Online Tab vs Tab Book

[retro89]

I was playing wildwood flower from a guitar lesson book and then looked it up online and it was much different and sometimes the songs dont sound right. Is it better to buy the tab books especially if you like the artist or just stick with online tab?

[mmmaak]

Well, most (errhmmm) online tab, being free, is understandably inaccurate. There are some good ones, especially those copied from actual books/sheet music but in general, you'll find many more misses than hits.

(I'm assuming you're talking about the kind of "online tab" that can be found at UltimateGuitar.com, not the kind you buy from MusicNotes.com)

[wooki97]

hi there
i have a blog with classical guitar tabs www.chrisliang.com

to find tabs, generally i go to ultimate-guitar.com or classtab.org for classical guitar tab. what i do is compare and make my own tab. with the fingering or alternative chords fit for me.

if u are stuck in a part of a song, find the equivalent somewhere else. use open string to eliminate unnecessary fingering. watch youtube video, see how a difficult part is done. don/t rely on 1 tab instead mix and match from many and if possible make your own in notepad.

good luck

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by retro89

I was playing wildwood flower from a guitar lesson book and then looked it up online and it was much different and sometimes the songs dont sound right. Is it better to buy the tab books especially if you like the artist or just stick with online tab?

Remember that traditional tunes have lots of variations. There are dozens of Wildwood Flower performances on you tube, and I bet no 2 of them are played the same way, not even agreeing on the basic melody, if you listen closely. That song in particular is interesting, because the Carter family recorded the best known version - to the point that many people assume it's their tune, and apparently, they even got the words wrong, thereby passing along the "wrong" words to most people. It's all part of the normal interpretive process of folk tunes. There's also nothing magical about written tab, online or off. Some of its accurate, some of it's not, even without variations in the way different people play a tune. Use it as a guide, and use your ear to pick up what's really being played.