I know how to read music, and I still like guitar tabs. Tabulature makes it a lot easier for a beginner to learn a piece, cause it tells you where your fingers go.
But I agree that tabs by themselves are insufficient. It's always better to have the sheet music too.
Learning to read music is about as easy as learning to read Latin, in my experience.
Tabulature would be great, if it wasn't upside down. That, I don't get.
JM, I'm going to be all purist and annoying. Forgive.
Granted, the notation is easy at first, because you don't have to translate notes to frets yourself. But learning regular notation, while harder initially, gets you to learn the fingerboard better, because you're forced to learn that this position + this finger= G, or whatever, and that's something that will pay off tremendously over time. Also, the tabs determine a fingering, instead of leaving it to the player to figure out one, and it's good to think about how to handle a particular passage. (Sure, you can go back from the tab and come up with new fingerings, but still.)
Tablature is hundreds of years old, Labs, so I don't think the appeal is that you don't need special software for it.
I'm now rocking the air guitar in my office, Labs. You asshole.
Incidentally, I no longer read this lists, since I learned that Rolling Stones' 100 Greatest Guitarists list ranks Jack White above Mark Knopfler and David Gilmour.
I find reading music not too difficult (though I cannot sight-read) for violin but can't even begin to do it on guitar. Anyone else have a similar experience?
(Also, some guitar tab is good)
So why aren't there any women guitar gods? Is it just because the guitar solo has only ever been a dick swinging contest?
This, though: My whining is motivated by the thought that it would be fun to learn some of these things sort of as etudes, sort of as goofing-around material.
Is an awesome idea. As for the list, where's the love for the solo on "Bittern Storm (over Ulm)"? "Maggot Brain" is 71? The one-string tension solo from "Starless"? I forgot about my policy of not reading these things because they're invariably stupid.
I mean, Joan Jett's as close as it gets at 87.
Dear Brock,
That's crazy! but that's how it goes
Labs and Brock Landers
Living as fo-o-o-o-oes.
Crazy, but it's not too late
to lock your door
and guitar-masturba-a-a-ate
Regards,
FL
9: Substituting piano for violin, yes, I have the same experience. I'm a ghastly excuse for a musician (that is, I'm not a musician) but I can pick out a melody fast enough that it's recognizable on a piano -- I can't come close to doing the same thing on a guitar. The 'black keys' kill me, in that there's no graphic correspondence between the staff and the fretboard.
6 is serious, and I'm really pissed. Incidentally, this is why I cannot own an ipod: I wholly lack the self discipline to behave myself when music I like is playing, and will walk around the subway/office/gym energetically dancing along (or, worse, mock-performing the songs) regardless of who's around, or the (in)appropriateness of my behavior.
I'm fairly certain this means I was born to be a rock star, and missed my calling somewhere along the way, but that is a different matter.
For an instance of well-written guitar tab, you might (if interested) take a look at John Fahey's Best of John Fahey 1959-1977.
Meh. I expected to see Verlaine/Lloyd somewhere in there, or maybe something by Dave Gregory, but no it's all testicular wankery/blooze crap.
At least Rolling Stone had Verlaine.
meh,
-J
So why aren't there any women guitar gods? Is it just because the guitar solo has only ever been a dick swinging contest?
Wata, from Boris, is a woman guitar god. I think both of the guitarists in Espers are female. The guitarist in Trevor Dunn's Trio Convulsant, Mary Halvorson, I think, rocks pretty awesomely (and studied with Braxton IIRC). David Bowie may not be a guitar god, I guess.
It is rarer, though, but there also aren't that many women in rock at all compared to men.
I'm learning the pedal steel guitar right now, and tab is so much easier than regular notation when you have 10 strings to deal with. I'd love to learn to translate music-reading to pedal steel, but that's going to come later, if at all.
For a good woman-guitar-god performance, watch "Lighting in a Bottle", specifically the songs that feature Bonnie Raitt.
Tablature is definitely easier. Isn't that enough?
