Bad tablature is worse than useless because it's so disheartening. For young musicians such as I was myself at one point, you just assume that you suck or lack something fundamental to get it right. Since it looks so official, you just assume that it must be correct. It's very discouraging.

EXACTLY how I felt when I got the tab book for Steve Vai’s “Passion and Warfare” when it first came out. Waited forever for it to come out only to have it full of mistakes. It was so butchered, I took it upon myself to photocopy every page with mistakes and corrected them, then sent them to the publisher (Hal Leonard). Ended up getting a gig proofreading some of their tab books afterward, including Vai’s “Alien Love Secrets.” If you have or can get your hands on the first edition of “Passion and Warfare” tab book, I’d love to see your take on it.

That's why I'm glad I grew up learning tabs online because if it doesn't sound like the record you just search for a different tab or video. That's a sick guitar btw.

Being a young learner of guitar back in 86/87, I learned I guess what be known as typical. Learning by ear. Most of my favorite guitarists learned by ear. Rewinding the 8track,cassette and LPs hundreds of times. By 89 I was doing ok. Armed with an old 25w Traynor, a Boss distortion pedal, and an Ibanez Roadstar 2. I bout shit when I finally figured out the “Highway to Hell” riffs lol. In 89 I heard “And Justice for All” for the first time. Immediately began to One, Harvester and so on. Getting it pretty damn close. Until I couldn’t figure any more out I kinda shelved the idea of learning more by ear. Then….a tab book came out for “Justice”. Holy shit I was excited beyond belief. I didn’t even look on the inside of it at the record store I just fucking grabbed it, bought it, n straight home. SMH 🤦‍♂️ Omg, the butchery of the coolest riffs I’ve ever heard were in this book. Even as an unschooled no note reading dumbass I was like this ain’t right!!!??!!! My favorite riff was “Eye of the Beholder”. In this book, this, “Eye” was so badly done I put my guitar down for about 4yrs. Every guitarist I knew said “ Yeah man those are the tabs bro!” I was like, fuck, something ain’t right. So convinced my learning by ear sucked ass I put my guitar down for those 3/4 yrs LoL.

I gave myself such a hard time for not being able to play Cowboys and Domination Solos from these tabs. This is part of the reason I think I gave up and didn't pick up a guitar again for about 20 years. Now with a proper practice schedule, and proper tabs, even at my ripe old age my playing is improving massively.

the harm and arm part at 6:05 is the best bit lol

Steve vai's passion and warfare tab book takes that complex kind of multiple instrument tabbing to a new insane level trust me

I'm beginning to understand why so many guitarists from prior generations have so much vitriol against using tabs.

i tried to learn that cowboys from hell tab back in the day. ended up learning most of it by hear

It's like you're creating an exclusive series based on every tab book I've purchased. They destroyed my confidence so much I believed I simply wasn't naturally gifted enough and lost my desire to learn. Your videos have been a great source of inspiration to get back into guitar again. Sadly, I have arthritis now, so I'll never be able to achieve the level I wanted to be at 24 years ago.

I always used to take these books as gospel until I had the opportunity to meet Wolf Marshall in my younger days. Super cool and humble dude but I was shocked to find out these books were just tabbed out by regular musicians who were pretty much just slowing down the recordings and guessing. Up until then I always thought that the actual guitarists had to authenticate the book with their blessing. It was like finding out Santa Claus isn't real...😥

you have to wonder who green lights all these terrible tab books, especially when they are flat out wrong. Does anyone double check these? My band recorded a cover of "Cowboys From Hell" I learned it by ear, I trust myself...

I absolutely LOVE hearing you go through these tab books. I have a far better understanding of the guitar now and I remember the hell of these books. I was always scratching my head while playing some of these songs as a beginner thinking, this doesn't seem right or how the heck are they playing this. I'm glad I wasn't the only one.

