Wolff Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 It looks like some of you guys enjoy learning songs by your favorite bands using guitar tabs. No doubt there are also many accomplished musicians here who only play their own music. I'm interested in knowing what songs you guys are currently working on. Mine are: Rammstein - Mutter Led Zep - Trampled Underfoot Derek and the Dominoes - Bellbottom Blues Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T50 Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 At the moment: Stairway to Heaven, LZ South Bound, ABB and uh... Bark at the Moon, Oz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deepblue Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 Im trying to fine tune the Overture on RUSH's 2112. I can muddle through it, im just trying to clean it up a little. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cvansickle Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 Been working on GNR's "Rocket Queen" lately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveinspain Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 I'm working on Back in Black by AC/DC. I got the intro down now I'm getting the quick chords happening... Sounds great I'm stoked!!! Also got down Long train Running by the Eagals, I love that tune!! Been working on Stairway to Heaven too, I got some of the main parts down but I'm years away from the lead... :-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 Classical Gas, Its a challange. at least for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChanMan Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 I just discovered that a blues run I was working on, if altered a bit, makes a nice arangement of Stormy Monday... so I'm learning to play (and sing) that. Mostly, tho, I am learning to play leads after years of being the "strictly rhythm, he doesn't want to make it cry or sing" guy. I play by ear though, so anytime I happen across a familiar note or two, virtually ANY song can pop out... (and I got to play along with Oz on Bark at the Moon once... ok, he was on MTV and I was in my living room, but still......... ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thundergod Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 At the time.. .my own songs, and some 80s covers (mainly pop-rock and latin rock) which I'm playing on a band for a female singer. When I play out of boredom, most of the time I dont play any songs at all, but just whatever the fingrs and the brain put out... if I play songs they are from Iron Maiden and nightwish mainly... I hope to get enough time in november and december (really dead for bussines here) and learn as many Queen songs as I can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRV-Zeppelin Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 sorry to disappoint, but I have never used tabs... I play completely by ear. And I play a LOT of covers. I'm not currently learning any new songs from scratch, mostly just parts of songs I'm trying to improve... but I'd like to teach myself "Sharp Dressed Man" by ZZ Top and maybe the rest of "Voodoo Child" (Hendrix's version, not SRV's) as I've only got the intro right now. Also, Zep's "The Battle of Evermore" which is possibly my favourite Zep song of all time. that's it for now, at least... right now I've got the solos from "Hey Joe" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" to keep me busy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cookieman15061 Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 Eagles- Life In The Fastlane Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taylor Player Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 As an acoustic player I have been working on some Al Petteway tunes in DADGAD tuning and fine tuning a couple of Leo Kottke songs as well. Just taught myself "My Tuscaloosa Heart" song from the TV series Scrubs and it is a real easy blusy song that is a blast to play on the deck at parties. Electric guitar wise, I continue to just play blues licks along wth my Ipod and BB King or Clapton. Fun stuff..... I am also primarily and ear player but use tab's if I can find some good ones online or I just buy the book like I did with the Petteway and Kottke tunes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingarmadillo Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 I don't ever learn anything rote, I always put my own interp on it. that said, I've been fooling with As Tears Go By and Stairway to Heaven on the Strat XII. Some old Beatles stuff on the Casino and just what ever else catches my ear with the other guitars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L5Larry Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 OK boys and girls. Come sit down over here at the feet of grampa Larry in front of the fireplace, and let me tell you a story. I originally learned to play guitar, well actually ukelele, from Mel Bay books (and in fact, I learned a lot from Mel Bay himself, he was a neighbor). During the R&R years of the 70's I learned to play by ear. I've have since backed up to learn to read (and play) standard music notation (staff, you know, the treble clef and bass clef thing), it's the single most important thing you can do to to give yourself an edge over that OTHER guitar players. The music business IS a competition, whether you want to admit it or not. The more you learn about melody, harmony, chord substitutions, and all that BS that us guitar players said we didn't need to know, the better you will be at your craft. I completely