As a kid I always wondered who wrote these crappy books. I imagined that it was some old classical pianist lady that hated rock but needed the cash to buy cat food. Back in the day we didn't have awesome RUclipsrs like you to reassure us that it wasn't us that sucked but rather the man. The greatest lesson these awful transcriptions gave us was to trust our gut, believe in ourselves and never give up even when people are throwing out stupid obstacles in our path like these abominations.
Man, this bugs the heck out of me. I'm churning up 30+ year old memories of a frustrated little boy who "Just knows" the expensive guitar book he just saved up for just turned out to be junk. They should come with a warning label!
How could they fuck up so bad? That Let It Go one sounds like St Anger. We have to track down those people and confront them about scamming little guitar kids out their money
At least you realized it was the tab book. I thought it was my playing that sucked when I tried to learn parts out of that book. I've actually never revisited most of those old songs. Now I'm feeling inspired to go back and learn some of them
I learned in my 1st 2-3 yrs these books from late 80's on were bad. I learned to use them as reference and changing to things to what I thought they sounded like or was easier for me to play. I only ever had 1 guy thru the yrs that questioned some songs. But he mom was a music professor for a major university and he'd been playing from 5 yrs old.
I always figured a lot of tab books were written by some poor slob who couldn't get a record deal, and was getting paid a pittance to do the book, and blew it off till the last minute, and was really hungover the day he finally sat down to muddle through transcribing or eight ten songs in one go.
These kinds of tab books likely set me back YEARS on guitar, not even kidding. I hate whoever did these terrible books SO MUCH. Don't even get me started on how borderline IMPOSSIBLE it is to actually find a good book for KEYBOARDS!! More than half the time they just show you how to play the vocal melody / chords and fucking guitar solo, not what the actual *PIANO* is doing. Whoever did those tab books needs to be locked in a port-o-potty and beaten with a wet salty garden hose
I actually had that book back in the 80s. I had recently started playing guitar. Was annoying having to jump back and forth through different parts of the book, but the worst part was learning some of those parts and comparing them to what I was hearing on the album and thinking I was the problem.
Dude this comment hit me in the feels. It summed up my first three years playing guitar. Got the tab book for Metallica’s black album then watched the documentary ‘A year and a half in the life of Metallica’….. opened my eyes to how bad tab books really were…
I think a lot of us did that. Because of this and other Hal Leonard books that I just couldn't get on with, I started playing along by ear and trusting that more than the books.
As a Def Leppard fan, this really hurts my soul. Some of those tabs actually made me cringe. I could instantly hear they were wrong, wrong, wrong! Man, I grew up in the era of tab books, and after looking at some of my tab books, I realized I was sold snake oil!
Yeah having finger placements in wrong spots and open strings is one thing like they did for Foolin' but for some of those songs, they're just flat out incorrect notes. That's pretty unforgiveable for a music notation book.
This book was another one I had back in the day. I was so psyched to get it because it had both High N Dry and Pyromania in it. I distinctly recall "learning" the Foolin' intro and being really happy but also kind of bummed at the same time - happy that I could play along with the song, but bummed because I couldn't get it to sound right, and I blamed myself for just not being that good. Also learning Bringin' on the Heartbreak from this book was a mixed bag of feelings. It's books like these that can really traumatize kids who aspire to play along with their favorite songs.
I would love to see a follow-up to these videos where you track down the authors and have them defend their choices. I've heard they were jazz guys and hated tab and hated having to write modern rock so they just didn't care they were wrong.
re: Photograph. The main riff is actually played in the 2 positions you show (though the one up by D/A is done a bit differently) on 2 guitars, as stated by Phil himself on several occasions. Its a bit of a harmonize, and it can't be done perfectly one one guitar, but that is adhering strictly to the literalness of the original album song. Playing it on frets 8/9 is the most common one-guitar way of doing it.
I literally bought this book off of eBay just a few days before you posted this video. On one hand I'm a bit bummed, but on the other, this will help save me a lot of time fighting against things that don't sound right. I'm still glad I got it, even if parts of it are off, because it's still sheet music for the entire albums. I'll enjoy the process of filling in the gaps on my own. Coming out in 1983, I'm guessing this was one of the earliest rock guitar books with tab. Even guitar magazines were barely getting into it at that point. Considering how unusual Def Leppard's chord shapes and guitar arrangements could be at times - often, yes, avoiding the typical power chord shapes - this isn't an easy one to pick apart for a book like this.
Imagine being the kid who spent hours with this book, excited to show his friends that he can rip like Steve Clark, only for everyone to say 'you suck!'
That, "retune your e string while doing a trill at the tenth fret," moment is my new, "worked way better than expected" moment. It's probably gonna hold that spot for a while.
10:20 True tell sign that in fact these were all originally written for piano and they probably hired a noob guitar player to write the tabs without a thought of accuracy.
I have that book. Bought it from the record store when I was 13. Spent a month's worth of lawn-mowing money. A lot of it wasn't accurate. Some of it was. Bringing on the heartbreak solo seemed true to the record. Used it to good use back in Jr. High.
I have this book. In fact, it was the first tab book I ever owned. man, it was bad. The Rock of Ages solo had me throwing the book against the wall because it not only sounded wrong, but played an octave up? I could play it by ear and get the notes better than the book. What's even crazier is that this is a Hal Leonard book, and he's well known for getting the tab RIGHT; He did the tab book for Hysteria, which got the bulk of it right (there's a few bits missing in Gods of War, but for the bulk, he has it right). I learned Photograph through this book, but knew that they were playing it differently (or better to say, there's more than one way to play it), when I saw BOTH ways to play the opening riff in the official video. More than that, I saw that there were two ways of playing the pre-chorus in the video as well, so I just put it down as player preference. But you're right about this book in the fact that it does leave a lot to be desired. And finally, you could tell that this book was published around 1983, due to the pictures of Phil and Pete both being in it, plus the absence of any music (chords, tabs, or otherwise) for Me and My Wine, which came out on the re-release of High'n'Dry.
I've broken too many strings (particularly the high ones) while down-tuning as the string is ringing out. Now, I just hit the note and check the tuning, mute the string, turn the tuning peg down, check the tuning, mute, tune down... repeat as necessary. It's ever so slightly more cumbersome, but I've never broken another string during tuning. It's even helped my ear a little bit too, and now I can often know exactly how much to turn the peg to get it exactly in tune without hearing it ring out.
So true. It hands down beat my technique of playing the cassette, rewinding and repeating that hundreds of times. I did learn to hear music better this way so it wasn’t all bad.
I will say this, having fallen victim to several suspect tab books, it helped me to start learning songs with my ears and not my eyes. Though, sometimes I'll cheat and watch (but of course, also listen to) what the original guitarist does live.