I’m glad I found this series/channel. I haven’t used tab books in like 15 years, but when I was a kid, I had every tab book I could find from bands I liked to try and learn all their songs. I definitely took them as gospel, to the point where I remember actually arguing with my guitar teacher about how to play either an Audioslave or RATM solo (can’t remember for sure.) I showed him the book and he listened to the song and was like “yeah that’s definitely not right” and I remember being so shocked and confused that he thought he knew better than the “OFFICIAL TAB BOOK”. Then I saw a live video of Tom Morello playing it and my teacher was right, the book was totally off. I never realized this was such a widespread problem though. I assumed as a kid that the artists actually worked with the publishers to make these books. I see now that’s definitely not true. Anyways, cool series and channel! Looking forward to whatever wacky tab book you cover next!

I have great respect for you for learning and demonstrating all the *wrong* ways to play these songs, especially when you can play the *right* ways so well.

I lent this book to a friend many years ago, forgetting that I had wedged one of Dimes picks from the cowboys tour in between the pages. It was black with CFH on one side and Diamond Darrell on the other, you could see the string gouges on it and everything. Never saw it again and never fully believed my friend when he said he hadn't seen it. My own fault for not keeping it in a safe place.

Great job Mike .have felt this frustration before and I am glad you shed a light on the fact it is not us it is the bad interpretations.but you also make the the great point to question things and use your ears to improve on the great guitar learning experience. Cheers from Australia

The tuning isn’t a half step off, it’s just under a quarter step 😉 Dime used to tune down 40 cents flat (According to Rex Brown). So Cowboys was E minus 40 cents, songs in D were D minus 40 etc.

I missed our last live stream I was hoping we was going to have one soon and this is one of the hardest songs to learn from that book I thought it was incorrect but wasn't for sure you are the man Mike!!!!!!🤘🤘🤘🤘👍👍🥃🍻

The tab book for Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik by RHCP was the best one I ever found. It had guitar, bass, and drums all together. The bass was dead on accurate.

I had this book. I remember checking the tabs against single songs transcribed in guitar magazines(like Walk and Cowboys) and the magazines were always better. So I just learned from the magazines instead. I covered Walk in different Cover bands I was in and ALWAYS played it in dropped D. Never knew it was D standard. Still sounded good, though. 😁

So glad you did a video on this one. I remember a lot of stuff being inaccurate, but completely forgot about the goofy font. This book taught me to trust my ears more back in the day. Kind of wish I still had it just so I could laugh at it some more.

I remember my brother’s frustration when he was using tab books. He got a guns n roses book and learn sweet child o mine. They didn’t show anywhere that the 2 lines were 2 different guitars, and at 13 my brother did his best and tried to force slash and Izzy’s parts all in to 1 part and it took a while to figure it out that he was doing lead and rhythm as 1. Tab books are straight up trash

This is how you turn your hate to productive...great analysis!

awesome vid and IT WOULD BE GRAND IF YOI DID A LIVESTREAM RN love everything you donlmao i’ve been inactive and miss the streams lol

The orchestra thing reminded me how much I hated learning guitar parts from "real" notation. 😂 I only remember doing it once, and it was the utterly awesome bridge section of Hum "Stars" I had some "Alternative Hits" book and got so disappointed to find it was all in notation, but I HAD to learn that part! And I still play it to this day! Actually, I just put a version of it up on my Instagram a few weeks or months ago. Lmao. Love that riff so much.

Man… do any of the Extreme tab books.. the first one is horrendous, but they’re so difficult!

6:56 "Ok it was me" I cracked up 😂

Appreciate you doing what you do homie life is pretty hectic but I bought a guitar I really wanna learn how to play its something iv always wanted to do iv ben following your channel for a while im not ready to fully commit to lessons just because im really busy but I appreciate you dropping some knowledge much love homie

I think they just hired some jazz musical college dropout, who's pissed cause this is the only job he could get. So, he said screw it, and half-assed it.😁 Edit: Keep doing the Guitar God's work Mike! I love this videos! I've been playing for 39 years, and it was SO frustrating with these tab books! I tried to learn everything by ear when I could. One of my proudest moments, is when I figured out the beginning of Diary of a Madman by ear, and later learning I had gotten it right!🤘😝🤘

