Jimmy Page is seriously the shit. I know there are haters out there, but as far as I’m concerned he is the Godfather of Rock guitar. The Jimmy Page was doing things with music in the 60’s and 70’s that were revolutionary then. Now, they are common place. My favorite all time Page contribution has got to be the rock ballad. Stairway to Heaven is the most popular one, but he had many others including Ramble On and Over the Hills and Far Away. When I talk about a rock ballad I’m talking about a song that has a soft intro and a soft verses possibly played on acoustic guitar but then busts full out into a distorted rock chorus. Obviously like I said Stairway is the best example of this.

Some people criticize Page for being a sloppy player. The solo from Heartbreaker is an example of exactly what I’m talking about. To the untrained ear yes, it just sounds like a barrage of random notes with no reason. However, in all that chaos I hear a great solo.
Continue reading Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin Guitarist Profile

Tabs are really great for learning how to play guitar. They show you exactly how to play a song note for note and you don’t have to know very much about playing a guitar to understand them. However, a major problem with tabs is they do not represent tempo or timing accurately. This can be a real problem when you are trying to figure out the rhythm of a riff. Unlike sheet music, a tab will tell you everything about what to do with your fretting hand, but very little about how to strum.

I found this program called Guitar Pro a few years ago. Basically what it does is it takes a tab file and it plays it back to you in the form of a MIDI. If you aren’t familiar with the sound of a MIDI, it’s similar to the sound of a polyphonic cell phone ring. Now although you wouldn’t want to jam with a cell phone, it does the trick for helping you learn a song because you can see the tab being played as you hear the notes. Also, the program gives you the ability to slow down the tempo so you can hear and see it played slowly. This feature alone is what makes it an amazing tool. Guitar Pro isn’t a simple program either, it interprets all different forms of guitar technique including slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs bends, muting, harmonics, tapping, tremolo and much more.

Continue reading Guitar Pro 5 - Tablature Composing and Playing Software Review

When learning songs from written sources like instruction books or online files there are three main forms of written music for the guitar. The three types are chords, tablature, and music notation. Each form brings its own advantages and each form is a bit more complex than the last.

Chords

Probably the simplest form of documenting a song is through chords. The chord progression for the chorus, verse, and bridge of a song is written out for the player to read and play. The advantages to chord files are they are simple and usually show you when the chords are played in relation to the lyrics. Singing guitarists may find this the easiest method of learning a song.
Continue reading Chords vs Tabulature vs Music Notation