making sense of tab

[vtpcnk]

i am trying to learn cream's 'i'm so glad' - but can't make sense of the tab of the intro.

http://www.guitaretab.com/c/cream/47708.html

there seem to be too many notes. after the stacatto kind of start on the first four frets, i can only "hear" 1 four (or three?) note set followed by 1 three note set moving from the fourth to first fret. but on this tab there seems to be atleast 3 extra notes for each of these sets (combined). so instead of seven notes there is like 10 notes for each of these sets. hope i am making sense. but not sure how to play this.

appreciate any insights.

 

[Maltozombie]

if you're going to use tab i find it easiest to just use it as kind of a roadsign, just get the general idea of it and just play it how it sounds right to you,
all tabs are are someone learning a song by ear or video or from watching someone else an then playing it their particular way and transcribing it on a computer, the way you see it in tab is hardly ever going to be necessarily correct.
a lot of time guitar tabs will have notes from the bass in there by mistake, or sections with two guitars playing together will be changed to be played on one guitar and the transcriber won't cite that it's played that way, (or even realize that the song has two guitars for that matter)

if something dosen't sound right the way that the tab shows just try to figure it out the way you think it should be, or just do your best to learn it by ear, which i think really helps with remembering the feel and color of songs.

and besides....you can always fake it.  :icon_thumright: :laughing7: best of luck.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

It's like Guitar Center employees' product knowledge.  There are too many songs out there with tabs for them to all be correct.

Ever see conflicting tabs for the same songs?  It's quite common, especially when considering there is no qualification for posting them. 

 

[jay4321]

When I started out, the tabs you found in the old Cherry Lane books and guitar magazines were generally pretty good (I still have many of them).

I occasionally look at those ghetto, typed-out tabs online now and laugh. They're usually incomplete, or just plain wrong, and some kid sits there typing out line by line (as opposed to writing it out and scanning it or whatever). I do appreciate that not every song tab was at my disposal back then... I still remember learning off of tapes and in a few cases LPs. 

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I do appreciate that not every song tab was at my disposal back then... I still remember learning off of tapes and in a few cases LPs. 

Exactamundo.  Learning by ear is half of the fun and most of the challenge.

 

[jay4321]

I don't know about fun, so much as developing your ear and not having to depend on transcriptions so much. I remember a tape playing walkman-type deal that could play at half speed to help you hear what was going on better. That was a big help for a while for fast parts. And even then Yngwie was still pretty fast lol

 

[Wana_make_a_guitar]

Tab is annoying. I'm playing Technical difficulties by Racer X (Bruce's Part) for my friends Higher School Certificate, and there are that many transcriptions out there, I now know 6 different versions.

 

[SustainerPlayer]

If you want to "check out" the tab against the real track, and you are on a windows machine you can use Pacemaker for Winamp:

http://www.winamp.com/plugin/pacemaker/12689

It can slow the track down without altering the pitch.

I've just recently switched to OSX and haven't found something similar for Mac ... but it must be out there.

 

[taez555]

Yeah, definitely use tab more as starting point.  Trust your ears above all else.    Unless it was tabbed by the person who wrote it and performs it, you're learning based off someone else's best guess.

A great example I have is the Tab book for Extreme's Pornograffiti album.  When I was first learning guitar I tried for years to learn Nuno Bettencourts part in "Get the Funk out" and couldn't figure out why it sounded all wrong.  Turns out, years later when I looked at it again, they transcibed the low E string a half note flat.    It was probably an oversight since the band tunes down 1/2 step, so the actual notes above were correct but the tab was wrong.

Just goes to show up, don't trust everything you see tabbed.  Internet or printed in an official tab book transcribed by a professional and released by the publisher.

Actually.... now I find Youtube an amazing resource for seeing actually fingerings and notes.  There are so many live videos out there you can actually watch them play it correctly.