Dude, I absolutely LOVE your videos on crappy tab. We’re close to the same age and I went through the same things with the Megadeth books, the And Justice for all book and especially the pantera book. It was like magic back then to get a new tab book and rush home and start learning new songs, Great memories 😀
Trying to perform these Def Leppard songs in front of everybody by learning from this tab book would give me "Stagefright" 😉 Hehe this tab book ain't "Foolin'" anybody with how much it sucks 🤣 (alright lemme stop myself now)
As a 13 year old brand new guitar player back in 1989, this and the Hysteria tab book were my first books. I do have to say, the interview of Steve and Phil at the front of the book taught me far more than this book's tabs....
Fun fact steve and phil played the intro to photograph differently steve would play up farther on the neck mean while phil was hovering 3rd-5th fret range.
I remember anybody's early '90s circus magazine would have a little bit of guitar tab in the back of the magazine. When Steven Clark died they show the guitar tab to photograph and I'm pretty sure they did the intro the same way you showed here as be incorrect aversion
As long as the pages aren’t stuck together, it’s all good 😂. It can be difficult to find accurate Def Leppard tabs. I remember watching an interview with Phil where he said some songs have 7 or more different guitar tracks layered into their recordings, and they have to write live arrangements that work for 2 guitars.
their producer for Hysteria wouldn't let them just play a chord progression or a two part riff, he demanded they break it into layers to fill out the sound more, which is why Hysteria has that amazing production and full sound during the choruses. Phil once said that they were really hoping that the title track wouldn't be a hit because they had no idea how they were gonna perform it live.
Awesome review of this book. This was my first Def Lep music book and it was definitely confusing. I cut my teeth on the book though. It got me started on learning my favorite songs. I still have it, maybe it will be worth something someday.
Oh man. Now i know why i still suck at guitar. Everything i learned was from old tab books. That last solo sounds exactly like me. I just thought it was my style of playing. 😂🤘
I had that same book back in the day when it was new. I felt the shame and despair of feeling my fingers would never get into those positions without some sort of hand torture device pulling my fingers apart. Watching this is therapy for the young part of my soul.
I had this book back in the 80s shortly after I started playing electric guitar. It was so frustrating trying to play these songs. So hard and most things didn’t sound right. I’m glad it wasn’t just me! Thanks so much for covering this book!
This was the first tab book I had when learning to play. It was soul destroying trying to play some of the stuff out of it - it was only when I back to learn from UG tabs that I realised how bad those tabs were.
I don't know... 90% of the tabs on UG aren't correct either - but at least we're only talking of a maybe the wrong note length during fast runs or a few notes/chords here and there AND they have a method for others to make corrections.
One of the first books I had for guitar. It was lousy looking back, but there were no internet tabs in the early 90s, and these books were very expensive and couldn't afford to be buying them all the time so you had to put up with it.
The book was probably made back in the days of the cassette when deciphering a song takes a lot of rewinding/playing. Rather than buying tabs at the time, I used my saved up money for blank tapes so I can record songs from original tapes and use it as my scratch tape for rewinding/playing section by section. Back then, it didn't matter if it's accurate or not. As long as the song sounded close, it was good enough for us. We still had fun playing it. What I got from the cassette era was listening and figuring out the notes and finding how to get it to a comfortable fingering on the fret board. Even when I was eventually able to buy a tab book, I stuck to fingering that was comfortable for me so some sections in the book I didn't follow.
Oh man this gave me a good laugh, appreciate it. Anyone who used to buy these books has gotten at least one that was laughably bad. I remember I bought an Iron Maiden book I was so pumped because on the back it had the song Still Life included which was rare and when I got it nothing sounded right like the tab for that and every song in the book was hurrendous. I went online to write a review and warn people and I noticed it wasn't just me about 10 other people had already 1 starred it complaining. Its the Maiden guitar book with Eddie holding a flag.
Hilarious. I grew up using tabs and this is familar. I always like Angus Young's quote, "if your playing AC/DC and it seems difficult, then your playing it wrong". These tabs were so bad I had to cleanse my pallet by listening to the actual songs.
There was little collaboration putting these tab books together back in the day. I'd find mistakes all the time. You know, pre internet days when you had to learn everything by ear, or from someone else. If you got lucky maybe you'd catch a glimpse of how to play it from a video or live at a concert. I'd see the same song played so many different ways. You had to piece it together. I've got 30+ yr old Guitar Legend tabs. Then things like Ultimate Guitar came out and that was helpful. Now it's easy to look back at all the videos and see how things were properly played and you can learn songs here on RUclips. A luxury we didn't have in the early 80s when I began playing. Pretty much everything I learned was self taught, by ear...and admittedly I missed a lot of stuff. Technology has made life so much easier for guitarists in so many ways.
Of course, anyone of our age-group, when seeing something dodgy like that instruction about speeding the tape up, will usually be reminded of the "pull the string off the neck to fret-out on the pickup" in the Master Of Puppets solo.... lol
That fifth note on the Die Hard The Hunter intro sounds flat. So I checked it against a TAB app I have. It says to pick the open B string instead of doing it on the second fret.
Having been a life-long fan of Def Leppard, and also having learned a lot of Def Leppard songs, I honestly don't want to buy this book, I'm just gonna rely on Ultimate Guitar Tabs and my own ear.
so glad someone exposes this nonsense. This kind of stuff did not help starting guitarists, misinformation and promotion of poor technique. To think someone approved these books
I always wondered how that worked. I guess the record company or publishing company just farmed it out to whoever, because clearly the people who wrote the music had nothing to do with them. Sometimes entire passages of vocals as well as guitar parts are just plain wrong.
These videos make me feel so much better. I had some of these tab books as a kid and I just assumed I was destined to never be able to play any songs correctly.
I mostly learned by ear. If I learned by tabs, these are the books I would have gotten. So I'm *really* glad I got to skip that whole process. The only 2 tabs I learned from was Over The Mountain transcribed by Wolf Marshall, and Black Star transcribed by Steve Vai. Both of those were pretty good, though.
A transcription of Black Star made by Steve Vai got me very intrigued! I tried searching for it online but came up with nothing, not even a reference to it (the closest I got was the G3 performance of that song, but no transcription was involved there as far as I could tell). Care to share info on where one can find that transcription? I don't mind paying for it, if it's available for purchase somewhere.
Omigosh, I had that book too! Back in the olden days, when I was 12. I still have it somewhere… Switch 625 was my favourite. This takes me back. Looking back is all I have to look forward to at my age.
Omg this is hilarious! I have the same book, now, admittedly, I suck at playing guitar, but now I know that it’s not only me sucking, it’s the tab. Self confidence, half restored. Thank you!