81.
song: Sweet Jane
guitarist: Hunter/Wagner
band: The Velvet Underground
album: Loaded
more: Sweet Jane tab
Humorously, they are really talking about the version on Rock and Roll Animal. Hunter and Wagner didn't play on Loaded. More humorously, they are probably talking about the extended guitar solo intro that has nothing to do with the actual song sweet jane. The intro is pretty sweet anyway.
(Some other amazing female musicians on that show but I don't remember if any of them are guitarists.)
Okay, this list is officially lame. Not because of the choices, but because the link takes you to the top 10. Everyone knows these sorts of lists should start out at the bottom and work their way toward number 1.
Brock, I agree that tab is *initially* easier, much as bad technique is initially easier, but (I think) the initial investment in the right path would pay huge dividends. Granted, this is a context-dependent thing, since there's no sense in learning notation if there's no music in that notation, only in tab. We must reform our culture from the ground up.
If the girl in the band plays an instrument, she plays bass. That's just the rule.
she plays bass
Why, the phallic thing?
You jest, Labs, but I've heard a marching band play "Crazy Train," reasonably well.
I dunno. It's so easy to pick up tabs and play new things, which seems like a real benefit for people who are starting out. If you have to suffer through learning to read a new language before you can play any songs on your instrument, you might just get discouraged and give up.
Obviously, sheet music is superior, and if you're going to get serious about your instrument/music, you'll eventually need to learn to read sheet music. But that already happens anyway - why should we mandate that this must be what happens from day one? It's not as if you learn any bad habits from reading tabs, that thereafter take years to undo.
Do you also propose outlawing training wheels for bicycles?
if you're going to get serious about your instrument/music, you'll eventually need to learn to read sheet music.
I have a sneaking hunch that a majority of my favorite guitarists read neither sheet music nor tab.
16 -- There's something wrong with rocking out on the subway? So long as you neither sing nor bump into people (or come threateningly close to doing so) it seems to me that it's fair game. Are there people offended by the sight of an old man's joy? Fuck 'em.
I can't read tabs, but I can read normal music.
Also, refering to Junior Mint as "JM" confused me.
Right you probably are, Clownaesth. I should have said "if you're going to get serious about reading music for your instrument..."
(almost certainly including the top two)
Mississippi John Hurt is so great.
if you're going to get serious about your instrument/music, you'll eventually need to learn to read sheet music.
This is not actually true for the electric guitar, because for the guitar there is a different sort of music notation, called tablature.
Jennifer Trynin published an interesting book last year about her experiences lucking into a major-label contract and having a minor hit (long story short: in an alternate universe, she had the success that Alanis Morissette ended up having). In it she mentions several times that her guitar playing sometimes bothered people because she seemed to be acting too much like a male guitar player (sweating, getting ahead of the rest of the band, using distortion for no good reason) instead of being decorous and ladylike. I think this sort of reaction leads women to go into acoustic or blues guitar instead (Raitt, Tedeschi).
37- but tablature is an incomplete system. You can't just pick up some tablature and play a song you've never heard.
Yes, that's true.
It's not all just series of numbers, though. I've seen ones where they indicated what the meter was, and then the absence of a number for a particular string would indicate a rest, and if it was 4/4 then two numbers in a row would indicate eighth notes, and that sort of thing.
36 -- very true but I hope you are not saying that as a way of slighting Gary Davis, who is fully Hurt's equal.
I keep wanting 38 to be saying something about "butt tablature".
If I had my way, John Hurt would be the official guitarist of unfogged.
Fair points, Brock, and I think a lot of it comes from the way rock instrument instruction is informal while classical-music instruction is really standardized. What does seem crazy to me is that someone might have the chops to handle some of the more technical solos on the list, but have to learn them in tab. Maybe my experience learning standard notation was atypical, or I'm forgetting, but if you start early your reading ability and your technical ability will develop together, so you're never in the hard and discouraging position of being able to play much better than you read. Showing a student how to pluck out a melody while saying "and here's how it's written" gets them on on the track early.
On the other hand, since a lot of this guitar stuff isn't in notation at all, it might not be worth the investment. (Though there's lots of non-guitar music that makes great exercises OR can serve you well when you cover tenacious D. That is Bach, and it rocks, it's a rock-block of Bach, and it's Bach that I learned in the school called the School of Hard Knocks.)
