I’ve witnessed and participated in many “Tab Vs. Standard Notation” debates. I’ve heard the “purists” call tab a “crutch” where you will never learn the piece completely without standard notation. While the the other side will argue that tab opens a door to a ton of music to those who did not get formal training. The arguments go on and on and there will never be a right or wrong answer. All I can give you is my testimonial of sorts. I’ve been working on a piece that I’ve toyed around with for years but was never really comfortable with it. I learned the it using tab and a recording that came with the songbook. At first glance, the piece appears to be easy learn but it has to be played at a fairly high tempo (200bpm) so frustration began to kick in. No matter how much I practiced it never sounded or felt right. So what did I do? I decided to look at the standard notation part of the transcription and noticed something that the tab doesn’t show. I was not separating the melody with the bass line completely. In short, my index and middle were playing notes …
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Today, in our household, is pumpkin day because it just isn’t Halloween unless you carve up a few pumpkins. There are so many stencils out there, you can create almost any kind of likeness you want on your pumpkin. Maybe not…. This year I wanted to do a guitar themed carving but for the life of me, I couldn’t find any stencils at all, except one. It’s a Les Paul type of stencil and not as hard to do as I thought. Now that I have carved my first guitar, I think I might be able to work out an acoustic version next time. If anyone has found any good guitar stencils for pumpkin carving, please leave a comment and share where we can get them. Happy Halloween! Links: 9.29.2025 – Here are some more pumpkin guitar templates that I have found: YouTube Channel: If you’d like to support me and guitarmusings, please check out my YouTube Channel. There you will find original performances and fingerstyle takes on popular songs. Thanks!! https://www.youtube.com/@realmac5150 10.18.2011 – Update: the old stencils I used for this post is no longer valid. Below is a link to a stencil for not only the guitar but …
I would like to introduce Hercules Castro as a new guest writer for Guitar Musings. Hercules and I grew up and learned the guitar together. I know you will enjoy his insights on the guitar and making music. Meet My Friend I’d like to talk about my good friend, the big red button. By this, I mean the Record button. Now, I’m not talking about recording in the sense of producing CDs, videos or demos. That comes later. For now, I’m talking more along the lines of creating a progress report. In the Beginning When I was a young lad, one of my favorite things to do was plug my amp into a dual cassette recorder with a mic input, play anything, record it, then take the tape to school to generally irritate all of my friends. Later, I figured out if I took the tape and put it in the other deck, recorded its contents onto another blank tape with a drum machine plugged in and going, I could multi-track. After I repeated the process with multiple guitar tracks and a borrowed bass, the line noise had built up so much that you could barely hear the instruments. Plus, …
I’ve been trying to find accurate Bruce Cockburn tabs for you play. Unlike my Tommy Emmanuel Tabs post, it wasn’t as easy to find good tabs to find and I found many sites that were nothing but pop-ups and deceptive links, so beware because those types of sites are the kind you get spyware from. Here are a few for you to try and if you have any other recommendations, please leave a comment and share with us. List of Cockburn Tabs: (updated Sept 2025) Sunwheel Dance: I’m not a fan of ASCII tab but it’s fairly accurate/close to the version I have in my “All the Diamonds” songbook. This version has you tune to open E(EBEG#BE) but I believe it’s tuned to open D (DADF#AD). Both with the capo on the second fret. The song is surprisingly easy to learn but incredibly hard to master, especially at the correct tempo. Playlist of Cockburn covers on my YouTube Channel.
I’m at 11,000 ft in the Colorado mountains, just got my tent setup and the sleet/snow begins to fall, driving me in for cover. Like chard’s of plastic falling on my rain fly, a rhythm began to emerge. Embracing the moment, I unpacked the guitar and being to jam with nature. For a good forty minutes it was just me, my guitar and the rain. An inspired forty minutes that washed away the ass kicking that work gave me the past month. I used to be extremely uncomfortable being alone up there or any place away from the distractions of technology because I was forced to face the many thoughts/ideas/rants rattling around in my head. It could be quite nerve racking and I preferred to drown it out with iPods, computers or conversations with friends. Over the past couple trips, I have found that this “alone time” was an opportunity to face the cacophony of thoughts in my head and I was forced to organize and purge; getting comfortable with myself and in turn, more comfortable, with my playing. So here’s to getting more comfortable and getting better!
