by rugger » Tue Mar 06, 2012 10:05 am
I've recently found a new tool to help learn songs or guitar parts/solos. It's a piece of software called Transcribe! (there are others out there, but this is the only one I have experience with) that allows you to loop any number of measures you like and slow down the tempo without affecting the pitch of the song. Another nice feature is the eq that helps bring forward or send back certain frequencies/instruments in the mix. The rest is all your ears. I've made a vow to never look at tab again--it's a crutch. Plus it's usually wrong!
I have decent ears but I can still struggle with some stuff. I've found that by looping a measure over and over until it's ingrained in my head to the point that I can sing/hum the part accurately makes "finding" the notes on the fretboard much easier. I've been surprising myself lately. Stuff that I would get reasonably close before, I'm now getting near note perfect.
Transcribe! or any slow down software is also a great practice tool. Got a difficult part that's been vexing you? Loop it and slow it down to a speed you can play it perfectly and gradually up the tempo as you get it down.
Point in all of this is that you can transcribe that solo yourself and can get far more benefit out of that process than by trying to memorize Darks' tab.
john in san diego