I have used D’Addario xl110 and now they call them exl110 string since the mid 1980’s, with brief tests of other types including the treated elixir type. I have the type of sweat that kills strings fast, and I still just prefer the regular cheap and cheerful sets, and I keep my hands clean and wash before playing when possible.
I actually have been using the 9 guage set lately on the Tele which I find sound fine and feel slinkier. Lighter touch required is all I have found. I went through a period where I used 11 guage as well. I find all three work as well as each other really, and I guess that’s why I’ve been doing 9’s, why fight them if I don’t have to. And I know after a day heavier feels normal and is no big deal either…
I’ve mentioned it before but there’s a pay service for a fingerstyle guitar player’s site and at one point in time I had note by note entered all of the songs he made tabs for into guitar pro. That hard drive crashed when I dropped my laptop and I lost it all, more hours of work than I can even calculate.
Then a few months ago I had signed back up for his site and began the process again. I spent hours and hours doing the tabs in guitar pro. The way I did it both times was to open his site and take a picture with my phone of the tab page, create the tab looking at the pic on my phone and repeating page by page. Then my Windows 10 randomly took a shit and I lost it all again
As of yesterday I took a new approach. I screenshotted and organized every page of tabs for every song I wanted and backed it up to a second hard drive. Tomorrow those will be backed up on another 2 external hard drives. I still have to make the tabs by taking pics with my phone and entering it the way I have before but at the least I have the originals backed up just in case. I will be doing the same with the tabs as I make them as well so in the event of a nuclear strike I should still have them somewhere
I can’t imagine the level of frustration you experienced, but I appreciate your tenacity to stay with!
What genre of music do you like and style of playing?
I tried learning to play by tab After several attempts and failures I quit. I know the concept of tab but getting my fingers in syc with what I see is challenging. I was never good at video games either, for the same reason. May revisit it at some time. I have time to fool with it now.
Any tips?
I never remember songs I learned by tab…if I figure it out by ear its with me forever.
Now have I checked tabs to see if others think my arrangement is close? Hel yes…often I’m playing it in a key that fits my voice rather than the original key but hey…who cares
can’t read tabs either lol
I watch this guy Marty music hes a fucken legend.paid for that guitar tap app few years ago it’s handy does chords
When it’s like this I don’t have a problem it’s tabs I get lost
It’s funny since I make musical instruments you think I would know this kinda shit guitars don’t like me and that is Duran Duran like 80’s music
I mean most people would just use the static tabs I have screenshots of but with the fingerstyle stuff you’re playing the melody, the baseline, the vocals, and even some drumming so the timing can be really tricky to nail. By loading them into guitar pro they’ll scroll along in time and it’s much easier to learn them.
This is the guy who’s site I grabbed them off of. I wouldn’t ever publish or leak them cause it’s his livelihood but it’s night and day learning them in guitar pro to the pages personally. I’ve been a member of his site (monthly bill) long enough that I’m fine with it karmically too
I play stuff from classic rock to chuggy metal, I like some blues stuff too. Fingerstyle is the most challenging though because it throws you chord shapes you wouldn’t normally ever use and it makes you think of tempos and stuff a little differently because you’re inserting little extra notes into things that isn’t intuitive.
Not really cause I learned from tabs from the beginning. If anything I would say try to recognize chord shapes in the tabs so that you basically use something you’re already familiar with to get more accustomed to them.
---------2-----------------------2------------------0h2-------------2h3-------------
---------3----------------------------3-------------3----------------3-----------------
---------2----------------------------------2-------2----------------2-----------------
-0-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-0---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-0-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like that’s just rocking on a D chord (disregard the first three 0s the lines weren’t showing up without a number there). Getting used to them being upside down and being able to quickly recognize which strings are being played on more complex stuff is just practice. I had the most problems starting out when I had to look at my fretting hand as I went but once I didn’t need to see my fingers on the strings it just became fluid. I’ve never had a lesson and taught myself completely with tabs. I was playing chords I didn’t know the name of (other than basic power and barre chords) for years, just knew what sounded good together lol.
This is the fatal flaw in my playing. Specially with the scrolling tabs that play along and have the drums and bass in there. I go on Ultimate Guitar, plug my laptop into my stereo, and mute the guitars so I can play the song with a backing track. It’s fun as hell but I don’t usually retain anything so it’s almost like playing guitar hero with a real guitar.
That’s Japanese you’re talking
me don’t speak the lingo
If it is a song you know well, practice, practice and practice. It takes time to get your fingers comfortable with the chords, arpeggios, finger picking, strumming. Work on one section and don’t move on until you are comfortable to do so. Practice when you are watching TV or sitting around and have it near by for those opportunities.
First tune I learned on guitar was wonderwall took me almost a year,drove the wife crazy learning it on acoustic and
Electric guitars
Lol karma police was the next time ,don’t know a lot of tunes I always give up playing guitar and go back to it again
I grew up listening to classic rock and blues, so that is the music I gravitate to playing. I’m comfortable with tab, though I learned to read music. I don’t have a musical ear, so I have to work at learning some songs-practice. If you have a link to the your site, would you mind sharing it?
I have done so many things to not learn to play guitar it almost feels like I really do not want to learn. I thought I might get obsessed with it so I took up a companion hobby, I started building a car. And got obsessed with it. Then lost my job, go back to school and had no time, then I had time but no money (out of work for a year) Christmas came and I gave my MIM Telecaster to my sister’s kid as a present. Start again and I get obsessed with building guitars. If I only stuck to the guitar rather than building that damn car. And after all that work I only have a few shitty pictures (and I learned a lot though).
I think he meant specifically for tabs not for playing in general.
Here’s a link to the guys site. https://www.kellyvalleau.com/ I’m not sure if he offers anything for free but for $12 for a month he’s bound to have some songs you’d like. He has a ton of classic rock stuff on there.
Use this also comes
As an app I have this 4 years it’s a handy app think I paid about $30 for it back then,there’s free lessons and stuff thousands of sounds ,I don’t know how much it is now,I have the pro version on the app ,think the website is free ,but you pay in the app
yeah I’m not too bad at rthym by ear I know all the chords pretty much up and down the neck. Just never could grasp TAB. I understand how it works and what the symbols mean etc. just am not able to keep up with the scrolling.
Is it easier to learn how to do TAB with a book of songs you already now and can learn it at your own speed? Seems like most lead work does not sound right unless you play it to proper speed.
I’m thinking about buying this bloke said he would give me it for $200 he be back on the 4th
I’m giving the sg a pass for this lol no amp was going to ask him for trade for weed,but he don’t look the type that smokes
Nice find. Those are fairly rare.
I can tell you this. For $200, you didn’t get hurt.
Yeah that might be a good way too. The only thing with that is you could have two tabs that sound right but are played in different places on the neck. Paranoid from Sabbath was notoriously tabbed in a different way than Tony actually played it but it still sounded right. If the tab is different than the way you learned it it kind of takes away the whole familiarity thing. There’s some “official” tabs books out there that are really off too.
Still worth giving a shot, more often than not it should be right. Have you tried writing some out? That might help too. Tab out something you know like the back of your hand maybe? One thing I could say for sure is scrolling is not the way to start. There were no scrolling ones when I was starting to read tablature and if you’re not completely comfortable with tabs already scrolling is just going to make it harder.
@BigMike55
Yea the tabs don’t tell you the timeing…and I only use them after figuring a song out by ear.
Chordify is helpful too, I haven’t paid for the premium version. I want one of the new pedals that let’s you control.YouTube with your feet.
I am just building strength now trying to be able to play the rhythm parts to Franklins tower for seven minutes is tough…lol