Help me if you can...

These days instead of figuring out a song I just go to my PC. Saves me a lot of time. There are a lot of sites out there, Ultimate Guitar.com, E-Chords, AZ Chords, Chordie etc. etc. I never joined any of these sites but would like to know if anyone here has joined. There're so many of these sites and I want to hear what you guys are using because I want to join one but want to join a good one. Do you get better compositions if you pay. I find that most of the time without paying it's 85% or 95% correct. Pros and cons please.

Ralph

I usually go to Ultimate-guitar.com, and pay close attention to the ratings (how many and how high) when trying to figure out which version to learn. I went a fair amount of time not realizing there were multiple versions of most songs, some better than others.

I don't subscribe - I use the free access.

I don't subscribe to anything. I tend to use Uncle Google to search on a song title, perhaps with or without artist, and look at the results until I get something the looks reasonable.

I know I could do all of this on my own, if I were motivated enough, so very often I have a pretty good idea of how well what I play (based on the internet) matches what I think I should play. I can usually make adjustments or at least figure out what needs to be different when I repeat the search to pick a better rendition.

I find I spend a lot of time at https://www.songsterr.com because their tabs include rhythm and you can hear other parts/instruments. Sometimes their paid plan gets tempting but then I notice something shiny over there and never actually do it.

Both answers are just about what I have been doing all along but I don't know what you get if you pay.

Ralph

Thanks for posting the question F312, it's exactly what I've been wondering. I'm looking for a site that'll give the lyrics and chords with the ability to change the key, and then the ability to print everything in a simple form. Pretty straight forward, but for some reason I've run into problems in the past. I'm willing to pay to join a site if I need to, so I'll be interested in further posts in this thread. Thanks everyone.

The free sites get you close enough for you to either accept what's given or make your tweaks to make it better for you. (IMHO)

I think all the sites mentioned let you transpose the chords. richard69 is right that it gets you close enough.

Ralph

I don't subscribe to anything either. Of course everything I find on the net is someone else's interpretation of the lyrics and chords. 3 different search engines typically produce 3 different results. I pick the best one I can find, copy to a new Word document, and fix the chords as I see necessary. Even if the chords are correct, they are often not in the right place, and I'm kinda particular about having the chords directly above the word/syllable where they are to be played.


So I end up with a 4th interpretation of the song, lol.


Things were actually much easier before the internet, you just went to the music store and bought the book. Then you ended up with the musical notation, chords, lyrics, etc. and you knew they were correct. And you were copyright compliant.


I wonder what it would cost to replicate my collection, which include: Beatles Complete (the black book,) Eagles Complete, The Who Complete, Paul Simon Complete (2 volumes,) Gordon Lightfoot Complete (3 volumes,) Elton John and Bernie Taupin Complete (3 volumes,) Led Zeppelin Complete, Moody Blues Complete, The Life And Times Of Jim Croce (Complete,) plus a whole raft of other books. Of course all these "complete" collections were complete at the time they were printed. I bought most of them in the '70's.

I agree with the above, and I have also paid for a single song at musicnotes.com. Also, don't forget youtube, which I often find even better than the tab sites you all have mentioned. For example, guitarlessons365 is a well done site, and there are others as well.

walrus

They still sell books, and the books are way better than the "this might be the chord" books from the '70s and '80s.

If I'm chasing music down on the Internet, though, I do what everyone else here has said and find the best one I can for free and then fix it because they're almost always not quite right.

I bought Beatles Complete back in the mid 70s for $19.95 which is not complete and about 90% accurate.

Ralph

I purchased a lifetime subscription to UltimateGuitar.com for something like $30.

It included an app that stores all of my favorites, so that I can access them on my iPad whenever I am not online.

I also like the scrolling function and the ability to transpose to a different key if I like.

F312 said:

Both answers are just about what I have been doing all along but I don't know what you get if you pay.

Ralph

Click to expand...