The sad thing is as young players many of us believed the tabs had to be right. It was in a book after all. So much frustration for learning guitar players. I’ve had debates with beginner level players who had to play a song like it was tabbed in a book because they trusted it so much. Eventually most of us realized that the Tabs weren’t always right. Some of the mistakes were so blatant and obvious, you eventually realized the books are not always right. That said, tab books were still an exciting acquisition back in the day.
This was the very first tab book I owned back when learning guitar. And yeah… I knew parts of it had to be wrong. It did teach me some things that I still use to this day though. I learned how to play rock guitar with stuff from this book. So I kept the stuff that worked…whether it was what was in the song or not…. And then never used the bad stuff. Horrible book. But we just didn’t have a lot back then. It was all by ear or what your buddies older brother showed you. So things like this book and then the Doug Marks lessons were crazy cool to find. On that note… how about a video on Doug Marks lessons (the old cassette ones).
I have a tab of Dokken's Kiss of Death from back in the day where two full bars near the end of the solo are not even transcribed ! Imagine listening to that sick tune on loop and wanting to learn how to play it. You spend your hard earned money on the transcription, come home, grab your guitar...and find out it's not even complete (the rest was transcribed wrong too of course). I was livid...
I found that some people transcribe music better than others. Wolf Hoffman used to do transcriptions for Guitar Magazine....not sure if he still does anymore or if that mag is still being printed, but I always felt that Wolf provided the best transcriptions in tab and always seemed very reliable. Even with Wolf I woukd find that it didn't always sound right but it was close enough to figure out from where he began. Sometimes it's just tuning....so many bands use different tunings of course so you have to tinker and discover the right tuning before you even start. Anyway....I feel and understand your pain. I was lucky enough to have a brilliant guitarist that had a brilliant ear...he would play it on guitar and then tune me in using a keyboard. Always helps ti surround yourself with great talent.
That Rock of Ages solo is like those knock off movies called something like Transmorphers or Galaxy Conflict they put in the checkout line at the grocery store so grandma can mistake it for Transformers or Star Wars and buy it for you for Christmas.
Oh man that brought me some memories... My mom bought me one like that called Gladiformers. At least it was a bit better than The Little Panda Warrior she's gotten before.
For Photograph, although Steve played the riff live at the 7th fret, I believe in the studio it was recorded at the 2nd fret position. The timbre sounds more trebly and not as warm and fat on the album version.
Oh wow... I have this book. I bought it back when Pyromania was still fairly new. I remember trying to play some of the tabs and thought it was my lack of skills that made them sound so off. I probably haven't opened it in years... But at least now I know my lack of skills wasn't the only problem.
It must be so hard getting your muscle memory to chill out while you're intentionally learning the wrong way to play a song you've likely known for decades at this point. Appreciate the dedication to showing just how wrong some of these books were back in the day. The only full big fat tab book I ever bought was Black Sabbath's We Sold Our Sould For Rock n Roll. I dont have any repressed nightmare memories (that have been rediscovered, anyway) from that book, but I also havent looked at it since I was prob 16 or 17. That said it was published by HL, and they seem to have a decent reputation for their tab books. I def. remember learning the 'behind the nut' bend on the low E for the into to Ironman, and picking up a few of the seemingly random licks from Warpigs when its all quiet and the highhats keep time during the verses. My point is, at least I didnt take a hammer to my fretting hand out of sheer hatred for my inability to play the tab in front of me, or at the dissonant sounds it may have produced with my teenaged digits doing the work.
I remember ordering this book from an ad out of Guitar for the practicing musician magazine. I waited my 3-4 weeks for this and another one I've forgotten now. This had to be like 84 or so. Even at the beginner level I was then it was clear the transcriptions were way off, and it was nowhere near complete. As time progressed through the eighties those books got better but the first lot of them like this one were terrible. I did learn how to play all the songs I could though, incorrectly.
My first book in 1984 was this one because Def Leppard is my favorite band, and yes! I spent hours learning songs in the wrong way, back in those days I discovered what you are doing now, the song "lady strange" is completely different and the rest is pretty bad I still have it because of nostalgia I guess ...by the way on the interview inside the book Photograph is explained by the band members Steve and Phil
I never read the comments. With that said I thank you for this channel and your hard work. And YES I know what you do is not easy. I’m 49 now and have played since I was 16 years old. I have an OG Jackson I bought around 27 years ago brand new. I had to swap the fake Floyd Rose tremolo with a real one. After that I stopped breaking string saddles. A licensed Floyd Rose is made of pot metal. I was playing so much I changed my Earnie Ball supper slinky #9’s every 2 weeks. At the time 250.00$ was a lot of money. But I’ve never had a problem with the guitar to date. I would like you to make a video about knock off tremolos and also what strings are best for a fixed bridge guitar to drop C. I’m Todd from Texas and I approve this request. Yes you can use my name and location.
I remember back in early dial up days .there was a website Olga I think. I spent so much time printing out bullshit that didn't make any sense lol. I took me several years to figure out lots was just wrong and had nothing to do with my playing.
If you're breaking strings while tuning down you need to fix your nut or bridge, depending on where it breaks. Check to see if it is catching, use a very fine file if it is then treat the area with a bit of graphite. Edit: rewording
I have broken the high e a few times detuning. It always snaps at the tuning peg. But I don't think it necessarily means there is a problem with it. A common way to break off the excess string without cutters is the just bend is back and forth, after a few times it will snap right off. A few times of tuning a string up and down will have the same effect.
I still have (and use) my copy of that book. There's so much wrong in that book. I began using it as a starting point, but then changing the positions, or even the phrasing to be better. There are even wrong notes transcribed into the book.
If you want to save the Princess with a killer guitar solo, turn to page 106. If you want to play it safe and just wander the land of rhythm turn to page 87.
I’ve worked in publishing and it’s heartbreaking to imagine this book passing multiple levels of edits. All told though, the bad Mötley Crüe ran book was sooo much worse. It confused the hell out of me back in the day
Haha! - I still have that book - Bought it back when it was fairly new out. I was in a band with a few mates at the time, and yes.... A lot of it was wa-a-a-a-a-ay off being 'right'. Had to figure my own ways to do several bits of it, but as a basis to start from it was kinda OK....ish.... in it's day. Good enough for us to learn 'Too Late for Love', 'Die Hard the Hunter', 'Lady Strange'... and for me to eventually learn to play Switch 625 a few years later.
I VERY much doubt the bands had anything to do with them. I also doubt they ever got paid for them, because you know how record companies and publishing companies are.
One company that made these, I believe it was Cherry Lane would often times say if it was artist confirmed or someone who knew how it was recorded confirmed that the tab was correct. Who's to say that actually happened or not I'm unsure but most of those books were very accurate
That's old school Hal Leonard book I think the copyright on that one is 1988? They first started putting tab instead of just notes back then. transcriptions were horrific
I remember some of my friends quitting guitar because of poor tab books. Those books can trick new players in to thinking they suck, when really the tab books sucked.
