Guitar: Learning Songs: An Open Learning Guide

Now that you've got a few chords under your belt, you're ready to start learning some songs. Great! There are several ways to learn songs, and some are more accessible than others.

There are two basic forms that appear in thousands of songs. They are the twelve bar blues and the thirty-two bar ballad. Both forms are used extensively in all genres. The blues and rock 'n 'roll genres both use the twelve-bar blues form and many songs by Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly are twelve bar blues and therefore very easy to learn. If you are trying to learn a jazz standard then you will find that many of them are of the thirty-two bar form. Practicing and understanding these two basic forms is essential for the guitarist who wishes to learn songs.

Practice the song slowly (especially if it's a fast song) until you can play it flawlessly. Then, when you are confident with the notes you are supposed to play, increase the speed until you can play along with the song.

Using a drum-machine or metronome when practicing is essential. An alternative method for improving timing is to play along with your favorite artists.

The best way is to find sheet music for the song you are trying to learn, like a tab book, available from any guitar shop. Tab books are good, because they are almost always accurate, and they not only show the notes you're supposed to play, but they give good sense of how to play the notes. Generally they include both the rhythm and lead part, even written on the same page if they are played at the same time.

Tab books are expensive and there's a learning curve associated with fluent tab reading, especially if you have no prior knowledge of music notation. Understanding music theory, even just enough to properly (and easily) read a tab book is a challenge but not insurmountable. Being able to read music, whether it's tab or notation, will improve your playing.

A much quicker, cheaper and often faster way to learn is to search for an online tab of the song you're looking for. Simply type "Artist Name Song Name tab" into your favorite search engine, and "voila!", you have dozens to choose from. The online tab community is thriving, and there are many popular sites where you can find tabs for most popular songs. Some sites even feature a MIDI of the song, to make learning even easier.

There are several downsides to online tab, some of which are outlined in the Tablature section. The biggest problem is lack of accuracy. Always remember that online tabs are not made by professionals like tab books, and that somewhere down the line someone was sitting at home with a CD and figured it out by trial and error. Thus, the more complicated the song, the less likely the tab you are reading is 100% accurate. But since most people don't play a song exactly as it sounds on the album (even the recording artists!), this isn't such a big deal.

Another down side is that there is a huge amount of stealing in the community, and if you are looking for an obscure tab, you might only find one actual tab, with copies of it on every site you visit. Some sites allow for multiple versions, and some use voting or comments to give you a sense of how accurate the tab is. However, don't let voting alone determine which tab you read, because if the people who vote don't know how to play the song either, then they might vote a terrible tab really high. In general, you should read two or three tabs for a song, and then from that determine how you intend to play the song. Comments on a song can contain slight revisions or alternate fingerings for chords, so it is good to check those out.

Songs can also be learned "by ear", with no sheet music. Essentially you just listen to the song and try to figure it out, with nothing for reference. Knowledge of music theory is particularly helpful for this method. It probably sounds a lot harder to learn this way than it is, but it is a really good way to practice whatever music knowledge you have. And it is especially rewarding being able to figure out a famous musicians piece and saying "I could have made that up!"

Source and licence

Text adapted from Guitar/Learning Songs by Wikibooks contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0. Paragraphs have been selected and abridged, and formatting adjusted. This adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.