 

[big bob]

The catch 22 is, in order to hear the notes, you need to play from tab for awhile. the better option is to learn to read music and then buy the sheet music.

 

[tfarny]

If it's by Cream, there is probably a Hal Leonard tab / notation book w/slow-down-able CD. Those make it a lot easier to learn stuff. Internet tab is not to be trusted, though it is a great free resource for learning stuff quickly. I probably rely on it too much, if I learned more stuff purely by ear my ear would be better.

 

[Return of Guitlouie]

Internet tabs are just garbage.  Some of the stuff you get in books is good.  Train your ear.  If all else fails, write your own music, and nobody can tell you that you are playing it wrong.

 

[Alfang]

One of the best programs I have purchased for guitar is "Guitar-Pro 5" with this program you can listen to the song, you can mute all the tracks except the guitar and listen to it, you can slow it down, you can listen to a short section over and over, it's a great program, and all the bands parts are in tab,

But most of the files or songs are written by average JoeBlows that submit them to some website, so your at their incompetance.  However, theres a bunch of files for any song you want, and one of them is gonna be more correct than the rest. I swear by this program overall.

I remember when cd players first came out, my player could play a loop, press A at the start of a part, then B where you wanted it to stop and replay. I learned a lot of music this way, by ear, listening to parts over and over till I figured it out. It also helped to train my ear and today I can easily listen to most stuff and figure it out real quick.

I still suck though

 

[Wana_make_a_guitar]

One of the best programs I have purchased for guitar is "Guitar-Pro 5" with this program you can listen to the song, you can mute all the tracks except the guitar and listen to it, you can slow it down, you can listen to a short section over and over, it's a great program, and all the bands parts are in tab,

But most of the files or songs are written by average JoeBlows that submit them to some website, so your at their incompetance.  However, theres a bunch of files for any song you want, and one of them is gonna be more correct than the rest. I swear by this program overall.

I remember when cd players first came out, my player could play a loop, press A at the start of a part, then B where you wanted it to stop and replay. I learned a lot of music this way, by ear, listening to parts over and over till I figured it out. It also helped to train my ear and today I can easily listen to most stuff and figure it out real quick.

I still suck though

Guitar pro 5 is great. Just so you know though, there's a guitar pro 6 that's coming out/is already out in the USA soon, and instead of being upgraded from previous guitar pro's, this one is being made completely from scratch.

 

[ByteFrenzy]

One of the best programs I have purchased for guitar is "Guitar-Pro 5" with this program you can listen to the song, you can mute all the tracks except the guitar and listen to it, you can slow it down, you can listen to a short section over and over, it's a great program, and all the bands parts are in tab,

But most of the files or songs are written by average JoeBlows that submit them to some website, so your at their incompetance.  However, theres a bunch of files for any song you want, and one of them is gonna be more correct than the rest. I swear by this program overall.

I remember when cd players first came out, my player could play a loop, press A at the start of a part, then B where you wanted it to stop and replay. I learned a lot of music this way, by ear, listening to parts over and over till I figured it out. It also helped to train my ear and today I can easily listen to most stuff and figure it out real quick.

I still suck though

Guitar pro 5 is great. Just so you know though, there's a guitar pro 6 that's coming out/is already out in the USA soon, and instead of being upgraded from previous guitar pro's, this one is being made completely from scratch.

+1 . Guitar Pro really is great. And, the author is one of the few who will react to support questions in person. I had an issue with the way sharps/flats were handled, and I had a very enjoyable exchange of emails with him until the bug was corrected in the next patch. I use it to transform my bass parts from classic score to tabs. I can play from the score, but not if it's jumping from five flats to three sharps all the time, and not under pressure when we perform. Hence the tabs.

 

[SustainerPlayer]

Tuxguitar is open source donationware:

http://tuxguitar.herac.com.ar/

Reads both GuitarPro and PowerTabs and is for Win/Linux/Mac/FreeBSD.

Try it out - you might not want something else  :glasses10: