badash
Joined: Aug 18, 2006
Posts: 1732
|
Posted on Apr 30 2009 12:30 PM
big_papu
use your ears , not tabs...........training your ears is the best thing that could happen to your guitar playing
and don´t forget......HAVE FUN 
Two things about these comments. There is nothing wrong with starting with tab. Use any ones you can find. But learn the songs you have the tab for without the album! The thing is there is only so much you can do on the guitar, on any instrument. So as you learn to read the tab well, and eventually get to where you can almost sight read it never having heard the song, you force yourself to learn how to read, and count out in real time doted notes and rests, triplets, etc. This results in you being a musician who actually taps out the beat, counts, are aware of measures, which will be critical when someone wants you to solo to 2 or 4 or 6 measures.
The other thing this will teach you is recognizing the patterns better. Everybody is different of course, but it's one thing to play a dotted quarter note, eighth note, one beat triplet of two rests and a note, eighth rest, eighth note _measure because you heard it on the album, but to play it because you read it, and actually count it out, it seems as though with the people I've taught (exageration there. More accurate to say "helped"), they internalize it, and even as they move on to learning things by ear, they recognize the note combination like the _one beat triplet of two rests and a note (which they will run across again, and lots of other standard combos in whatever genre they play). It gives them a solid rythmic "Vocabulary" that makes ear learning easier, and your playing much more solid.
Big Papu is right of course in the long term. There is no substitute for being able to learn songs by ear. I'm not arguing with him really. Using tabs as a "cheat" to learn songs more easily is lame. Actually reading them as sheet music, WITHOUT double checking on the album, is developmental in terms of making you a solid musician with unerring rythm.
And mostly Big Papu is right about the having fun part. That can mean only learning the intro of song if that's all you like about the song. Or the bridge, or the solo. Think about your last visit to Guitar Center and all the "Under the Bridge" "Enter Sandman" and even "Stairway"  intros you heard. Those kids learned the "fun" parts, and as hard as it may be to admit it if you can't stand those songs, thats the way to go when you are starting out...
End of surmon.
|
Staredge
Joined: Sep 27, 2008
Posts: 1149
Damascus, Maryland
|
Posted on Apr 30 2009 03:10 PM
I started looking for tab, but more as a clue rather than to follow. I'd like it more for the chord charts than the lead. I can't follow tab to save my life. I can pick out the lead pretty easy, but where it is useful for me is determining when two notes are being played at the same time, or when a chord is thrown in there.
I really like my Tascam trainer. I'd never be able to learn songs at speed. Slowing it down is a big help.
— 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
|
planish
Joined: Jan 09, 2008
Posts: 473
Sackville, New Brunswick
|
Posted on Apr 30 2009 11:58 PM
Staredge
I really like my Tascam trainer. I'd never be able to learn songs at speed. Slowing it down is a big help.
For some difficult (to me) passages I resort to using Audacity to slow it down (without changing pitch), loop short passages (as short as one or two notes if I'm desperate), and whatnot. It's great open-source software, for most platforms, and it's free.
With that, I can write my own tabs.
— I'm not a complete idiot. Some parts are missing.
|
da-ron
Joined: Jan 02, 2009
Posts: 1305
The original Plymouth, UK.
|
Posted on Jun 29 2009 06:51 AM
I've just started surf guitar, though I've been playing guitar for ummmm 25 years (never thought I'd write that!), mostly chord-based punk stuff. Playing single note stuff was really difficult and I found it took well over a year to be able play half a dozen songs smoothly. Tab was a big help, though, it getting me started - I wouldn't have got very far without it. Now I tend to use Audacity and change the tempo and loop sections until I can get a good enogh approximation.
I find it got much easier the more I learnt, and I find learning new songs always fun....
My favourite perk is at the dreaded 'sitting round strumming acoustic guitars' scenario. Rattle off Mr Moto or something and someone will go' "Wow!! is that Dick Dale?!!"
— http://thewaterboarders.bandcamp.com/
|
DNAdude
Joined: Aug 01, 2008
Posts: 404
North Carolina
|
Posted on Jun 29 2009 07:28 AM
DannySnyder
Technique can't really be explained, it has to be discovered.
That expresses it very neatly. Nice one, Danny.
You have to have some basic things explained to you to get you started, and then you have to play and play and listen and play and listen and play and listen.
And play. And listen.
— Ralph
The Storm Surfers
Be at one with the universe. If you can't do that, at least be at one with your guitar.
|
November Birthdays 