LOLOLOL... This cracked me up! I bought the tab book, too!I I only played what sound right to my ears! Just pieces. I am glad I did but I mostly played by ears and by feels. Now, I am thinking of getting Vidami wireless, been a long way from rewinding cassette tapes! btw, "Guitar For Practing Musicians," used to admit and correct their mistakes in their next issues. Great video to come across and now I'll subscribe and thumbs up!👍🏼🎸😊
Ah I actually remember this book and playing with it back in the day, even then I knew it was wrong. Now I have students who sometimes bring me internet tabs so I can help them with it and they are quite often pretty wrong so I correct them.
Great video. Tab books were/are very hit and miss - a bit like RUclips today :) Some just turn the songs into "campfire" versions, and others (like what you have) were just best guesses from a guitar player that was probably under contract to crank out one of these books each week, and made their best guess.
Do the Billy Idol “Play it Like It Is” from Cherry Lake Music (1985) tab book. Their tab for Rebel Yell had me confused for years. The whole book is wonky.
Books like these are designed to throw people off. Up until about 2010, computers we're as advanced and full of information as much as they are today. The music industry didn't want people to learn how to play music on their own because the executives wouldn't be able to monetize the music that someone like you or I would create. Now that the internet is available, it's much easier to learn the proper techniques and things to produce you're own music. Books like these made beginners think, "if I practice this everyday, 5 hours a day, for the whole year, I'll be able to sound just like Def Leopard". But then they show you the wrong ways to play so in your mind you get discouraged and you think to yourself, "wow these guys are absolute God's for being able to play this stuff". But if they showed you the real way then you'd realize how much easier it is to play music and you wouldn't want to buy the industries albums anymore because these guys aren't as impressive as you once thought. Like you might still think they're great guitarists but you wouldn't put them at "God tier" like you used to. Now people can have studios in their own homes just with equipment they bought from Best Buy, so the music industry is losing money. I think that's why Rap has exploded so much because they can exploit rappers easier than they can groups and bands. Its easier to get 1 person to sell out than it is to get 4 or 5 people to sell out. Sort of music industry conspiracy.
i remember buying this book as a kid and i was so stoked to learn all the def leppard songs and everything you pointed out was so disappointing exactly. The intro from bringing on the heartbreak and no solo on photograph....ugh idk know why they never put out a real real book.
How do you like that BC Rich STIII/Gunslinger? One of my favorite guitars is an 87 STIII USA custom shop with a mahogany body and ebony fretboard. Killer guitar.
Back in the early 80’s I was so young and dumb. I thought all tab was correct from the Tab Fairy. I really never really questioned the accuracy. When I started playing in bands with other guitarists it became very apparent that I had spent countless hours picking apart bad tab. Today you just about can’t pay me to sit down with tab. I always sucked at tab and I’m super slow. Now just pop on a RUclips vid and I’m jamming in seconds.
It's interesting seeing the "Rock of Ages" solo transcribed without pinch/natural harmonics, ending up played in the wrong octave. That bit about using the tuning peg is a clever interpretation, but imagine trying that live if your monitors aren't great, and just hoping you tuned it back up correctly.
13 years playing guitar, never broke a string. Only had a string popping out of my floyd once but I was able to put it back. What kind of terrible strings are you using to be that scared of tuning down?
Great video! Thankfully I'm a bass player and I learned how to play by playing along with Pyromania and Hysteria. Never had to worry about crappy tab books, just my crappy ear lol Time to go listen to the live version of Stagefright on repeat...
WOW!!!, thank you!, back in the early 90's a friend who went to the US brought me that book and i was so excited to finally know how to play 2 of my favorite albums and i have never been a great player but i could see that the book was not quite good, and a lot of the notes sounded wrong so i thought maybe i'm not playing them right, so i left it and never opened it again. Now with your video i am confirming that it was not me.
The tab book for the GTR album. The transcriptionist who did Steve Howe’s “Sketches In The Sun” apparently got to the end and didn’t realize Howe had changed the tuning from standard until the natural harmonics at the very end simply weren’t available in standard tuning…just put some notes down and went “ok, that’s a wrap!”
Seems like a lot of people enjoy their later stuff more, but I find Let It Go and High N Dry to be there best rock song and album. Such great riffs, tempo changed, and lyrics make it a rock classic. Switch 625 use a great instrumental song.
If there's a book I'd love to hear gone through, it would be the book for Jars of Clay's first record. The book didn't explain the EABEBE tuning, but in the long term that was probably good for me as a budding guitar player. These videos are great man. Thanks for sharing them.
If you want to learn how to play guitar from me, be sure to check out my entire lessons program at www.the-art-of-guitar.com. 👍🎸🎸
As a kid I always wondered who wrote these crappy books. I imagined that it was some old classical pianist lady that hated rock but needed the cash to buy cat food. Back in the day we didn't have awesome RUclipsrs like you to reassure us that it wasn't us that sucked but rather the man. The greatest lesson these awful transcriptions gave us was to trust our gut, believe in ourselves and never give up even when people are throwing out stupid obstacles in our path like these abominations.
Honestly believe most these are classically trained musicians transcribing pop music and just not getting it at all.
Man, this bugs the heck out of me. I'm churning up 30+ year old memories of a frustrated little boy who "Just knows" the expensive guitar book he just saved up for just turned out to be junk. They should come with a warning label!
How could they fuck up so bad? That Let It Go one sounds like St Anger. We have to track down those people and confront them about scamming little guitar kids out their money
At least you realized it was the tab book. I thought it was my playing that sucked when I tried to learn parts out of that book.
I've actually never revisited most of those old songs. Now I'm feeling inspired to go back and learn some of them
I learned in my 1st 2-3 yrs these books from late 80's on were bad. I learned to use them as reference and changing to things to what I thought they sounded like or was easier for me to play.
I only ever had 1 guy thru the yrs that questioned some songs. But he mom was a music professor for a major university and he'd been playing from 5 yrs old.
I always figured a lot of tab books were written by some poor slob who couldn't get a record deal, and was getting paid a pittance to do the book, and blew it off till the last minute, and was really hungover the day he finally sat down to muddle through transcribing or eight ten songs in one go.
These kinds of tab books likely set me back YEARS on guitar, not even kidding. I hate whoever did these terrible books SO MUCH. Don't even get me started on how borderline IMPOSSIBLE it is to actually find a good book for KEYBOARDS!! More than half the time they just show you how to play the vocal melody / chords and fucking guitar solo, not what the actual *PIANO* is doing. Whoever did those tab books needs to be locked in a port-o-potty and beaten with a wet salty garden hose
I actually had that book back in the 80s. I had recently started playing guitar. Was annoying having to jump back and forth through different parts of the book, but the worst part was learning some of those parts and comparing them to what I was hearing on the album and thinking I was the problem.