I remember this book, as a learner over 20 years ago. Great to see it reviewed like this - so many little memories. My guitar playing friends and I came to several of the very same conclusions, back then. Albeit, learning resources were so scarce back then, compared with today. So in many instances, we mistakenly trusted what these 'authoritative' books were telling us, until ear and experience eventually taught otherwise. The 12-15-19, or whatever - it's been awhile! - symmetrical pattern in the Domination solo, was a classic example. Aurally, this part is very exciting and mysterious. And yes, fast! Being told, by this tab book, that the section was played, at that speed, via an incredibly convoluted and ever-changing fingering pattern, left us with the illusion that we needed to scale far greater technical heights (than were actually required!) to achieve what he was doing. It made Dime seem like a literal wizard, with impossible technique. And yes, he was! but not in the way portrayed. The misleading transcriptions weren't great per se, but, trying to see the positive, it did raise our technical ambitions in some ways. Like, "if he's doing THAT, then I'm ... gonna have to do THIS!". Only to later come a full circle, back to simplifying things in order to get the same result. On a tangent: These days I occasionally see young shredders doing really physically gymnastic techniques, in order to get a lick or phrase which aurally differs relatively little from a far physically simpler technique, and, well - the appreciation is there for what they're doing, on a physical wow level, but personally, the payoff for spending endless woodshed hours just to phrase something in a fancy way that the layperson couldn't aurally tell apart from the norm, is ... reduced, as I get older. :)

Even more frustrating is Pantera's inbetween tunings 1/4 steps down in a lot of there tunings. I figured that out (tenx to the internet guitar community) just a couple of years ago, Eddie van Halen did this as well.

Ngl, being an arranger and score writer, I've always preferred Score layout (it doesn't need to be called "Orchestral Score", just score will work), but when I write, I always include the individual parts

I remember getting this book after waiting weeks for it to arrive at my local music store. I was so excited I spent the whole weekend at my friends house with barely any sleep trying to learn as much as we could. We spent years unlearning and fixing mistakes.

You should do a “ Bad internet tabs” as well. I’ve noticed a lot of discrepancies on sites like UG. Goldmine on there 😆. As you and I are about the same age , your videos take me back to the early 90s when I had these too. 🤘🏻

Great video! I have this book. Got it for Christmas in like '93 or '94 I believe. I had to make it work. I remember when I got it I was bummed out because it didn't have a lot of songs in it that I wanted to learn.

ugh, Walk's riff was painful. awesome video. A lot of this stuff were passed on to online tabs. It made guitar learning pretty annoying because, as you said, the tabs were saying one thing and my ears were listening something different. I should check all of these songs again tho, ears only.

Really good series of videos and makes me think I wasn’t as bad as I thought - used to buy guitar magazines all the time too and wonder how many of them made me feel “crap” haha when it turns out they were wrong. Much older or wiser now use the ear!

I really enjoy these videos. Still I‘d love too see alternatives for those books that are actually mostly good and well scored out. Would help plebs like myself even more.

I believe I actually saw a video or something with Rex Brown and he said the actual tuning for Walk is down a full step plus a few extra cents. So it's technically not in D standard, it's somewhere slightly lower. I'd imagine one of the guys from the album would know best, but it was a long time ago.

I remember once the worst Christmas ever in the mid 80s when I got two Van Halen album books - transcribed for piano. I still have them.

I remember looking at this book at the guitar shop I took lessons at in high school. When I saw how the chorus for This Love was tabbed using a power chord on the first fret instead of the open E I was like “this book is dumb I’m not wasting my hard earned McDonald’s paycheck on this thrash.” Best decision I have ever made.

Damn... I thought I sucked at guitar because I couldn't play that Domination's solo pattern but I just learned it incorrectly lol. It's kinda easy when you learn it the proper way. Thank you for showing this.

Am glad I have discovered someone else who has found tab books sub par and doing crazy stuff. The worst book i own is pronabably "the best of iron maiden: the first ten years" in some songs it just doesnt have the solos if i remember correctly and its got some odd chords in that maiden wouldnt use.

Guitar for the Practicing Musician tried a full-band score approach for one or two issues after their better transcribers left and sales were lagging. I remember Skid Row's "The Threat" being given this treatment, and wondering "Why this tune?" 🤔 It's amazing trying to imagine how a bad idea like this gets not only traction in a pitch meeting, but actually published. (Like there are high school jazz bands that will buy this to have something to play between an Earth, Wind & Fire medley and a Dizzy Gillespie's "Salt Peanuts"?) (Either that, or somewhere, there are metal band directors?) 🙄 Solid vid as always 🤘😎

Sweet vintage Charvel! And great playing.

