Think about all the great guitar plays and how they learnt....getting tabs from the internet....I don't think so (can you imagine Jimi Hendrix using a dodgy tab web site??). Ask any good player how they learnt and the chances are that they listened to a lot of stuff and worked out how to play what they liked on the guitar (or any other instrument for that matter). Everyone has some lessons and we all have to learn scales and stuff but developing your ear is what usually sets the good player apart. So as a first point, great guitarists learn by transcribing.

But it goes deeper than that. When you hear a sound on a record, it goes into your ear/head. You fiddle about for ages until you work out how to make that sound come out of your guitar. It might take you a while, but you get there and next time you hear that sound you will find it pretty quickly. After doing this quite a bit it gets to the point where you can work out most songs pretty easily. And it is not just about the notes, it about the way the note is played, how loud of soft, played aggressively or softly, behind the beat or right on. That is the stuff you can’t get from tabs or anywhere else except listening.

And it goes deeper still. So once you can find all these sounds quickly you can take away the external source (the songs) and try to find the sounds inside yourself. Sound like bullshit? It isn’t, but I know it sounds a bit weird. This is what people mean when they talk about people playing from the heart, or with feel or any number of expressions that really mean - the guitarist knows the sounds he is making and they come from somewhere inside. From the head or heart don’t matter, so long as it comes from inside you.

Well I hope I have convinced you, I make sfa out of you learning to transcribe, but I offer my personal guarantee that it is the way to get good on the guitar. I have had many student that are amazed at how quickly they can learn songs and how much their playing improves in a such a short period of time, all due to transcribing. There are some great players around that don’t know theory or scales but can work out stuff by ear real easy, but I have never met the opposite (someone who knows lots of theory and can play great but has shit ears). Having a great feel (and good ears) is the most valuable skill on guitar, any good musician will tell you that.

Of course there is still a use for tab books and web-tab. They can be great for checking your work or finding out the little bit you couldn’t get. They are also excellent resources for certain players that are really hard to work out (like Jimi Hendrix and Steve Vai) and can be huge timesavers, but you should use them for that reason, and not because you can't work it out.

The following lessons should help you make a start on transcribing. I hope that all makes sense.

Now go check out TR-002 • How To Transcribe