I had it too, but luckily I figured out from the start it was pretty much useless.
Yep - had that one and a couple of others and most were pretty bad. Just what a beginner didn't need.
Dude this comment hit me in the feels. It summed up my first three years playing guitar. Got the tab book for Metallica’s black album then watched the documentary ‘A year and a half in the life of Metallica’….. opened my eyes to how bad tab books really were…
They had tab books in the 80’s?
I think a lot of us did that. Because of this and other Hal Leonard books that I just couldn't get on with, I started playing along by ear and trusting that more than the books.
As a Def Leppard fan, this really hurts my soul. Some of those tabs actually made me cringe. I could instantly hear they were wrong, wrong, wrong! Man, I grew up in the era of tab books, and after looking at some of my tab books, I realized I was sold snake oil!
Yeah having finger placements in wrong spots and open strings is one thing like they did for Foolin' but for some of those songs, they're just flat out incorrect notes. That's pretty unforgiveable for a music notation book.
This book was another one I had back in the day. I was so psyched to get it because it had both High N Dry and Pyromania in it. I distinctly recall "learning" the Foolin' intro and being really happy but also kind of bummed at the same time - happy that I could play along with the song, but bummed because I couldn't get it to sound right, and I blamed myself for just not being that good. Also learning Bringin' on the Heartbreak from this book was a mixed bag of feelings. It's books like these that can really traumatize kids who aspire to play along with their favorite songs.
I would love to see a follow-up to these videos where you track down the authors and have them defend their choices. I've heard they were jazz guys and hated tab and hated having to write modern rock so they just didn't care they were wrong.
yes bring it on i would love to see a video like that please do it
re: Photograph. The main riff is actually played in the 2 positions you show (though the one up by D/A is done a bit differently) on 2 guitars, as stated by Phil himself on several occasions. Its a bit of a harmonize, and it can't be done perfectly one one guitar, but that is adhering strictly to the literalness of the original album song. Playing it on frets 8/9 is the most common one-guitar way of doing it.
I literally bought this book off of eBay just a few days before you posted this video. On one hand I'm a bit bummed, but on the other, this will help save me a lot of time fighting against things that don't sound right. I'm still glad I got it, even if parts of it are off, because it's still sheet music for the entire albums. I'll enjoy the process of filling in the gaps on my own.
Coming out in 1983, I'm guessing this was one of the earliest rock guitar books with tab. Even guitar magazines were barely getting into it at that point. Considering how unusual Def Leppard's chord shapes and guitar arrangements could be at times - often, yes, avoiding the typical power chord shapes - this isn't an easy one to pick apart for a book like this.
It's a cool book to have just as a collector's item at this point.
Unlike the tab book your instruction, place holder, and T-shirt are on point.
Plus the Friday the 13th mask too! Gotta love Jay, jay,jay, jay,jay
On point is your blade split humbucker and your coil rail humbucker singer coil. Pretty nicccccceeeee!
Imagine being the kid who spent hours with this book, excited to show his friends that he can rip like Steve Clark, only for everyone to say 'you suck!'
Imagine being a kid that got this book and went to an audition with Def Leppard
That, "retune your e string while doing a trill at the tenth fret," moment is my new, "worked way better than expected" moment. It's probably gonna hold that spot for a while.
10:20 True tell sign that in fact these were all originally written for piano and they probably hired a noob guitar player to write the tabs without a thought of accuracy.
I have that book. Bought it from the record store when I was 13. Spent a month's worth of lawn-mowing money. A lot of it wasn't accurate. Some of it was. Bringing on the heartbreak solo seemed true to the record. Used it to good use back in Jr. High.
I have this book. In fact, it was the first tab book I ever owned. man, it was bad. The Rock of Ages solo had me throwing the book against the wall because it not only sounded wrong, but played an octave up? I could play it by ear and get the notes better than the book. What's even crazier is that this is a Hal Leonard book, and he's well known for getting the tab RIGHT; He did the tab book for Hysteria, which got the bulk of it right (there's a few bits missing in Gods of War, but for the bulk, he has it right).
I learned Photograph through this book, but knew that they were playing it differently (or better to say, there's more than one way to play it), when I saw BOTH ways to play the opening riff in the official video. More than that, I saw that there were two ways of playing the pre-chorus in the video as well, so I just put it down as player preference. But you're right about this book in the fact that it does leave a lot to be desired.
And finally, you could tell that this book was published around 1983, due to the pictures of Phil and Pete both being in it, plus the absence of any music (chords, tabs, or otherwise) for Me and My Wine, which came out on the re-release of High'n'Dry.
I totally didnt know about that pitch shifting technique where you push the strings behind where youre fretting! Another awesome video man
I've broken too many strings (particularly the high ones) while down-tuning as the string is ringing out. Now, I just hit the note and check the tuning, mute the string, turn the tuning peg down, check the tuning, mute, tune down... repeat as necessary. It's ever so slightly more cumbersome, but I've never broken another string during tuning. It's even helped my ear a little bit too, and now I can often know exactly how much to turn the peg to get it exactly in tune without hearing it ring out.
To a 14yo kid back in the 80's - this would have been gold dust....even if it was tabbed badly
@ghost mall owo radiohead
So true. It hands down beat my technique of playing the cassette, rewinding and repeating that hundreds of times. I did learn to hear music better this way so it wasn’t all bad.
@ghost mall ummmmm no, because There was bo Internet to rely on
I will say this, having fallen victim to several suspect tab books, it helped me to start learning songs with my ears and not my eyes. Though, sometimes I'll cheat and watch (but of course, also listen to) what the original guitarist does live.
I suffered this pain years ago learning songs. Thankful for the internet and guitarist like you making it much easier!
Dude, I absolutely LOVE your videos on crappy tab. We’re close to the same age and I went through the same things with the Megadeth books, the And Justice for all book and especially the pantera book. It was like magic back then to get a new tab book and rush home and start learning new songs, Great memories 😀
Quick question. What bc rich was that, that you used in the beginning? I love the look of that graphic
Trying to perform these Def Leppard songs in front of everybody by learning from this tab book would give me "Stagefright" 😉 Hehe this tab book ain't "Foolin'" anybody with how much it sucks 🤣 (alright lemme stop myself now)
Well done lol
Looks like whomever tabbed this thing out was “High and Dry!” Lol
With those puns, you got me runnin'
I think whoever wrote these tabs was "wasted"
Looks like this book was a Crock of Ages
As a 13 year old brand new guitar player back in 1989, this and the Hysteria tab book were my first books. I do have to say, the interview of Steve and Phil at the front of the book taught me far more than this book's tabs....
