I've been learning playing leads for around 6+ months and now I'm able to play quite a lot of songs(leads only, as I'm more interested in playing leads compared to chords) and many THANKS to all the members on IGT for their help and support. The problem I'm facing is for a lot of song(mostly old hindi songs) I'm not able to get tabs on the net and for some the tabs are not proper and I feel like its high time I learn to write my own tabs. I know this requires a lot of effort and patience etc but I'm ready to devote time religiously for this purpose. I tried searching on the web as well as in this forum but could not get any useful post or tutorial(this one is quite generic: Learn how to write your own guitar TAB | Tempo Music Cards). Could someone please help me take the initial steps towards writing your own tabs. Or may be point me to the forum which talks about this. Would highly appreciate if someone can point me to some post/tutorial where they teach you how to write your own tab with the help of some example. I'm desperately waiting for the day when I can write my own tabs, it may not sound superb but as long as the person sitting next to you is able to figure out the song you are playing, I think that is enough for an amateur like me. Need help from all the champs @IGT. Thanks a ton for helping me.
yes, I know how to read tabs and thats how I've been learning all the songs... but I'm not able to get the starting point ... You might say that you can start from any fret/string and keep trying other frets from different strings and see which one fits your song. That might be the right way but I'm still not able to figure where do I start, how do I know which fret/string to start with ... Its always the case that you can play the same song using different fret/string combinations but how to pick the first fret/string combination... I also know that you have to have a fair amount of knowledge of various musical notations and how they sound and which requires quite a lot of practice but I'm ready to learn all these stuffs and only practice is going to help me at the end... but I dont want to put my efforts in wrong direction.. .putting right effort in the right direction is going to help me learn all these stuffs pretty fast, right? ...Just need help/advice from you guys to set me off in the right direction. thanks a lot for your help.
I am only a beginner like yourself, so my advice may not mean much, but from what I understand, there is really no other way to be able to do what you are trying, other than training your ear to pick up notes, and that takes a lot of work usually. Some people are gifted there because they can do it after a little while, but most people have to train hard to be able to do so. For starters, I think you should read tabs of only a part of a song (an easy song would help), and try to figure out the rest of it by yourself. It will be difficult, very difficult, but keep working on that song and try not to give in and look up the tabs somewhere. Keep playing other songs by learning their tabs from the internet, but not of that song. Look at it as a long term project if you will, as according to my limited knowledge, there are no short cuts you can take.
My suggestion.. These are useful if you know bit of theory and chords.. 1. First of all take some songs for which chords are known. 2. Based on chords, choose the song which stay on the same scale.. 3. Ofcourse you should know where the scale is on the fretboard 4. Take the first chord. Most likely the first note of the melody will be one of the note on the chord.. And mostly it is First or third note..take this note as a starting point... Please note that it is NOT a rule but it happens in most of the songs.. 5. Now start moving on the scale up or down based on your melody. After few hit and trials you will get there 6. If you are completely lost in search of your notes, take clue from the note of the chords. It may be one of the note played in the chorrds. If you have chords like 7th, 9th etc, it is highly likely that extra note added in the chord is there in the melody If you use these methods, more often then not, you will get there.. It may not work for the few songs, but it will surely work for most of the songs.. Keep practicing and you will get there.. I will stress again whatever I have mentioned is NOT a rule, but if you follow this & keep practicing..you will get there..