Slol, you think I'm kidding, but I have rocked out to this. It's actually a neat little thumb position exercise if you move it to d minor. The saddest of all keys, really.
ISTR Kyle Gann writing that that even rock stuff that's basically 4/4 anyway actually has rhythmic subtleties that can be very hard to capture in writing, or some such stuff as that.
36 gets it exactly right.
"Crazy Train" is in the standard repertoire of the jazz band at my old high school, they've gotten pretty good at it.
Huh, I haven't heard Davis before. But I see that emusic has some of his recordings, so that will soon change.
Yay, somebody's going to listen to Gary Davis who has not done so before!
Gary Davis, who is fully Hurt's equal.
Gary Davis lived in Durham, which makes him better.
Re Gary Davis, I am most familiar (which is not very much) with Harlem Street Singer which is very good.
But I amused by the fact that he makes a big deal in the liner nntes of the importance of religion and of his no longer playing the blues because he thinks it's inappopriate and then the album begins with a version of Samson and Delilah that, to my ears, is as bluesy and as raunchy sounding as you could possibly ask for. Very good, but I'm not sure what to make of that.
Also, I always had a little additional affection for Gray Davis because of the similarity between his name and Gary Davis.
I'm a pretty badass sight-reader (by guitar playing standards)* but there's still stuff that TAB does better.
Conventional music notation really doesn't handle some of the standard lead guitar techniques particularly well, imho. Or it handles it, essentially, by co-opting conventions from TAB notation. Also, as already mentioned, TAB has a venerable tradition, dating back to renaissance lute playing.
Where conventional notation really does have a point for guitar players is if they want to play non-rock music. It's really a pain in the arse trying to play jazz and downright impossible to play theatre music or classical music without semi-decent sight-reading chops.
What I am saying, I suppose, is that TAB has its uses, but it's better to be able to read conventional notation if you ever want out of the rock ghetto.
* And the guitar really is harder to read on than most other instruments. There isn't really a comparable instrument. It's polyphonic, but it has several different places to play the same note. String players are part of the way there but they really don't play as much polyphonic stuff or with the same complexity as guitar music.**
** 'Course they have the whole lack of frets to contend with, which makes it technically more demanding.
Or it handles it, essentially, by co-opting conventions from TAB notation
Perhaps this is what you're talking about here, but how do you conventionally notate palm mutes, hammer-ons/pull-offs, slides, etc? (Not that these things, esp slides, are known only to guitar playing.)
Thanks, ttam.
I was wondering about guitar-reading vs. other instruments, and it makes sense that guitar parts would be harder to read.
re: 52
Yes, they use conventions from TAB for some of that. Complex legato passages using the tremolo/vibrato bar or bending are also hard to notate except visually as they do in TAB. With curved lines and wiggles.
On the other hand, hammer-ons and slides are fine in conventional notation.
[listening to Rev. Davis doing S&D on iPod]
Thanks for reminding me. Dug out all the LPs a couple weeks back, and I'll go find my Davis album.
I do not believe that a living human can sit stone still and poker faced on the subway listing to S&D.
Tabulature would be great, if it wasn't upside down.
The high E is higher than the low E. What more do you want?
This argument has been going on a long time. There were semi-standardized lute tablatures floating around much longer tha 100 years ago, after all.
Tab is good for some things. It shouldn't be an excuse to avoid learning standard notation.
Jazz charts are good too, but not so helpful for a beginner (or intermediate).
Die, by my hand (Die! Die!)
I creep across the land
Killing first-born men
Die, by my hand
I creep across the land
Damn it, Labs.
It will surprise no one to learn that the list contains much horrible wankery
My wife taught junior high English in Japan for 2 years, and used the solo at the end of "Purple Rain" to explain the concept of "self-indulgent." I enjoy that solo much more now that I know that story.
51: The polyphony issue is there.... On the other hand, classical guitar music is at the more complicated end of things, and manages ok with standard notation plus some add ons. So it can be done, but I don't think there is any reason to be snobbish about it.
bah, never mind 51 pretty much pwned everything I was saying on this thread so I'll shut up now.
Apart from the use of letters rather than numbers, 16th century english lute tab is pretty much the same as modern guitar tab, at the basic level. I could read Downland straight off the lute tab long before I learned to read conventional notation properly.
re: 61, yeah, that's true.
63: If I recall correctly, there are at least two common systems of 16th (roughly) century lute tab, one which looked a lot more like modern guitar tab (to me) than the other. I met someone who was working on a sofware assisted archival system for it, and he showed me a few examples.
For an instance of well-written guitar tab, you might (if interested) take a look at John Fahey's Best of John Fahey 1959-1977.
Having cruelly linked to an item which is lo longer available, Clownæ, do you now propose to make copies available to interested parties? Such as, um, me?
I've known how to read music since I was a little kid, but I have yet to get enough into guitar to switch from tablature, which just seems intuitively easier. On your recommendation, Labs, I'll give it a shot, but if you're wrong, I will orchestrate a campaign to name Althouse's the best blog ever, in perpetuity.
Jesus can find some John Fahey tabs at the first google hit for "john fahey tabs".
Thanks, Ben, those'll do for now. But I don't want just any Fahey tabs, I want the specific collection that Amazon tells me I can't have.
I love the fact that the Cardigans have covered "Mr. Crowley." I have to go find that now.
The thing is, reading music for guitar just isn't the same as reading it for another instrument, as many have said. I've been reading music since I was 5, and can sight-sing and sight-read for piano, but if you gave me a piece of music and told me to play it on the guitar, I wouldn't even know where to start, and that's despite being an ok guitar player. It's just so much more functional to learn chords and tabs--if I had started out just reading music, I wouldn't be able to play much.
Did I mention I purchased a new guitar recently? It's so lovely that all I want to do is play it, and not study, ever.
all I want to do is play it, and not study, ever.
If you were a professional musician that wouldn't be a problem. Thus, career change.
What guitar did you get? [out of curiosity]
69: It's been a long time since I played classical, but I found (beyond trivial things) that in many cases there would only be one natural fingering. My sight reading is absolute crap, but the fingerings would sort of lead you to the right place.
I know that new guitar feeling!
65 (and any other interested parties) -- email me your snaily addresses + indication of interest, and I will make some photocopies and send them to you. (This is assuming I can find the damn thing which I have not looked at in a while.)
I tried to learn classical guitar. I have my guitar here. Hello, guitar. I'm sorry I'm a lameass who types on the internet instead of making pretty music.
But anyhow, my point: I find (or found, sorry little guitar!) TAB very difficult. Structurally, it doesn't make sense to me, because chords or phrases are composed of steps and half-steps, not fingers-here then fingers-there. I think this comes from having learned to read music first on other instruments. It's like having the fingerings on the clarinet drawn in (SORRY CLARINET I MISS YOU TOO) rather than notes. I'd be interested to see if the TAB/standard notation preference corresponds with how you came to guitar.
One of the first times I felt old was when after not playing (I was never any good) piano for several years I sat down to play an old piece and realized I'd forgotten how to read bass clef.
Hmm... Preliminary investigations are coming up dry. I will continue to search for it. Also -- have you checked at abebooks?
One of the first times I felt old was when after not playing (I was never any good) piano for several years I sat down to play an old piece and realized I'd forgotten how to read bass clef.
Heh. We just got a piano, and I was never any good at all (like, almost certainly not in the same class as all of you people who claim to be no good) but exactly the same thing happened -- I can kinda read music on the G clef, but on the bass clef I'm sitting there counting lines (okay, the top space is a G, which makes the space below it an E...).
re: 72
That's true. I took classical lessons a couple of years ago, having never done it before. Even sat a grading exam. The reading for that, I thought at the time was quite hard, but as you say, the fingerings are logical. Recently I did a theatre thing where I was reading much simpler parts [often originally written for banjo] and I found it much harder as the shapes and fingerings simply weren't logical in the same way. Really showed up weaknesses in my reading.
76: Self-taught. No good. Not like some of these 'oh, I'm not good because I was only waitlisted at Julliard' types here. Literally a hack. But I could sightread! Fucking bass clef.
So, you did get the piano? Awesome.
I used to sight read well, and now I can barely read by counting lines. It's really disturbing.
I wonder if the same thing would happen if I stopped reading all printed English for 15 years? Would I struggle to read it? That's nearly unimaginable to me.
So, LB, what sort of piano did Sally end up with?
Yeah, lessons start in the new year. The kids are in love with it (and I've been trying to pick out easy songs. I'm so lame, but it's fun.)
I got this acoustic/electric guitar in the red. It's got a very slim body, a nice narrow neck (I have tiny hands). Great sound. I love it.
It's a used Yamaha U1 upright. It sounds lovely to me, but I grew up with a battered old used-to-be-a-player-piano with the mechanism taken out that sounded like hell, so my standards are low.
82- very nice. Congratulations. I bet it is hard to study with that laying around.
SORRY CLARINET
I'm trying to hold back the anti-clarinet bias, Cala, but it's difficult.
84: At first, it was easy. My old guitar was stolen about 7 months ago, so I hadn't played in a long while, and the callouses were completely gone from my fingers. So when I started playing again, I could only go for about 20 minutes before it was just too painful to go on. Now, though, they are mostly built back up again, and I just want to go for hours.
BTW -- I just ordered this book for Sylvia. She's really into reading, and music, so this seems like a good time to introduce music reading.
(And her teacher is a big fan of Martin.)
No, the author of the book I linked.
Topic: Favorite Learning Pieces for Novice Guitarists. Go!
Apropos nothingh much, another hideous error on that list is the sympathy for the devil solo. they have to be thinking of the live one, played by Mick Tayler, partly because it is very good, and partly because the studio one by Kieth Richards is really fucking dreadful. Also,. Mick Taylor played the lead on Honky Tonk women.
and it is 1.30 am as I type having been to two parties and subbed a piece on the phone to Berkeley in between them. If you want spelling, wait till morning
92- Favorite for who? For the learning guitarists the most popular has to be Stairway, right? For everyone else in the world it has to be anything but.
A song I think is good for an early learner is House of the Rising Sun. Good song that's catchy/fun to play, very basic chord structure, easy to pick up yet complex enough rythm that there's actually something to learn.
92: My favorite guitar style is finger-picking so that's what I will talk about. "Alice's Restaurant" is fun and easy to learn but you kind of need somebody to show it to you. Folk standards like "Goodnight Irene". Blues songs -- coming from where I was coming from I found particularly rewarding, playing blues tunes after the manner of the Rolling Stones -- the big three here are probably "No Expectations", "Love in Vain", and "Prodigal Son". (The Stones play "Prodigal Son" in open tuning and IIRC with a lot of slide; but it is a really fun song to play in standard tuning with your fingers.)
And agreement about "House of the Rising Sun". It's also a fun song for learning to differentiate between 4/4 and 3/4 time, because you can play it in either time, it's two totally different songs with the same lyrics and chords and melody.
ok, Brock is banned from making suggestions. Everyone else: Go!
Oh, you mean because of Stairway.
Ok, "house of the rising sun", in my impression, is a bigger cliche these days than "stairway". Plus, I don't like that song. (Another fun fact: I've never been able to make it through the entire "stairway to heaven")
I'm a kind of novice, and I've been working on a bunch of Sufjan songs lately, most of which are basically a finger-picked 8-bar-or so thing repeated throughout; currently I'm doing "The Dress Looks Nice On You", "To Be Alone With you", "Casimir Pulaski Day", and "For the Widows ...". I love teh Sufjan.
I was pleased to see "Zoot Allures" included, though there are various live versions of that solo that beat the album version. However, any such list that doesn't include "Willie the Pimp" is a farce.
Another nice finger-picking piece that's sort of fun and easy to learn, though I don't really think it's very technically useful, is "Here Comes the Sun". But again you probably need someone to show it to you.