Fun fact steve and phil played the intro to photograph differently steve would play up farther on the neck mean while phil was hovering 3rd-5th fret range.
I remember anybody's early '90s circus magazine would have a little bit of guitar tab in the back of the magazine. When Steven Clark died they show the guitar tab to photograph and I'm pretty sure they did the intro the same way you showed here as be incorrect aversion
As long as the pages aren’t stuck together, it’s all good 😂. It can be difficult to find accurate Def Leppard tabs. I remember watching an interview with Phil where he said some songs have 7 or more different guitar tracks layered into their recordings, and they have to write live arrangements that work for 2 guitars.
why would a tab book be sticky.. lol
I've seen tabs for some Hysteria songs that look more like orchestra music.
@@RadicalR0nnie Some people might REALLY like tablature...
their producer for Hysteria wouldn't let them just play a chord progression or a two part riff, he demanded they break it into layers to fill out the sound more, which is why Hysteria has that amazing production and full sound during the choruses. Phil once said that they were really hoping that the title track wouldn't be a hit because they had no idea how they were gonna perform it live.
Awesome review of this book. This was my first Def Lep music book and it was definitely confusing. I cut my teeth on the book though. It got me started on learning my favorite songs. I still have it, maybe it will be worth something someday.
Oh man. Now i know why i still suck at guitar. Everything i learned was from old tab books. That last solo sounds exactly like me. I just thought it was my style of playing.
😂🤘
I barely played guitar for YEARS because of bullshit like this. It's utterly shameful that anybody would sell this trash!
LMAO, I'm so sorry. Always trust your own ear.
Didn’t even think about bending the string while tremoloing. Steve Clark is the man!
And I actually LIKE your composite of the harmony intro for Bringin'On The Heartbreak.
I had that same book back in the day when it was new. I felt the shame and despair of feeling my fingers would never get into those positions without some sort of hand torture device pulling my fingers apart. Watching this is therapy for the young part of my soul.
That's why I was so discouraged when I started off playing from tab books, because the shit was mostly wrong.
Love the guitar. I've been on a Duran Duran kick for the past month or so. I think it was John Taylor's bass riffs.
Somebody should make a band just doing guitar tab covers.
Your avatar would be my exact face seeing that band live.
My first performance will be The Thing That Should Not Be in Drop D
I had this book back in the 80s shortly after I started playing electric guitar. It was so frustrating trying to play these songs. So hard and most things didn’t sound right. I’m glad it wasn’t just me! Thanks so much for covering this book!
This was the first tab book I had when learning to play. It was soul destroying trying to play some of the stuff out of it - it was only when I back to learn from UG tabs that I realised how bad those tabs were.
I don't know... 90% of the tabs on UG aren't correct either - but at least we're only talking of a maybe the wrong note length during fast runs or a few notes/chords here and there AND they have a method for others to make corrections.
One of the first books I had for guitar. It was lousy looking back, but there were no internet tabs in the early 90s, and these books were very expensive and couldn't afford to be buying them all the time so you had to put up with it.
The book was probably made back in the days of the cassette when deciphering a song takes a lot of rewinding/playing. Rather than buying tabs at the time, I used my saved up money for blank tapes so I can record songs from original tapes and use it as my scratch tape for rewinding/playing section by section.
Back then, it didn't matter if it's accurate or not. As long as the song sounded close, it was good enough for us. We still had fun playing it.
What I got from the cassette era was listening and figuring out the notes and finding how to get it to a comfortable fingering on the fret board. Even when I was eventually able to buy a tab book, I stuck to fingering that was comfortable for me so some sections in the book I didn't follow.
Oh man this gave me a good laugh, appreciate it. Anyone who used to buy these books has gotten at least one that was laughably bad. I remember I bought an Iron Maiden book I was so pumped because on the back it had the song Still Life included which was rare and when I got it nothing sounded right like the tab for that and every song in the book was hurrendous. I went online to write a review and warn people and I noticed it wasn't just me about 10 other people had already 1 starred it complaining. Its the Maiden guitar book with Eddie holding a flag.
Hilarious. I grew up using tabs and this is familar. I always like Angus Young's quote, "if your playing AC/DC and it seems difficult, then your playing it wrong". These tabs were so bad I had to cleanse my pallet by listening to the actual songs.
There was little collaboration putting these tab books together back in the day. I'd find mistakes all the time. You know, pre internet days when you had to learn everything by ear, or from someone else. If you got lucky maybe you'd catch a glimpse of how to play it from a video or live at a concert. I'd see the same song played so many different ways. You had to piece it together. I've got 30+ yr old Guitar Legend tabs. Then things like Ultimate Guitar came out and that was helpful. Now it's easy to look back at all the videos and see how things were properly played and you can learn songs here on RUclips. A luxury we didn't have in the early 80s when I began playing. Pretty much everything I learned was self taught, by ear...and admittedly I missed a lot of stuff. Technology has made life so much easier for guitarists in so many ways.
Of course, anyone of our age-group, when seeing something dodgy like that instruction about speeding the tape up, will usually be reminded of the "pull the string off the neck to fret-out on the pickup" in the Master Of Puppets solo.... lol
That fifth note on the Die Hard The Hunter intro sounds flat. So I checked it against a TAB app I have. It says to pick the open B string instead of doing it on the second fret.
Having been a life-long fan of Def Leppard, and also having learned a lot of Def Leppard songs, I honestly don't want to buy this book, I'm just gonna rely on Ultimate Guitar Tabs and my own ear.
so glad someone exposes this nonsense. This kind of stuff did not help starting guitarists, misinformation and promotion of poor technique. To think someone approved these books
I always wondered how that worked. I guess the record company or publishing company just farmed it out to whoever, because clearly the people who wrote the music had nothing to do with them. Sometimes entire passages of vocals as well as guitar parts are just plain wrong.
It's fucking shameful. I barely played for YEARS because of bad guitar tabs, and IMPOSSIBLE to find piano music!
I remember a Dokken book that was pretty terrible. I think it had Tooth and Nail and Under Lock and Key.
These videos make me feel so much better. I had some of these tab books as a kid and I just assumed I was destined to never be able to play any songs correctly.
I mostly learned by ear. If I learned by tabs, these are the books I would have gotten. So I'm *really* glad I got to skip that whole process. The only 2 tabs I learned from was Over The Mountain transcribed by Wolf Marshall, and Black Star transcribed by Steve Vai. Both of those were pretty good, though.
A transcription of Black Star made by Steve Vai got me very intrigued! I tried searching for it online but came up with nothing, not even a reference to it (the closest I got was the G3 performance of that song, but no transcription was involved there as far as I could tell). Care to share info on where one can find that transcription? I don't mind paying for it, if it's available for purchase somewhere.