Seeing things like this makes me kind of glad in a weird way that I never bothered buying any of these tab books & I can really thank my teacher for encouraging me to trust my ear over what was written on the page. That said, I do think some of the issues in these books could come down to there not really being a "standard" way to write out tab at the time?

I commented on one of your pantera vids asking why you didn't play Walk" in drop . Now I know. I learned it from bad tab books back in the day lol. Keep rocking.

Man I remember this several years ago we had a metal tribute band and I just finally decided I was maybe lazy or dumb when the tabs didn't make any sense so I used my ears when the tab didnt make sense. Wow I had no idea how far off some of the tabs were. I just said heck with it and my "version" was as much tab as I could interpret along with sounded out by ear. Honestly I had a reputation for being a better quitarist than many in my area but I think it was becauuse I really tried to visualize "how woukd they play it"? I learned scales when many just tried to play without learning. Scales really helped me visualize or physically "see" how another guitarist like dime was playing something. Not how does the stupid tab say it is. This video makes me feel better I now realize I was NOT crazy the tabs were often just wrong. Thanks!!!! 👍😃👍 God Bless

Three on a string technique unlocks and de-mystifies so much...dimebag took that and added a different note and its something new. Love it.

I remember seeing a tab book that said Cowboys From Hell was in E major! 😂😂On a serious note, I'm so glad that he makes these videos to prove that tab books are NOT always accurate! Too many tabbers on the internet treat tab books as perfect, but these videos are concrete proof to the contrary.

I love how you explain this stuff. Thanks for making these videos

With KZfaq video lessons, online sharing of tabs, and interactive guitar tab programs all available today, is there any reason to buy a tab book? When I started playing in the late 80's, there was no internet, so all we had was the tab books.

I started out with the Jimi Hendrix Are You Experienced note for note tab book. It may have been faithful to Jimis playing but I’ll never know. Jimi’s style is so intimidating, he puts so much in his playing. Trying to learn that as a newbie was next to impossible. I thought the magazine Guitar Player For the Practicing Musician had pretty accurate tabs. They did Jimis Star Spangled Banner and gave the pitches for all his dive bombs 😜

I learned a lot of stuff from Ultimate-Guitar tabs back when it didn't have any paid services or an app. I learned very quickly to trust my ear. In fact, it used to piss me off when I was learning guitar and these tabs would be so different from what I was hearing. Eventually I just got used to it and came to the conclusion that no tab could be completely right, for whatever reason. These days if I want to learn a rhythm, I ignore the tabs and go for a chord chart, I can see the tuning and the chords I should be using. I can hear everything else in the recording. If I want to learn a lead, then the tabs are necessary.

i love Pantera & love Dime's style. So looking forward to more Pantera/Dimebag videos from you 🤘🏼🤘🏼

Wow, you have opened my eyes to a lot of the problems I have been having for years! I have thousands of dollars of tab books. Can we sue them for us not advancing as we should? Usually if something is not right, and enough people complain, compensation is due! It's not our fault they hired unqualified people to transcribe the songs. Love your videos by the way. And those old Sanctus songs rock. The best songs are when your young and hungry! Thats when you feel the power.

I remember using bad tab books in the early 90s and thinking "this doesn't make sense, I can't hear this" but we thought these are done by pros so must be correct. then it eventually dawn's on you that a piano player probably wrote it out on staff then converted it to tab after a quick listen through. Also these tabs sometimes put their out corrections in to the original music I suppose the guy doing it must have thought that a note on the record was a mistake and they would "correct it"

I remember learning Mouth For War out of Guitar World magazine which was usually pretty good. For the harmonic part, they said to "fret" the strings on the front edge of the neck pickup. It didn't sound too far off, but it was a pain in the ass to do.

the domination riff he did there i had that tab and it reads that you have to pick the f note 4 times and the open e last lol

Darl-licks are some badass riffing. Way out there with bends, vibrato, dives, and smashing it all together.

I have that same 475 Deluxe as my primary (1989). I regretably painted it years ago.