Ooh, Here Comes the Sun is great! Beatles songs in general are great for novices; I like "Let it Be," and "Eleanor Rigby" in particular.
Hey this is reminding me to ask Becks: what happened with those guitar lessons you were taking? Did you stick with it?
One of the first non-classical-workbook lame-o pieces I learned was Drive by R.E.M. Simple chord structure and you need to learn how to hammer on (or off, I forget which now).
i'll volunteer one: teh Shins "those to come" is fantastically easy, and fun to play while watching TV.
102: speaking of sufjan, this year he put out a collection of xmas tunes, some tradtional some his. 5 EP's made over the last 5 years. Mixed quality in both writing and production, but there's some good stuff in there --- and he puts 5 CD's + chord progressions and lyrics, if I recall correctly for $15-$20. Might interest someone here.
As far as songs to learn go, should probably make a distinction of songs to sing along to or instrumentals.
I've signed up for lessons here starting in January. I'm so excited!
1002: What! Dude.
Speaking of Christmas albums, last week at the Low show I picked up their Christmas album (late to the game; they put it out in '99). It's my favorite Christmas album ever.
Dear Prudence is nice, although I couldn't play it these days. (My high point was being able to struggle through it - I've regressed to three chords and strumming like a demented chimpanzee.)
Favorite Learning Pieces for Novice Guitarists. Go!
A lot of early REM things are good because they have simple-but-seemingly-intricate jangly riffs but can mostly be played with chords. I got more satisfaction out of practicing one of their songs than most of the songs that were either nothing but chords or insanely hard to memorize.
Examples: "These Days", "Wolves Lower", "Life and How to Live It", "Laughing", "Fall on Me", "Seven Chinese Brothers", "Little America", . Also "Old Man Kensey", which somehow sounds better and better the slower you go.
Mostly what I did with my acoustic guitar was pick-strum it as hard and fast as possible, but with those songs I could slow down a bit and actually produce some of the details.
The first song anyone and everyone should learn to play on the guitar is "Tyler" by that mid-1990s rock band the Toadies. And that's the final word on the matter.
m. leblanc: If you are fully drinking the indie kool-aid, lots of stuff by the mountain goats, bonnie `prince' billy, or edgier: neutral milk hotel, etc. would be easy to pick out as progressions and/or fingerpicking.
chan marshall (cat power) does really interesting covers, and favours really thin instrumentation --- some of her stuff would be good beginner material if that floats anyones boat
there is tons of older folk or folk/rock stuff: lots of neil young (cinnamon girl, the needle and the damage done), CSNY (guennivere, wooden ships), CCR (down on the corner, proud mary, long has I can see the light ... lots of that stuff has very easy arrangements, or you can make them
for intro instrumental stuff, there's always stuff like the beatles `blackbird'
lots of blues standards like statesborough blues
wow, theres a lot of stuff out there...
My wife Ellen is my queen and hero; and she has found for my my John Fahey tablature book. So to repeat: if Jesus or anybody else would like some photocopies from it, drop me a line (anacreon in the domain of gmail), and let me know what you would like. It has:
(Note that Fahey is big on the alternate tunings, which were a bit of a bugbear for me when I was learning.)
Gee... where'd everbody go?
Kay... Maybe if I quote some of the freaky introduction that will bring people back. Apologies in advance for the sexism and homophobia -- it is Fahey's, not mine, I don't endorse it.
GUITAR ANGSTThose who fear their guitars are essentially cowardly faggots who have allowed themselves to be conquered by perverse tendencies. They are unable to sit anywhere for six hours under any circumstances. Their span of attention is short, but what is worse it that they don't care. They don't even care to learn how to lengthen it. They have constituted themselves essentially as hatred, opposition -- pure negativity. They are not feminine men. Homosexual guitar playing is an imitative gesture of the non-essential (i.e. temporary) characteristics of women -- bitchiness, frivolity, flightiness, and super-sensitivity. These superficial characteristics are not the essence of the feminine. Look at the homosexual guitarist pick up the guitar -- he is afraid to touch it. He is afraid of it. He thinks it hates him because he hates so much. He has constituted his spirit against -- he is against life. He is a Nazi. His politics are against freedom. He is a totalitarian a heart, but he has no power. He must overcome this fear of the guitar. And he can. The guitar must be his secret love, narcotic, whatever image he prefers. But, he cannot forget to abuse it also, to learn to bang on it and to make a percussion instrument of it, to play hard on it, to bend it to his will.