Omigosh, I had that book too! Back in the olden days, when I was 12. I still have it somewhere… Switch 625 was my favourite. This takes me back. Looking back is all I have to look forward to at my age.
Omg this is hilarious! I have the same book, now, admittedly, I suck at playing guitar, but now I know that it’s not only me sucking, it’s the tab. Self confidence, half restored. Thank you!
Also, subscribed.
The sad thing is as young players many of us believed the tabs had to be right. It was in a book after all. So much frustration for learning guitar players.
I’ve had debates with beginner level players who had to play a song like it was tabbed in a book because they trusted it so much.
Eventually most of us realized that the Tabs weren’t always right. Some of the mistakes were so blatant and obvious, you eventually realized the books are not always right.
That said, tab books were still an exciting acquisition back in the day.
This was the very first tab book I owned back when learning guitar. And yeah… I knew parts of it had to be wrong. It did teach me some things that I still use to this day though. I learned how to play rock guitar with stuff from this book. So I kept the stuff that worked…whether it was what was in the song or not…. And then never used the bad stuff. Horrible book. But we just didn’t have a lot back then. It was all by ear or what your buddies older brother showed you. So things like this book and then the Doug Marks lessons were crazy cool to find. On that note… how about a video on Doug Marks lessons (the old cassette ones).
I have a tab of Dokken's Kiss of Death from back in the day where two full bars near the end of the solo are not even transcribed ! Imagine listening to that sick tune on loop and wanting to learn how to play it. You spend your hard earned money on the transcription, come home, grab your guitar...and find out it's not even complete (the rest was transcribed wrong too of course). I was livid...
I found that some people transcribe music better than others. Wolf Hoffman used to do transcriptions for Guitar Magazine....not sure if he still does anymore or if that mag is still being printed, but I always felt that Wolf provided the best transcriptions in tab and always seemed very reliable. Even with Wolf I woukd find that it didn't always sound right but it was close enough to figure out from where he began. Sometimes it's just tuning....so many bands use different tunings of course so you have to tinker and discover the right tuning before you even start. Anyway....I feel and understand your pain. I was lucky enough to have a brilliant guitarist that had a brilliant ear...he would play it on guitar and then tune me in using a keyboard. Always helps ti surround yourself with great talent.
It's Wolf Marshall, yeah he was always one of the better ones, but he got some parts of AJFA just completley wrong.
He didn't transcribe AJFA.
That Rock of Ages solo is like those knock off movies called something like Transmorphers or Galaxy Conflict they put in the checkout line at the grocery store so grandma can mistake it for Transformers or Star Wars and buy it for you for Christmas.
I got a few of those toys as a kid. Haha.
Oh man that brought me some memories... My mom bought me one like that called Gladiformers. At least it was a bit better than The Little Panda Warrior she's gotten before.
For Photograph, although Steve played the riff live at the 7th fret, I believe in the studio it was recorded at the 2nd fret position. The timbre sounds more trebly and not as warm and fat on the album version.
Oh wow... I have this book. I bought it back when Pyromania was still fairly new. I remember trying to play some of the tabs and thought it was my lack of skills that made them sound so off.
I probably haven't opened it in years... But at least now I know my lack of skills wasn't the only problem.
It must be so hard getting your muscle memory to chill out while you're intentionally learning the wrong way to play a song you've likely known for decades at this point. Appreciate the dedication to showing just how wrong some of these books were back in the day.
The only full big fat tab book I ever bought was Black Sabbath's We Sold Our Sould For Rock n Roll. I dont have any repressed nightmare memories (that have been rediscovered, anyway) from that book, but I also havent looked at it since I was prob 16 or 17. That said it was published by HL, and they seem to have a decent reputation for their tab books. I def. remember learning the 'behind the nut' bend on the low E for the into to Ironman, and picking up a few of the seemingly random licks from Warpigs when its all quiet and the highhats keep time during the verses. My point is, at least I didnt take a hammer to my fretting hand out of sheer hatred for my inability to play the tab in front of me, or at the dissonant sounds it may have produced with my teenaged digits doing the work.
I remember ordering this book from an ad out of Guitar for the practicing musician magazine. I waited my 3-4 weeks for this and another one I've forgotten now. This had to be like 84 or so.
Even at the beginner level I was then it was clear the transcriptions were way off, and it was nowhere near complete. As time progressed through the eighties those books got better but the first lot of them like this one were terrible. I did learn how to play all the songs I could though, incorrectly.
That bend-behind-the-trill trick is pretty nifty. Thanks bad tab book for inspiring this video so I could learn it.
That trill trick I'd give credit to Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter
My first book in 1984 was this one because Def Leppard is my favorite band, and yes! I spent hours learning songs in the wrong way, back in those days I discovered what you are doing now, the song "lady strange" is completely different and the rest is pretty bad I still have it because of nostalgia I guess ...by the way on the interview inside the book Photograph is explained by the band members Steve and Phil
I never read the comments. With that said I thank you for this channel and your hard work. And YES I know what you do is not easy. I’m 49 now and have played since I was 16 years old. I have an OG Jackson I bought around 27 years ago brand new. I had to swap the fake Floyd Rose tremolo with a real one. After that I stopped breaking string saddles. A licensed Floyd Rose is made of pot metal. I was playing so much I changed my Earnie Ball supper slinky #9’s every 2 weeks. At the time 250.00$ was a lot of money. But I’ve never had a problem with the guitar to date. I would like you to make a video about knock off tremolos and also what strings are best for a fixed bridge guitar to drop C.
I’m Todd from Texas and I approve this request. Yes you can use my name and location.
I remember back in early dial up days .there was a website Olga I think. I spent so much time printing out bullshit that didn't make any sense lol. I took me several years to figure out lots was just wrong and had nothing to do with my playing.
If you're breaking strings while tuning down you need to fix your nut or bridge, depending on where it breaks. Check to see if it is catching, use a very fine file if it is then treat the area with a bit of graphite.
Edit: rewording
I have broken the high e a few times detuning. It always snaps at the tuning peg. But I don't think it necessarily means there is a problem with it. A common way to break off the excess string without cutters is the just bend is back and forth, after a few times it will snap right off. A few times of tuning a string up and down will have the same effect.
I still have (and use) my copy of that book. There's so much wrong in that book. I began using it as a starting point, but then changing the positions, or even the phrasing to be better. There are even wrong notes transcribed into the book.
I love this series it’s awesome and there’s always an impossible stretch in every tab book
If you want to save the Princess with a killer guitar solo, turn to page 106. If you want to play it safe and just wander the land of rhythm turn to page 87.
I’ve worked in publishing and it’s heartbreaking to imagine this book passing multiple levels of edits. All told though, the bad Mötley Crüe ran book was sooo much worse. It confused the hell out of me back in the day
Haha! - I still have that book - Bought it back when it was fairly new out. I was in a band with a few mates at the time, and yes.... A lot of it was wa-a-a-a-a-ay off being 'right'. Had to figure my own ways to do several bits of it, but as a basis to start from it was kinda OK....ish.... in it's day.
Good enough for us to learn 'Too Late for Love', 'Die Hard the Hunter', 'Lady Strange'... and for me to eventually learn to play Switch 625 a few years later.
It seems like no one even tried to play through these book before the release. Did the bands even knew about them?
I VERY much doubt the bands had anything to do with them. I also doubt they ever got paid for them, because you know how record companies and publishing companies are.
One company that made these, I believe it was Cherry Lane would often times say if it was artist confirmed or someone who knew how it was recorded confirmed that the tab was correct. Who's to say that actually happened or not I'm unsure but most of those books were very accurate
That's old school Hal Leonard book
I think the copyright on that one is 1988?
They first started putting tab instead of just notes back then.
transcriptions were horrific
I remember some of my friends quitting guitar because of poor tab books. Those books can trick new players in to thinking they suck, when really the tab books sucked.
LOLOLOL... This cracked me up! I bought the tab book, too!I I only played what sound right to my ears! Just pieces. I am glad I did but I mostly played by ears and by feels. Now, I am thinking of getting Vidami wireless, been a long way from rewinding cassette tapes! btw, "Guitar For Practing Musicians," used to admit and correct their mistakes in their next issues. Great video to come across and now I'll subscribe and thumbs up!👍🏼🎸😊
Ah I actually remember this book and playing with it back in the day, even then I knew it was wrong. Now I have students who sometimes bring me internet tabs so I can help them with it and they are quite often pretty wrong so I correct them.
Great video. Tab books were/are very hit and miss - a bit like RUclips today :) Some just turn the songs into "campfire" versions, and others (like what you have) were just best guesses from a guitar player that was probably under contract to crank out one of these books each week, and made their best guess.
Do the Billy Idol “Play it Like It Is” from Cherry Lake Music (1985) tab book. Their tab for Rebel Yell had me confused for years. The whole book is wonky.
Can u please do a review on that guitar and your other pink Jackson guitar
I ask this because I’m thinking of buying the Jackson sl1x in platinum pink just like yours
Love you Your great down to earth. Trying to learn I just brought a guitar a week ago.
Books like these are designed to throw people off. Up until about 2010, computers we're as advanced and full of information as much as they are today. The music industry didn't want people to learn how to play music on their own because the executives wouldn't be able to monetize the music that someone like you or I would create. Now that the internet is available, it's much easier to learn the proper techniques and things to produce you're own music. Books like these made beginners think, "if I practice this everyday, 5 hours a day, for the whole year, I'll be able to sound just like Def Leopard". But then they show you the wrong ways to play so in your mind you get discouraged and you think to yourself, "wow these guys are absolute God's for being able to play this stuff". But if they showed you the real way then you'd realize how much easier it is to play music and you wouldn't want to buy the industries albums anymore because these guys aren't as impressive as you once thought. Like you might still think they're great guitarists but you wouldn't put them at "God tier" like you used to. Now people can have studios in their own homes just with equipment they bought from Best Buy, so the music industry is losing money. I think that's why Rap has exploded so much because they can exploit rappers easier than they can groups and bands. Its easier to get 1 person to sell out than it is to get 4 or 5 people to sell out. Sort of music industry conspiracy.
guitar looks like the art work for rio by duran duran, great song, i just learnt the bass line..
It's by the same artist - Patrick Nagel
where does he get those stickers on the bridge
i saw the same sticker on his gibson sg and i just loved it
Just random online sites. That’s the Buffy logo.
i remember buying this book as a kid and i was so stoked to learn all the def leppard songs and everything you pointed out was so disappointing exactly. The intro from bringing on the heartbreak and no solo on photograph....ugh idk know why they never put out a real real book.
How do you like that BC Rich STIII/Gunslinger? One of my favorite guitars is an 87 STIII USA custom shop with a mahogany body and ebony fretboard. Killer guitar.
Back in the early 80’s I was so young and dumb. I thought all tab was correct from the Tab Fairy. I really never really questioned the accuracy. When I started playing in bands with other guitarists it became very apparent that I had spent countless hours picking apart bad tab.
Today you just about can’t pay me to sit down with tab. I always sucked at tab and I’m super slow. Now just pop on a RUclips vid and I’m jamming in seconds.
It's interesting seeing the "Rock of Ages" solo transcribed without pinch/natural harmonics, ending up played in the wrong octave.
That bit about using the tuning peg is a clever interpretation, but imagine trying that live if your monitors aren't great, and just hoping you tuned it back up correctly.
13 years playing guitar, never broke a string. Only had a string popping out of my floyd once but I was able to put it back.
What kind of terrible strings are you using to be that scared of tuning down?
Great video! Thankfully I'm a bass player and I learned how to play by playing along with Pyromania and Hysteria. Never had to worry about crappy tab books, just my crappy ear lol
Time to go listen to the live version of Stagefright on repeat...
Is that a custom b.c rich guitar , I frigging love the early 90s nail boutique lady aesthitic!
Man that solo at the end sounded so good when you played the real version, I need to learn that asap
WOW!!!, thank you!, back in the early 90's a friend who went to the US brought me that book and i was so excited to finally know how to play 2 of my favorite albums and i have never been a great player but i could see that the book was not quite good, and a lot of the notes sounded wrong so i thought maybe i'm not playing them right, so i left it and never opened it again. Now with your video i am confirming that it was not me.
The tab book for the GTR album. The transcriptionist who did Steve Howe’s “Sketches In The Sun” apparently got to the end and didn’t realize Howe had changed the tuning from standard until the natural harmonics at the very end simply weren’t available in standard tuning…just put some notes down and went “ok, that’s a wrap!”
0:43
EPIC!
Seems like a lot of people enjoy their later stuff more, but I find Let It Go and High N Dry to be there best rock song and album. Such great riffs, tempo changed, and lyrics make it a rock classic.
Switch 625 use a great instrumental song.
Awesome Video, What model is that B.C. Rich w/the Patrick Nagel graphics?
If there's a book I'd love to hear gone through, it would be the book for Jars of Clay's first record. The book didn't explain the EABEBE tuning, but in the long term that was probably good for me as a budding guitar player. These videos are great man. Thanks for sharing them.
3:39..there is a possibility that someone else on stage would turn the tuner? joe? (the other guitar player at that time?)
What? In 30 years of guitar playing I've never broke a string detuning.