I used to argue with the "Tab Kids" all the time. I learned by ear and although I didn't always get it right, I could definitely hear when they got it wrong. Good luck trying to change someone's mind when they can point to an official tab book. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. 🤘

Back in the day I lived in a small town and couldn't get anywhere for guitar lessons, so my only hope was tab books. Ultimately it made me believe I'd never learn and sold the guitar. That was 20 years ago and I'm afraid it'd be too late to learn, so I watch videos like this to feel better about myself retrospectively.

I brought a tab book to a guitar lesson back in the 90s to ask my teacher something and he instantly dropped what we had been working on and spent the next few weeks teaching me how to learn things by ear.

I had this book! I specifically remember the F part i domination, it was just so wrong. Should have trusted my ears! Great video!

Could it be the parting? I remember old school metallica riffs with 7 parts

You all do know that the "official" tab book or any tab book is someone else's interpretation of a song. The bands guitarist isn't there showing them the song note for note. Add the artists themselves change the way they play the song over time. Any tab book is like wikipedia it's a good place to start but not the definitive source.

I felt the same way! I was so pumped when I got this book... I was giddy (literally giggling and shaking) all the way home and couldn't wait to learn it so I could unleash the fury that these songs held... I thought I was a horrible player for not being able to get the riffs down. I got some of the basics, but later found even those were wrong because of the incorrect tuning... This book truly made me F*cking Hostile...

I was so poor I couldn't even afford a Tab book LoL, I was lucky enough to bale enough hay over the summer to buy a used generic 21 fret guitar for $50 bux in a Radio Shack store in our hillbilly town, and I tortured my fingers for months just to learn Black Sabbath power chords, but it was kool man' lol.

Anyone know what kind of charvel that is? This is excatully what I'm looking to buy

Wow, what a nightmare! I had the same frustrations when I saw this year's ago. Sometimes trusting your ear is better than these transcriptions. Thanks!

Happy and sad to watch this one. I remember being stoked to get the tab and learn these tunes, but was bummed that I was a farvworse player than I thought...or so I thought. I remember these frustrations you mentioned. Totally souring! How DID you learn the right ways to play these songs?

About fifteen years ago I showed a Def Leppard solo in a tab book to my guitar teacher. He had a go at it and said "I don't think this has been done properly." Back then I was confused because I thought all tabs in tab books must be completely correct.

Even tabs online in the early 2000's discouraged me because I could never find accurate/complete tabs. Ended up not touching the guitar for a decade. Just came back to it in the last couple years and progressed a ton thanks to Songsterr and other resources

Hey I had that one! I had Ride the lightning, Black album,And Metallica Riff by Riff too, that one was good.

Have you done a video on good tab books? Like I’d like to maybe buy one some day but now I’m suspicious of all of them.

at 4:10 - this riff sounds like a riff from a different song when its not palm muted to me. i just cant put my finger on it. Maybe a RATM song?? i cant figure it out for the life of me

Jesus! I still have this book from 25 years ago. I was so pleased getting it, only to find it was chaotic. I still don't trust the Mouth for War solo. I actually looked two nights ago to see if you added this. Much appreciated!

Hey man just a question if you don't mind, how important is it to play with other people and jam with them?

Did you do a tutorial on cfh?

The internet is a big game changer. I do hate when I see KZfaq lessons playing songs differently from each other (take the White Lion "Wait" song with the rhythmic muted harmonics and vibrato shuffle that starts with the open E on the sixth string) I had to play the videos at half speed and compare it to the original song.

Cool video, man! But on Cowboys, it is just a heavy open E during the verses. And gnarly palm-muting , using an up-stroke. I see most people miss that key detail. But once you know, it sounds awesome!!! 😝🔥🤘🏻🎸

Had the same excitement you mentioned initially when buying these books in the early to mid 90s, oh the irony!