Phrased like that, none of the sites have offered anything for paying customers (according to the site, not by actually using a trial offer) that I wanted, needed or felt was worth the money being asked.

dreadnut said:

Things were actually much easier before the internet, you just went to the music store and bought the book. Then you ended up with the musical notation, chords, lyrics, etc. and you knew they were correct. And you were copyright compliant.

Click to expand...

Many sites have a clause that the tabs or transcriptions are for educational use only. That generally precludes any claims of copyright infringement being successful.

If I use such information to teach myself a song, I have not violated any copyrights.

If I perform the song so learned in a public venue then under most circumstances the venue operator is responsible for a payment to the copyright holder for my performance.

If I record a song so learned then under most circumstances I am required to pay some kind of royalty to the copyright holder.

Those last two are true whether I bought a legal book or watched an educational video

As I understand it, a current gray is recording an instructional video and then posting it to YouTube. The people making the video claim the recording is for educational purposes. But the copyright holders look at ad revenue from some YouTube streams and see an unlicensed public performance for profit.

Ralph: is that the black single volume with gold lettering on the cover? That's the one I have and I noticed "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" is not in there.

I have the Beatles Complete from the '70's with the gold lettering - "She Came in..." is in mine.

Also, with all due respect, that book is not really "accurate" at all if you want to sound like the actual songs. I used it years ago and got some good info from it, but it is more of an "easy guitar" type book. Totally fine if that's what you want. But if you want any riffs within songs (ex. "I've Got a Feeling", "Here Comes the Sun", "Day Tripper", "I Call Your Name", etc, etc, etc), you need to figure it out or go to the internet.

walrus

Book has purple lettering Beatles Complete Easy Guitar Hal Leonard no date. Yes it has She Came I Through The Bathroom Window.

I'm also a big fan of Ultimate Guitar. As has been said, you have to pay attention to the ratings but even those can mislead. Also, the search function on Ultimate Guitar SUCKS big time. I've searched for a song 8 ways to Sunday and come up totally blank. Then I put the song in Google for "guitar chords" and it comes up on Ultimate Guitar!! Really? I had a bunch of old Joni Mitchell books from back in the day and just threw them all away. They're useless. It was a "Here's the best we could come up with in standard tuning to kinda sound something like the songs she plays" type of thing. So I bought the Kindle version of "Joni Mitchell Complete So Far: Guitar Sheet Music Songbook Collection" and it has all the tunings and everything you need.

I really do love the "Transpose" feature in Ultimate Guitar (and a few other sites). I'm signed up, so I sign in every time, but I didn't pay any money. Some song music versions are not available to me because I didn't pay, but I get by without sending them money. So far, anyway.... :encouragement:

I guess everything I play is "my interpretation" of it because I don't read musical notation or tablature. I have transposed chords in several of the songs in the books I own; it seems to me the chords in them are pretty accurate. For instance, I learned lots of Jim Croce and Gordon Lightfoot songs from those books, of course the fingerpicking and scaling transitions from chord to chord are something I've just developed through practice and rote repetition.

My Piano teacher, Mrs. Brown, took my Mom aside one day when I was about 9 years old and told her "You're wasting your money on piano lessons, he just memorizes everything." I could play the piece at the recital perfectly, but I wasn't looking at the dots on the paper. Drove her nuts.

Fortunately my Mom, bless her heart and R.I.P., bought me a guitar when I was 15 years old.

davismanLV said:

II had a bunch of old Joni Mitchell books from back in the day and just threw them all away. They're useless. It was a "Here's the best we could come up with in standard tuning to kinda sound something like the songs she plays" type of thing. So I bought the Kindle version of "Joni Mitchell Complete So Far: Guitar Sheet Music Songbook Collection" and it has all the tunings and everything you need.

Click to expand...

Also, Ms. Mitchell's own site carries transcriptions of many of her songs, including the "Joni tunings" for them. Being able to Play "Cold Blue Steel And Sweet Fire" is on my list of guitar aspirations.