I teach piano and guitar, and this is exactly the method I used to teach also. Breaking the music, the measures the parts down into tiny parts. Our brain doesn't mind reassembling them later.
Anytune pro also helps alot, break it into chunks, slow it down without changing pitch, changing the key etc… whatever you need to easily adapt the song to your brain.
I’m a chef the julienne cut is when you cut the veggies,meat or whatever the food product is into long thin strips just in case you really wanted to know lol..Anyway great lesson here I use a similar method myself been using it since I realized I couldn’t afford tab books and most were wrong so it worked out lol..
It depends on the song I'm learning, but generally most pop songs fit on an A4 sheet - thats lyrics, chords, fills etc. Solos are another story. But when I'm learning a new song, I start with the lyrics and pop chord changes in to get a rough idea of the full song structure. Then I'll add in a tag for little runs, fills or riffs where needed (like Riff 1, Riff 2 etc). I have a bad memory, so these type of tabs/chords helps when I haven't played the song for a long time. It also helps when there's weird lyrical timing that might not fit in that nice neat structure.
Love the Sabbath shirt, I wore my one to Birmingham last week, didn't have time to visit the Black Sabbath bridge though.This video is awesome! 🤘🏻🔥 I'm Learning along as I type this, definitely need some practice on a few areas. Love the song you use for this, one of my favourites. Really looking forward to more of these song lessons on the website. Congrats on 823k Subscribers!
In my early years I learned off the record like many did back then. It was good ear training. But I would also go to clubs and watch how other bands would play a song. It only works if you are visually oriented.
Was at the Omni in Atlanta in 1984 for Sammy’s Voice of America tour. Krokus was his opening act. Great shows from both!! I was truly Screaming in the Night!!
Cool, I like this way of learning and memorizing a song. Trying "simple" rote or repetition never really stuck in my head. This recipe idea works so much better. 😃
Great video Mike! I want to start playing in a band soon and so recently I’ve been learning a bunch of different songs. I’m definitely gonna use this concept!!
Julienne is a type of cut. The easiest way I can explain it is to tell you to look at a onion. Cut it in half. You see the lines in the onion. Cut it in the lines. You have your cut. There is many different kinds of cut. As far as cooking goes. It also helps to make it over and over again. That's why at work I am the recipe book.
As always another great video man 🤘 I’ve been teaching myself to play rhythm guitar by ear for a little over 2 years now and funny enough this is basically how I put songs together. I learned the whole 72 seasons ( Metallica) album when it came out in April, pretty much by the end of June. To me it’s the best way to piece it all together. Keep up the great content 🤘
I just noticed you have one of those doohickeys on your headstock to help the tuning stability. Has it been there before? Never noticed. Maybe you can talk about why you’d pick that over fixing the nut to let the strings enter straighter. It seems like more modern Gibsons don’t have as big an issue with tuning stability. Not sure what year your guitar is from, but did the nuts get better with time? Or something else?
If I had to guess I believe it simply lets the strings enter at a better angle, more straight before it go into the nut. G strings are notoriously bad for tuning stability!
Man i wish i lived around where you are id spend my last dollar to get private lessons from you. For some crazy reason you've made my playing so much better using your teaching method that im sitting here laughing after i just did what you taught and it makes me feel hey its not that hard to play better when you have a amazing teacher. Horns up to you Man keep em coming CANADIAN fan forever.
My late guitar teacher always hated tabs. He had a very funny analogy about it: "you telling me you learned a song through tabs is the same as if you told me you had sex through a computer screen" I thought he was just making it hard for me on purpose. But now when I think about it, whenever I "learned" a song from tabs, I would forget the whole thing in a week if I didn't play it every single day. Now, instead of that, I sit and actively listen and watch the artist (if there's a live performance video) and literally disect parts down to the last beat. It takes a LOT of time, but the end result is always way more beneficial. It's not just about learning to play the notes that the piece consists of, but also getting a sense of why it was composed in such a way, connections between the chords and melodies, and all other intricate details. Plus, tabs can be wrong, as we've seen with those Metallica tab books that Mike was playing through. I also noticed that players who only learn through tabs tend to lack dynamics in their playing, have a very poor timing and struggle with fretting hand patterns since the tab doesn't tell you which finger is used to fret a specific note. This is not apparent until you start learning complex stuff where you have to nail both the picking pattern and fretting hand motions.
This is a great analysis and why I hate tabs. Kudos to your late guitar teacher for making you do it the hard way. I picked up A TON of bad habits learning by tab, not to mention my technique was crap. Took me years to undo most of it. A proper teacher would have saved me time, but the internet didn't exist back then and lessons were expensive..at least for my family they were. One more tool you might want to add to your belt is something called the Nashville Numbers System. This changed my life when working with temperamental singers who would change the key of the song at the drop of hat. No more trying to transpose chord charts on the fly. Memorize the pattern of the numbers and then play the song in any key at will. This will also aid in figuring out the basics of a song by ear quicker as you'll quickly notice the formula to writing a song often repeats itself.
I would say there's nothing wrong with tabs if you are actually paying attention to what's going on and not just playing fret numbers. Like, instead of thinking "I play 0 on the E string, 2 on the A string, 2 on the D string, 1 on the G string, and open B and high E", you would think "this is an E major chord". The tab is still useful because it shows you which voicing to use. But yeah, the issue with tabs is that so many people just read them one fret number at the time, without actually paying attention to the big picture. People need to be also taught how to use tabs. You don't just copy the fingerings - you should also identify common chord shapes, scale shapes, licks, etc. So, instead of telling people not to use tabs, they should be taught how to use tabs in an effective way. Because if I now decide to learn something from tabs, I'm not going to forget it, because I'm consciously paying attention to what's going on, and not just memorizing fret numbers.
That is some gross generalization for people reading tabs. If you are playing along to the song you should develop good timing no matter how you have learned the song. Everyone struggles with learning which finger is best but that is something that comes with experience. People learned how to play instruments before you could watch videos in hd and slow them down. At the end of the day if you know how to play the song no one can tell how you learned it so your music teacher was just being a snob. Tabs are vital for getting people interested. Playing music isn't easy and there is a very high bar for getting started (plus lessons can be expensive and not everyone can afford them). Let's encourage people to play no matter how they learn. The less barriers to getting started the better.
For me tabs its just thr first stepnon learning a song, thisnis what i do: Tab to get the idea, watch live videos if possible, watch guitar covers to see variations, listen to the original record, combine everything and make the best interpretation possible, or more comfortable to play, or accurate to the recording/artist
I never would have progressed quickly if it weren't for tabs. It was easier to correct bad technique later, once I knew what was actually bad, rather than guessing and trying to avoid every possible bad habit, and it allowed me to get a hang of songs and move along at a pace that I never would have got learning by ear or sheet music.
You're videos are always super helpful and entertaining at the same time. Everytime i want to get better at guitar i awaly go to your website/channel. You are an amazing guitarist and an amazing teacher, keep doing what you do!🤘🫶🏽
Awesome question. I'll address this more as I upload more song recipe vids. The idea is to focus on key movements and hand techniques. If you've seen my Marty Friedman video you know that I talk about his economy picking a lot. I'd focus on making sure people had that down before trying the lead parts at least.
Why…WHY doesn’t anyone talk about the heaviness of “The Oathz” from KISS? Oh yeah cause the album bombed. Check out the chugs and riffiness of that tune.
Mike could you play something out of the box for you typically play here on your chanel: some fast ripping tremelo picked black metal please. Love to see you teach a riff or two in this style.
Ok I’ve stopped this video right after I heard your tone and the E chord and my immediate guess is back in black AC/DC. If I’m right give this post a like.