Lol I had that book, I think I had most of these bad tab books you've made vids about. it brings back memories of being frustrated that what the books were showing did not sound like the record. Hey have you ever watched any "Guitar Method in the style of Such and Such musican" by Curt Mitchell? Like waaaay back in the 90's I ordered a few of his VHS cassettes, "Guitar Method In The Style Of Ozzy's Hitmen", "Guitar Method In The Style Of Pantera", there were vids for Metallica, AC/DC... there was a vid like that for most other huge hard rock and metal guitarists. Curt Mitchell made a video showing how to play the songs of all these great guitarists... but play em WRONG lmao. The vast majority of the songs were incomplete and way off, and the title of the songs weren't even correct sometimes. Like in the Pantera vid he had wrong song titles like "Hold Your Mouth for the War", "this Life (wtf?)", "Keep This Love", "Hostile", "...and many more!"... and much of it was played wrong and sounded like 'ol Curt just listened to the songs a couple times and then just transcribed his first guess at all the parts. Curt is still teachin' guitar, he's got a website, hope he has gone back and corrected the vids since the 90's and early 2000's.

I am so glad that I am now able to learn by ear. I was so frustrated even with online tabs. Even when I was a beginner they always felt so wrong. The only thing I need to know now is the tuning or the tonic of the song and I'll figure it out mostly by ear, maybe watch somebody play it on youtube to figure out the more difficult parts. But in other words screw tabs, they suck. Always learn by ear

I had the one for KISS' debut album. It said to use a pitch shifter during Deuce lol

Love these so much I had to watch it again for the 3rd time 😅

I can tell you don't have ADD Mike LOL it takes me a little longer to learn things than the average that's why your method of teaching is so relaxing to me anyway I appreciate you and your intelligence your channel literally helps me unwind at the end of the day for the most part

Started playing guitar in 89. Didn't take lesson just used GFTPM and tab books. In hind site they really set me back as a player because they never show that proper hand positions. trying to learn songs 'tabbed" in the wrong position caused me to pick up bad habits and awkward fingerings.

I remember I had a tab book for Queen's "Classic Queen" that was like that, with every instrument written out. I thought that was kinda cool, even though being strictly a guitar player, I had absolutely no need for that, lol

I have the Hal Leonard book for Coheed and Cambria's Good Apollo I album...mistakes EVERYWHERE, which is not what I would've expected from Hal Leonard, of all publishers. It's one of my very favorite albums, so when I saw Claudio and Travis play all of those songs live and compared it to what's in the book, I was quite upset. Songs like Wake Up and Fuel For The Feeding End aren't even close to correct. I'd love to see you tackle that one!

Hahahahahahah Someone like Brent Mason can do 😂😂9:40. 3 notes pattern is already not easy to do, and book made it 10 times harder 😂, second part of the solo is funny as hell hahahahahhahah. By the way, what Yousician shows for the 3 notes pattern is, 11-12-15 alternate picking, and following 11-12-15 as hammer ons, I don't know if correct, which doesn't really matter, both ways sounds as good, and you played really well, I am also working on the pattern sometimes :P. My fingers sometimes stumble on each other playing it, and it doesn't sound very clean like yours.

4:43 Walk is actually D standard but more flat. Just use a tuner set to 430Hz instead of 440Hz, and it's perfect.

As long as the notes are correct despite the fingering it’s alright with me; I and most others can fill in the gaps and add the dynamics. It’s annoying how some tab books put the harmonies written where guitar a will play some of guitar b’s parts and you gotta do super stretches or shifts when you don’t have to. Some are good though, when I was a beginner I didn’t understand now I can dissect the harmony errors/confusion much easier.

That domination lick sounded like jazz😀😀

I still have some of these books. The very first book I purchased had something called "super tab". I didn't know at the time how to read tab but I quickly found out that the "super tab" is not even for the correct instrument, guitar, like it claimed. Lucretia by Megadeth had no intro. It started where the singing started. Seems like it may have been for vocals but that barely fit either.

I have to agree with all of this, I noticed and in many ways reacted the same way, to everything he's saying about these pantera books. I still have my first Pantera tab book,, and completely abandoned it after a honest week of trying to learn from it, decades ago.

Check out Slayer's Reign in blood Tab Book, there's a few mistakes here and there

Isn't at least Mouth for War really off in terms of tuning... i.e. it is not even half step down, it is somewhere in between a quarter tone and a half step? My friend had the record and I remember sitting there trying to figure that song out by ear, and ended up thinking there must be something wrong with my acoustic guitar because I could hear it was out of tune with the recording although I had tuned it correctly to a tuning fork. :D