcome to the forum Nevets17, you've come to the right place. When I decided to take up surf guitar 4 or 5 years ago, I went out and bought this book. It comes with a CD that you can play along with, and has both tabs and notation. I found it a great start to learning how to play the style. On this site, there is countless discussions about learning techniques, I suggest you use the 'search' function and just start browsing. You're bound to learn a lot.

PS: You may find double-picking to be rather difficult on an acoustic and may want to put off learning that until you get an electric guitar.

I find it difficult on an electric!!!!!!! +1 for everything Danny said.

24 Hours is a Man or Astroman? song. The tab is on the MoAM page, and it is a fairly easy song. If you go on youtube and search for The Sandals doing Endless Summer, the rhythm line is fairly easy. (tab is on the tab page) I try to use my ear to learn songs...usually just using the tab for checking fingerings, finding chords, or double stops.

I have one of these:

image

Tascam Guitar Trainer. Slows everything down, without changing the pitch. I really like it. New for $150 or so IIRC, ebay for $50-75.

Will

"You're done, once you're a surfer you're done. You're in. It's like the mob or something. You're not getting out." - Kelly Slater

The Luau Cinders

thorburn
As for books, I've used a few, but these were the most helpful:

http://www.amazon.com/Surf-Spy-Hits-Easy-Guitar/dp/0739042033/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269199553&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Ventures-Pipeline-Arranged-Dan-Libertino/dp/1569221995/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269199570&sr=1-2

As for tabs to start out with, I recommend Apache by The Shadows (to other forum members: Maybe it's not exactly surf, but it's close enough) and Pipeline by The Chantays. They aren't that difficult to play. I suggest you play each one slowly until you get the notes right, then speed it up to the right rhythm. Practice makes perfect. Have fun!

The Ventures' Pipeline is an awesome book, ordered it a few weeks ago. Covers many popular surf songs. Personally though I like my Ventures Japanese TAb book that I got off ebay as it includes fingering along with the tab so its a bit easier to get the parts down.
Walk Don't Run is another super easy surf tune that you can find tab for almost anywhere online.

http://www.youtube.com/zac360turn
http://www.youtube.com/thehappywanderers

Polka and Surf for Life!

Hi, and welcome. Just adding a non-surf-specific reminder: keep working on the basics of guitar playing. Playing tunes like Pipeline and Walk Don't Run is a great idea, but learning about things like barre chords and minor pentatonic scales also turned out to be extremely helpful, even though at the time I didn't really know why I was learning them. (Come to think of it, you've probably covered this stuff already; if so, just ignore me!:lol:)

Trying to copy your favorite songs (or just parts of them), without any tabs, can be a great learning experience. I was recently trying to figure out a Ghastly Ones song, and it soon forced me to learn something that would probably never have occurred to me otherwise. Be systematic, but also spend some time experimenting.

As for double picking, don't wait until you've got everything else down; start building your technique and stamina now, and you can add it later to the songs you've learned.

Well....how's it going??

Thanks for asking.

I haven't picked up any books yet(thanks for the suggestions) but Surf : Guitar Play along Volume 23 is on order.

I am a slow learner and I am trying to recreate some TAB based riffs on my acoustic. Its hard. Speed is an issue but I will continue to work at it. Its easier for me to strum away on the chords that I already know. Having fun playing the D and C chords of "Endless Summer".

I have been looking at some Dead Kennedys stuff ( I think East Bay Ray's guitar is what got me interested in surf music to beging with). I have also been listening to Devlar 365. I love it! I didn't realize there were so many cool bands that play surf. I was amazed to hear London Calling by The Pyronauts. I can play that tune and was wondering how to "surf it up". Any thoughts?

Probably a late reply on the thread, but, hopefully, it will worth. See the tabs available on the download section of the forum, get those songs and play along. Then go and see Brian's Man or Astro Man Tab page and Surf Guitar Tab by Thor Andersen. If this is not enough for you, google it as well. Now and again, you might find much more confortable ways for your fingers to play the same thing you find tabbed.
Might be redundant for lots of people, but because my rhythm skills aren't as good as I would like to, sometimes I start working on one song by muting the strings with the left hand (or even put a bank note between the strings on the 12th fret as I saw on the film Walk the Line) and just play the rhythm along close to the rhythm guitar or the snare drums of the song, just to get/ understand the feeling of the song, without caring much with notes at that stage. Only after I built some confidence, I move on to the rhythm and to the lead guitar. As I've said, my rhythm skills aren't as good as I would like so I tend to be slow on the process of learning one new song.
For the double picking I'm following the tips I saw on this forum and I've download one freeware metronome to exercise/ warm up.
East Bay Ray is far to fast, you might want to start by something more simple and slower but then again, I've learn will is one of humans greatest strenght.

DannySnyder
When I decided to take up surf guitar 4 or 5 years ago, I went out and bought this book. It comes with a CD that you can play along with, and has both tabs and notation. I found it a great start to learning how to play the style.
.

Is this book (and other similar to that one) really useful? I mean, today one can find a lot of information on the Internet, including tabs, notes and even some backing tracks.

TwangZombie

DannySnyder
When I decided to take up surf guitar 4 or 5 years ago, I went out and bought this book. It comes with a CD that you can play along with, and has both tabs and notation. I found it a great start to learning how to play the style.
.

Is this book (and other similar to that one) really useful? I mean, today one can find a lot of information on the Internet, including tabs, notes and even some backing tracks.

i didn't realize this book had backing tracks which is nice for those of us who play alone.

www.surfintheeye.com

TwangZombie

DannySnyder
When I decided to take up surf guitar 4 or 5 years ago, I went out and bought this book. It comes with a CD that you can play along with, and has both tabs and notation. I found it a great start to learning how to play the style.
.

Is this book (and other similar to that one) really useful? I mean, today one can find a lot of information on the Internet, including tabs, notes and even some backing tracks.

I have that book, too, and it's useful for a couple of reasons. First, it comes with a CD which contains two versions of all the songs in the book -- one is complete (with lead guitar part), and the other is a backing track. Furthermore, you can slow the songs down or have them repeat. The other point is that the quality of tablature on the Web is pretty, er... questionable. Any clueless 13-year old can put his mistakes up there for you to find. So far, I've found the book to be okay, although I haven't tried all the songs in it.

The combination of tab'd songs, matching tracks, backing tracks, and 'Amazing Slow-Downer' feature really is worth the investment.