Tabs and YouTube...good idea?

[6 Strings MI]

I don't know anyone near me who has musical ability (and I'm on lockdown orders anyway)...so I got a little creative. I found a set of chords for "Great Speckled Bird" and played through them last night. Tonight I loaded up a YouTube video of Roy Acuff's recording of the song and attempted to play along. Much to my surprise, I did very well. What do y'all think of this method?

[stokes1971]

Same as we did back in the day,playing along with 45's.For the lead parts we would slow it down to 33rpm's.But we didnt have tabs,so you got a step up in that regard.Nothing "wrong" with either method,anything that gets you playing is a good thing.

[6 Strings MI]

Originally Posted by stokes1971

Anything that gets you playing is a good thing.

Indeed! I am still surprised at how well I was able to play along.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by 6 Strings MI

I don't know anyone near me who has musical ability (and I'm on lockdown orders anyway)...so I got a little creative. I found a set of chords for "Great Speckled Bird" and played through them last night. Tonight I loaded up a YouTube video of Roy Acuff's recording of the song and attempted to play along. Much to my surprise, I did very well. What do y'all think of this method?

Perfect. What else are you gonna do these days?

The only way to improve on that is to make sure you listen more closely - to make sure those chords and tabs really are correct, and to pick up the subtle things like rhythmic feel, all the stuff you don't get from tab. It's all about listening in the end.

You know you can slow youtube down if you need to?

[stokes1971]

"You know you can slow youtube down if you need to?"
I did not know that.

[6 Strings MI]

Originally Posted by JonPR

The only way to improve on that is to make sure you listen more closely - to make sure those chords and tabs really are correct, and to pick up the subtle things like rhythmic feel, all the stuff you don't get from tab. It's all about listening in the end.

It's hard to hear guitar on the track I played along with (perhaps due to the limitations of 1930s recording technology). My ears, I have noticed, are getting better-trained. While trying to play two other songs, I noticed the sound was a little off. Apparently they were recorded with capos. I might try watching live performances of some of my favorite songs, too.

[rwmct]

Originally Posted by stokes1971

"You know you can slow youtube down if you need to?"
I did not know that.

You also have pitch corrected slow down for videos in at least some versions of Microsoft Media Player. A lot of songs, even studio versions, are on YouTube so I save the video, open it in Media Player. Right click on the video to bring up a menu, select "Enhancements" and then "play speed settings."

Its not nearly as good as "Transcribe", though.