I love Pandora Internet Radio..... Love, love, love it!! If you are already familiar with Pandora than you probably already know why I am so enthusiastic. If you aren't in the know about Pandora, let me bring you up to speed. Pandora is an internet "radio" service that takes a song or artist that you like, matches it with other similar songs and artists, and plays a mix of music that is similar in one way or another to what you like. For example, my favorite Pandora channel is my White Stripes channel. Because of the eclectic style of Jack White, I get a wide range of interesting music, from rock (Wolfmother, Black Sabbath) to blues (Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Canned Heat) to alternative (The Hives, Cake) to bluegrass (the "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" soundtrack). By getting a good mix of styles and artists, I have been introduced to music that I probably never would have listened to before. Granted, not all of it is great, but if I don't like it, I just give it the big "thumbs down", and never have to hear it again.
The last four songs I have set out to learn have been "300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues" by The White Stripes, "All Night Long" by Buckcherry, "Get Over It" by Ok Go, and "On My Way" by Billy Boy on Poison. What these songs have in common are 1) They are all rather simple to play with bar chords, 2) they have a little bit of guitar vamping, but nothing really crazy as far as solos, and 3) they all have kind of foot stompin', and heavier "good times" rock and roll beats and rhythms. I can hear a "style" starting to come through in my playing, something like a mix between an AC/DC style rock with a heavy blues influence. Besides the fact that these are the kinds of music I enjoy, they also play to my strengths (and weaknesses) as a player. I am sure that my abilities have influenced my music choice at least as much, if not more than the pure esthetic.
For the time being, I am not going to tab songs on this site, maybe some time in the future, but for now, I get pretty much anything that I play from Ultimate-Guitar.com If you are new to using guitar tab, here are a couple of hints. Don't try to figure out a song just by looking at the tab. If you aren't really familiar with the rhythm, the tab can be really frustrating. If you want to learn a certain song, the first step is to listen to it... a lot... If you don't already own a copy of the song, you can get a video for just about any song there is on Youtube, or you can go to an iTunes or other digital music site and download it for around 99 cents. Once you have the song, and can listen to it over and over, try to play along. This is where the tab comes in handy. Use the tab to identify the chords and changes, then follow along as you listen to the music. A warning.... not all tabs are created equal! A lot of tab is submitted to public sites by regular Joe's (or Jane's as the case may be) just like you and I, who liked a song, sat down and banged out something as close as they could to what they are hearing, and wanted to share that with others. That being said, use tab as a guideline, not a rule. If you play the tab and it doesn't sound just right to you, then change it up!
Keep rockin', and remember.....
Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast!!
B
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