FreE-Learning Music

Life is an information highway and I want to ride it all night long.

A little twist on Tom Cochrane's hit song Life is a Highway, which can be found in many forms on the net. See Tom or others cover it, find the lyrics, or learn to play it yourself by finding the chords and tablature (tab). You may already have a good ear for figuring out music, but if you need help, tablature and chord charts are everywhere online.

The world is definitely smaller now as people meet at popular web spots, viewing each other, commenting, and learning from each other. At You Tube itself you can find practically any song being covered, and many people make actual lessons, though often amateurish videoing, slowing down their picking or chord pattern to teach you how to play a version of your favorite song. The quality of the instruction varies greatly, but people are still happy to share the way they know how to play a tune, see a sample below.

You can learn individual notes on a guitar fretboard for example, through tab. Depending on the song complexity, each note, chord, and techniques are graphically outlined, showing where to play what note, as in the the image above (tabs are often posted by not necessarily professional musicians, and therefore, there may be an incorrect note or chord, or song credit, as in the graphic above).

Tab has been around for at least a dozen years, and song tablature is easy to find. Many people have a good ear for music, but if there is one song you just cannot quite get, or just missing a key chord or note, check out some tab sites.
Here are a couple to find the song you want to learn:
Ultimate Guitar Tabs
Guitar Tab

If you just prefer to see the video, just do a search for the song, artist or band, and include "lesson", "tab", or "cover" for example. Keep in mind that there are many different interpretations of songs, and they do not all sounds exactly the very same as the original recording. Below is a lesson on how to play the Jimi Hendrix classic Purple Haze. The video includes the person's explaining where he placed his fingers, on what fret, and there is a fret note graphic that sometimes appears to show the tab notes of what he just explained.


For a nice full version of Jimi's tune, check out a version by a great guitar player called Buddy Clontz right here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K1T8MSAerg