skipped the "TAB" years for three reasons; One, a band leader/conductor/ musical director will never hand you a tab sheet as he passes out staff charts to the rest of the band. Two, "tab" being notation invented by uneducated guitar players, for use by other uneducated guitar players, was not, and NEVER will be universally accepted in the music world as ligitimate notation. And three, many of the tabs sheets are just plain WRONG, it's just some other hack's interpretation of the song. I really think that guitar tab really was a bad invention. Why do we think, as guitar players, that we should have our own personal notation, when the rest of the music world works off one standard set of charts and notation. Hand anybody in the world, regardless of race, creed, color or native language, a staff chart of "Over The Rainbow", and they can play it. I wish I had figured this out 40 years ago, but it wasn't until I got HUMILIATED at an audition for a community college "big band" that I realized my weaknesses. Back to the original question of this post. The charts on the top of my stack are; Duke Ellington's "In A Mellow Tone", and Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies". BUT, if you want help with Bell Bottom Blues, Voodoo Chile, Stormy Monday, Classical Gas, or most of the others that have been listed (sorry, no ZZ Top, I didn't want waste my time), I've played them hundreds of times. I'll be glad to send you a "chart". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ovia Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 Hey! just for two months only I'm practicing guitar and I hope I will pick up quickly and play well the guitar musics and songs in the guitar by myself. ____________ Ovia Sreevysh Corp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveinspain Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 OK boys and girls. Come sit down over here at the feet of grampa Larry in front of the fireplace' date=' and let me tell you a story. I originally learned to play guitar, well actually ukelele, from Mel Bay books (and in fact, I learned a lot from Mel Bay himself, he was a neighbor). During the R&R years of the 70's I learned to play by ear. I've have since backed up to learn to read (and play) standard music notation (staff, you know, the treble clef and bass clef thing), it's the single most important thing you can do to to give yourself an edge over that OTHER guitar players. The music business IS a competition, whether you want to admit it or not. The more you learn about melody, harmony, chord substitutions, and all that BS that us guitar players said we didn't need to know, the better you will be at your craft. I completely skipped the "TAB" years for three reasons; One, a band leader/conductor/ musical director will never hand you a tab sheet as he passes out staff charts to the rest of the band. Two, "tab" being notation invented by uneducated guitar players, for use by other uneducated guitar players, was not, and NEVER will be universally accepted in the music world as ligitimate notation. And three, many of the tabs sheets are just plain WRONG, it's just some other hack's interpretation of the song. I really think that guitar tab really was a bad invention. Why do we think, as guitar players, that we should have our own personal notation, when the rest of the music world works off one standard set of charts and notation. Hand anybody in the world, regardless of race, creed, color or native language, a staff chart of "Over The Rainbow", and they can play it. I wish I had figured this out 40 years ago, but it wasn't until I got HUMILIATED at an audition for a community college "big band" that I realized my weaknesses. [b']Back to the original question of this post. The charts on the top of my stack are; Duke Ellington's "In A Mellow Tone", and Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies". [/b] BUT, if you want help with Bell Bottom Blues, Voodoo Chile, Stormy Monday, Classical Gas, or most of the others that have been listed (sorry, no ZZ Top, I didn't want waste my time), I've played them hundreds of times. I'll be glad to send you a "chart". Hey L5Larry, I suspect you are going to take some flack from some people on your point of view but you are %100 right ... It will never hurt you to learn to read sheet music, it can only help you if you are a career musician and you make your living as a player. Myself, as a late starter learning guitar, I think learning to read sheet music will slow me down. Right now I am concentrating on exercises and scales to cut new brain paths... Once my hands and fingers know where to go automatically and always hit spot on I will lean to read... I have tried learning songs from tabs and it does help. Someone just starting out can actually learn a few songs which makes the whole process a lot more fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albertjohn Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 Electric - Room 335 Larry Carlton (still the chords) which I'm performing in a month's time, so working hard on this one. Also doing the lead on Black Magic Woman which I haven't played in a while. Acoustic - Let It Die, Foo Fighters. The opening acoustic riffs. Their website has a good amount of tab which seems pretty accurate. Great place to go if you're a Foos fan. And this song is a great one for a novice finger picker like me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolff Posted October 1, 2008 Author Share Posted October 1, 2008 OK, here is some flack for L5Larry. If it weren't for