Flamenco and American folk guitarists play the guitar soft and hard, quietly and loudly, fast and slow, with irregular and regular rhythm. The possibilities of your relationship with your guitar can only be made manifest by an exposition not only of all the qualities you can come up with, i.e. sweet, slow, pastoral, etc., but also by their opposites.
It's possible that it's not at all serious. Fahey was an odd guy.
My opinion is that the solo on Willie the Pimp is overrated.
I think that of most of the list, honestly.
There are loads of sweet little classical guitar studies* too, that are good preparation for all kinds of fingerstyle stuff.
The Beatles 'Blackbird' is a great piece once you have some basic fingerstyle technique under your belt.
* A few years back I was asked to record some for one of my nephews who is learning guitar:
http://www.mcgrattan.f2s.com/blog/archives_new/00000007.htm
Sheet music available on request.
116: Thanks, Clownæ. Now that I see that the site B-Wo linked to includes all but a few of those, I won't put you to the trouble. Not in the foreseeable future, at least. I'd have gotten back to you earlier, but we've been without power most of the night thanks to this awesome windstorm that's pummeling the house.
Winds make storms now? Holy fuck, the new economy sucks ass even more than I thought.
hey matt, those are really nice. if you'd indulge my lazy side...
according to at one composer of my acquaintance, tablature is the correct way to notate for electric guitar, because the notes sound different when fingered in different positions, and he does not want hairy-arsed guitarists coming up with their own fingerings.
re: 129
That's true. Though that can be done with conventional notation too, though. The (brilliant) 19th century guitar composer Johann Kaspar Mertz, for example, often notates when he expects the part to be played high up on the neck and when he expects it to be played low on the neck -- as a musical direction (rather than just as an aid to fingering*). Mind you, he also notates when he expects you to curl your thumb over the neck and use that to fret a note -- which is totally beyond the pale in 'orthodox' classical guitar circles.
* fnarr
re: 128
The Sor piece is: http://www.mcgrattan.f2s.com/sor31_1.pdf [dead easy]
The Losy pieces I don't have in PDF format at the mo' but that can be arranged.
#93, your comment is completely insane. Of course they mean the studio version of "Sympathy for the Devil." The first time I heard that song I was blown away by the solo - it's not technically exceptional, but it is musically perfect. What weird alternate universe do you come from where people prefer the wankery Mick Taylor solo?
So I dug out my copy of Blizzard of Ozz this morning and listened to "Mr. Crowley" on my way into work. The solo is pretty sweet, but I have to admit that I was surprised it was in the Top 100 of anybody's list of solos. Is there something there I'm missing, Oh Guitar Experts?
It has an iconic triplet 'meedly meedly meedly' bit in it as found in every rock solo from about 1978 to 1990. It's one of the ur-solos in that genre and is pretty melodic for that style too. It's also not super-super-hard to play, so maybe lots of rock guitar players voted for it, as they've learned it at some time.
His guitar sound isn't great, imho, though. Not up with Van Halen from almost exactly the same period.
What weird alternate universe do you come from where people prefer the wankery Mick Taylor solo?
This one, alien.
Not preferring the Keith Richards studio solo is on "Sympathy" is pretty much the textbook definition of "not getting it." I would advise you to stick with your Satriani, Malmsteen and jazz fusion CDs. Maybe someday you will understand what rock is all about.
There are some really good Fahey videos on YouTube (3 to be precise), which you can find by searching on Fahey Hamburg -- he is performing at the Hamburg Rockpalast in 1978. I'm blown away by how intently he is looking at his right hand -- I have this ethic (or whatever it is) internalized where being a technically good musician involves strong enough muscle memory that hand-eye coordination does not enter into it.
I found this site video-tabs.com that teaches you how to play a lot of the songs on that list.