Memorizing Long Tabs

[scourge]

I play mainly by ear. I'll use tabs to figure out weird scales or chords that I'm having a hard time hearing, but I get a MUCH better feel for a song by listening to it.

 

[violatedppl]

with breakin it down everyone is right, its the greatest way to learn, its how I learned the twelve which for me is still the hardest thing to play muscle wise, my left had just gets really tired after a while. but it is a good workout and it can be played anywhere.

 

[Keeaumoku]

what i suggest is learning the song instead of memorizing every note. If you get the feel convincingly and nail all the changes, nobody is gonna care or even notice if you don't play every note exactly like the original song.

I'll drink to that!

Our little guitar player bops into practice one day, and says he would like for us to do "Won't Get Fooled Again." He plays us the synthesized keyboard part, using his effects pedals, and he recreates a rather convincing rendition. My good buddy, the drummer, is a Keith Moon disciple, so he's all for doing the tune.

Well... I've never played this song before, much less even considered it, but I've always been open to trying just about anything. So, I go to my computer and download the tabs... just in case I felt they would be useful, or make the learning process easier. Holy Caledonia! The tablature I selected printed out on 21 pages!

So, I decided to download the song from my Napster account, and learned to play it by ear. I've heard the song a zillion times over the years, so getting "the feel" was no problemo! Once I "nailed the changes", I sort of began playing it "my way." Apparently it works. We usually do the tune as our last song for the night, and our audiences almost always yell for an encore... But, then again... the more they drink, the better we sound!

 

[theshadow2001]

Awww man!! I was totally at the concert when the chili's played that tab!! (Well obvioiusly they didn't play that tab...they were jamming but you know what I mean) . My jaw just dropped when I saw it. It was just an amazing display. When I watch it on DVD I still get shivers down my spine. And when they played don't forget me, I looked behind me and saw thousands of lighters in the air it was seriously cool(that being one of my favourite chili songs) Whew! what a gig.

Well thats not going to get any tabs learnt but I'd thought I'd let you know

 

[spectorbass83]

forget the tab. go and buy the live at castle slain DVD (which isi excellent BTW) and learn the song by ear.

I second that.
Definetly use the tabs as a crutch, but you are going to have to play it by ear to listen for the tempo/timing of the song.

 

[spectorbass83]

I do it that way now and find it loads easier. There's programs available that will allow you to slow down a song (sometimes helps in learning) and that will let you loop a particular piece so you don't have to start, stop, rewind etc...

Really? How can I get my hands on these types of programs?
I eventually want to get one of these - Invalid Link Removed

 

[billio]

I use a program called SlowGold. It allows you to slow down or speed up a song and you can change the pitch up or down. You can also select a piece to loop continuously. Find it here Invalid Link Removed

I also use a program called Cool Edit Pro and I use that to "pull" the bass line out - it can split the track into different frequencies of which, the bass will be far more prominent on one of the resulting frequencies. It doesn't actually leave you with just the bass line, but can make the bass line far easier to hear than when listening to the whole song. You can get the latest version here http://www.adobe.com/special/products/audition/syntrillium.html

Cool Edit Pro also allows you to change the pitch of a track and the speed, but it's actually more of a music mixing program. I mainly use this program though to just split the frequencies when I can't quite hear what the bass is doing or to quickly change the pitch of an mp3 to the same key that we are going to play a song in.

I hope that helped