tabs(admittedly many are wrong), I'd have given up on guitar playing a long time ago. My aim is not to be a professional musician. All I want to do is have fun playing songs by my favorite bands. I wish I could read music and better still, I wish I could play by ear. But I can't, so I'm one of those uneducated guitarists who are too lame to use anything but tabs. I shouldn't have even mentioned tabs in my post, just ask what songs you guys are currently working on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChanMan Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 +1 For L5Larry's rant on learning the craft. He's dead on accurate- if you want to do this for a living, you expand your opportunities exponentially the more you know about music theory in general, and reading music in particular. Preeeetty much the exact same thing you can say of any profession, though. The more you know, the more opportunities for success you have. See the movie "Drumline" for an excellent example of learning your craft. +1 for L5Larry's rant on tabs being wrong. Reminds me of the old "fake books" you used to could get. "How to sound like you know how to play a song to folks who don't know the song......" -1 for L5Larry's rant on tab, in general. I think it is great that we have a language to explain what we do on the guitar. For example....I don't recall ever learning about the symbol in music for "double-hammered arpeggio". You can represent the tempo, and the notes... how they are generally played, but not that specific. Tab allows for that level of detail to be communicated. Will it ever catch on? Well... I never say never, but..... /shrug. -1 on L5Larry's rant for me, playing in my living room. Want to get humilated again? Show up in my living room with sheet music..... or come audition for my band and ASK for sheet music. If you can't catch the groove and join in, you're not who I am looking for. I want the creativity. I've known folks who are great musicians and can play anything you put in front of them. Just don't ask them to stray too far from "the line" on their own... So while I tend to agree with what Grandpa Larry says as a general rule, I have to say YMMV.... If you aren't ever gonna play professionally and are having fun... learn to read music if you want to... or learn to scuba dive... whatever floats your boat. If you want to be a guitar player, then you SERIOUSLY expand your employment options by learning all you can about the craft. And I don't need help with Stormy Monday, thanks. Well, unless you got something that will make me sing like Clapton....... :) My apologies to Wolff for the quasi-off topic retort. Excellent topic, sir. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRV-Zeppelin Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 Hey L5 Larry, I would love a "chart" for Voodoo Chile. I'm also a Grade 9 RCM pianist so I'm rather experienced at reading sheet music. By the way, albertjohn, I don't think that "Let it Die" is finger-picked... though it will definitely help you. You'll find that most "finger-picked" intros are actaully hybrid picked, at least on stage. (eg. Stairway to Heaven, Californication, Scar Tissue, etc.) I think that Gibson's "lesson of the day" once featured hybrid picking- it's a dreadfully useful technique if you can learn it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wild_Rose Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 I'm currently working on Smooth by Santana Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolff Posted October 1, 2008 Author Share Posted October 1, 2008 My apologies to Wolff for the quasi-off topic retort. Excellent topic' date=' sir.[/quote'] Never any need for an apology ChanMan. The more discussion on any subject, the better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
callen3615 Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 I know people who can read music and they find using tabs a quicker way of learning a song. Most tabs are right and if you use guitar pro or power tabs you can tab it yourself, for all you play by ear people. I dont understand why people need to read sheet music...maybe i'm wrong..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Nahum Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 Melody line for "Anthropology" - reading from the Real Book and listening to Bird on the slower-downer. Walking bass lines. Larry, "In a Mellow Tone" and "Blue Skies" sound pretty straightforward to me - but you say that you have to learn them. I would be interested to hear what you are doing besides getting the melody line under your fingers. Are you arranging as well? RN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L5Larry Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 +1 For L5Larry's rant on learning the craft. +1 for L5Larry's rant on tabs being wrong. -1 for L5Larry's rant on tab' date=' in general. -1 on L5Larry's rant for me, playing in my living room. I have to say YMMV.... [/quote'] Well, it looks like I came out even. A few bruises, but no permanant injuries. And I'm sure I don't want to know what "YMMV" means. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChanMan Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 Well' date=' it looks like I came out even. A few bruises, but no permanant injuries. And I'm sure I don't want to know what "YMMV" means. [/quote'] your mileage may very (ymmv). I didn't mean to leave any marks sir :(... my apologies if I did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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