Well ive just started to learn the guitar go i am using my brothers acoustic tanglewood and i would like to pick your brains as to what programs would you use as a beginner ( tab ). God Dam my fingers hurt , my brother has me learning the top 17 notes to start with , anything online you would recommend ??/

Haha - I'm a bassist, but good on you for starting out on an awesome instrument mate.

I use PowerTAB when I'm learning something too complex to work out by ear (like Mr Bungle etc). It's free & allows you to play via Midi, slowing down the music to learn those tricky bits.

Unfortunately 95% of text tab on the net is s***.

Your fingers will get used to the strings & harden in time. :)

Yeah, your fingertips will turn from a nice curve to a flat spot (and numb) from the callouses.

I was self-learned, and I'm no absolute professional on the guitar but from my few years of experience a couple of things I could think of...
Being tanglewood I'm going to assume its steel string (nylon/classical sound like ass in my view anyway).

A) use heavier guage strings (at least 12), because first, it sounds a lot better and secondly it'll develop those callouses in no time, plus it lets you be a bit rougher with your strum and more forgiving in terms of fret buzz from over aggressive strumming.

B) pick a song you might like to play that will be easy, either picked or strummed, and learn it first or at least partially.
The reason I say this to people is for motivational purposes. If you pick up a guitar and it SOUNDS like you are making MUSIC, not just scale 'notes' (Boring zzz), you will be more inclined to continue to play the instrument.

C) After B, learn theory [If you want to create original music, else not needed for only cover stuff], scales, barres etc. (this will basically develop your finger movement control)

D) If you can/want to sing, start to learn to strum and sing at the same time early, it should make it a lot more natural with timing etc. later on (I didn't take this advice when I started learning a few years ago and wish I had)

E) Have fun with it, but every so often challenge yourself to try and nail a hard piece/part of a more complex song over the next few times you pickup a guitar.

F) Just remembered what it was now; If you get stuck and you just can't quite get your fingers to do what you want, especially when trying to 'speed up' movements such as chord changes or solo's and you just keep stuffing up but can do it slowly, my advice would be this::: Play it once more at a slow as necessary pace that you can do it -perfectly-, then smash it out as fast as you think it needs to be and don't worry about how badly you stuff it up, then, stop, and go back and do it once more slowly and perfectly... After that, leave it and come back to it after a nights sleep.

Muscle memory and wrote learned abilities are thought to be sort of 'replayed' while you are in your sleep, you will find when you wake up the next day and try again you will have subconsciously improved quite considerably and can play it faster and more accurately.


Good luck with it, stick with it and it'll reward you after a couple of months, I pretty much pick mine up every day even if just for 3-5 minutes to play, its a rather stress relieving activity :)


Edit 2- As for programs, just search for XXXXXX guitar tab in google will generally find you the tab for the song you're after, it might not be 100% accurate but you can always make adjustments later on when you get a better 'ear'.

last edited by Mephz at 21:31:59 30/Aug/09

Yeah dont bother learning much theory at first on guitar, you'll get bored and give up.

Basically the most "theory" you need to know at first is this,

1. EADGBE , thats the notes of the open strings from lowest to highest.
2. The intervals between all the notes, A-B 2 Frets, B-C 1 Fret, C-D 2 Frets, D-E 2 Frets, E-F 1 Fret, F-G 2 Frets, G-A 2 Frets
3. Tuning, have a look for a youtube video on how to tune your guitar, dont get lazy and just always tune with a tuner, you should be able to tune by ear so the guitar is at least in tune with itself.

Pick some easy strumming songs, The three best chords you will ever learn, G-C-D, some many songs you can play along with just those three chords.

Answer to OPs question:


GUITAR PRO 5 + TAB archive


There may be newer versions out but I have 5. Also, the TABs are user generated so may have some mistakes (not that I can tell).

Here is one of the best tips you will ever get:

Hold your arm out with your hand making a Hitler salute but at 90 degrees
Now relax your hand at the wrist so all the fingers and thumb drop loose
Now hold that shape and turn it over.
The Guitar Neck should sit in that shape.

Pretty much every time I have looked up tabs online, they have been wrong. The people who write most of those things are so f***ing tone deaf it's not funny.

play guitar hero

Playing the drums in guitar hero is actually a great way to learn rhythm.

I'm trying to work out the theme song to monkey island at the mometn on guitar.
Seen some awesome renditions on youtube of it.
Tried to cheat and look at tabs but all the tabs are just B and E string accompaniments which is meh.

I go to youtube and type in something like ben harper - she's only happy in the sun guitar lesson and then find someone that shows you the chords etc.

Then I play it terribly and give up.

tabs are good if you want a quick look at a song.
and they are free !

Heres another tip.
Play along with music even if you dont know the tune/chords.
Its helps you to learn rhythm/timing.
Ive played with a lot of people and one thing Ive found is that you can learn everything but some people seem to have natural rhythm and can strum in time almost the moment they pick up a guitar and some have to slowly learn it.

check out youtube too. there are stacks of really good videos for beginners to expert.

Ive played with a lot of people and one thing Ive found is that you can learn everything but some people seem to have natural rhythm and can strum in time almost the moment they pick up a guitar and some have to slowly learn it.

And some never learn! I've play with guitarists that are awesome at certain things, but just cant play some stuff on rythym.

Im probably the opposite, getting the ryhym right is easy for me but I just dont have the ability/patience/desire to learn realy hard soloing type stuff (Early metalica solo's etc).

my brother has me learning the top 17 notes to start with

what do you mean by that?

oh yeah, learn how to do a Major and Minor Bar chord.

A lot of ppl start the guitar and want to learn Metallica and you just cant do that that stuff without some hardcore practice.
These guys went through phases of 12hr days of practice.
Endless touring...

Guitar is awesome fun. The buzz you get when you can learn your favourite song really is addictive. if you can learn 3 chords youve got prolly 80% of rock songs in your grasp.

Thanks for the help Peeps

I'm no professional or star player by any means, just casual.
But here's my ear tabbed version of Monkey Island Theme.
Recorded on Mobile makes it sound the sound the guitar makes way off what it sounds like but meh.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Mephz1au

last edited by Jim at 15:17:15 03/Sep/09

fixed ya link

Oh thanks chief. What was wrong with it? I couldn't figure out why it linked back to the thread.

it had the anchor tag with no actual url in it so our browsers just assumed the same url as the current page

watched the vid, I don't even know what monkey island is, so now I gotta go find out heh

you don't know The Curse Of Monkey Island?!
I highly recommend playing them all.

Especially since the first was remade (on steam for about $10?) recently as well.

Yeah, I bought the remake, its sweet, definitely recommend it (I hadn't played the original either).

Nice work too mephz, that sounded rad when you got it up to speed :)

last edited by Khel at 22:50:04 03/Sep/09

I'm a bassist
I'm learning something too complex to work out by ear

aaahahhahah!

But seriously if i could give any tip to a beginner it would be

A) Hold the pick softly. Doesn't matter what song you're playing, learn to play while your hands are relaxed before you go any further.

B) Go to a local guitar shop. Look around, pick up as many guitars you can and have a feel for them. Talk to staff and if you have any expert mates, take them along and get them to teach you the different parts of the guitar.

C) Don't give up! By far the hardest thing with learning on your own is that you need to do everything yourself. If you had a spare $300+ to spend on a GOOD teacher for lessons, i would absolutely reccomend it. Guitar lessons, in my experience, improve your skill and enthusiasm by leaps at a time. I would NOT reccomend getting a cheap teacher/friend/only having 2 lessons.

I wouldn't necessarily say that having a friend teach you is bad.

It really depends what you want to be able to do.
So you need to ask yourself, do you want to play for others, or yourself.

If its the latter, self learning is fine. You'll probably never be 'great', but then you won't be in a band or performing live so it won't matter whether or not you can belt out metallica or crazy train solo's flawlessly at land speed records =)

If its the former though, you'll probably want to get lessons to have better technique and sound theory so you can actually get to the point of being able to perform well..


- And khel, haha thanks, the mobile makes it sound pretty crud. I have nothing else to record with, might try and work out the rest of the theme and re-record sometime.
Just played a bit of the remake of the original, I've noted a bit that's missing, theres a definate chord missing and the intro, for another time :P

I think the new monkey island that's being released in chapters currenty has a slightly different tune im not 100% sure, i know its definitely missing the intro that the original has.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXz7PHkRLgQ

Finally got around to getting a microphone for the PC and recorded that way, sounds a lot better than the mobile.
I also got around to completing the entire of the monkey island theme song including the intro.

Single string version and used Audacity to merge background chord accompaniment with it.
Haven't gotten around to finishing the chord version as earlier in this thread.
Been working on LeChuck's theme now :P

Anyway, here's a file hosted mp3 version if any ones interested =]

http://www.yourfilehost.com/media.php?cat=audio&file=MonkeyIsland_Complete.mp3

Lots of peeps talking about guitar tabs i found this site that seems to cover all the bases at a cost though http://guitarport.com/ maybe i will give it a go.

guitar hero and greenday will get you started for sure