If you want to learn how to play guitar from me, be sure to check out my entire lessons program at www.the-art-of-guitar.com. 👍🎸🎸

As a kid I always wondered who wrote these crappy books. I imagined that it was some old classical pianist lady that hated rock but needed the cash to buy cat food. Back in the day we didn't have awesome KZfaqrs like you to reassure us that it wasn't us that sucked but rather the man. The greatest lesson these awful transcriptions gave us was to trust our gut, believe in ourselves and never give up even when people are throwing out stupid obstacles in our path like these abominations.

Man, this bugs the heck out of me. I'm churning up 30+ year old memories of a frustrated little boy who "Just knows" the expensive guitar book he just saved up for just turned out to be junk. They should come with a warning label!

I actually had that book back in the 80s. I had recently started playing guitar. Was annoying having to jump back and forth through different parts of the book, but the worst part was learning some of those parts and comparing them to what I was hearing on the album and thinking I was the problem.

As a Def Leppard fan, this really hurts my soul. Some of those tabs actually made me cringe. I could instantly hear they were wrong, wrong, wrong! Man, I grew up in the era of tab books, and after looking at some of my tab books, I realized I was sold snake oil!

Yeah having finger placements in wrong spots and open strings is one thing like they did for Foolin' but for some of those songs, they're just flat out incorrect notes. That's pretty unforgiveable for a music notation book.

This book was another one I had back in the day. I was so psyched to get it because it had both High N Dry and Pyromania in it. I distinctly recall "learning" the Foolin' intro and being really happy but also kind of bummed at the same time - happy that I could play along with the song, but bummed because I couldn't get it to sound right, and I blamed myself for just not being that good. Also learning Bringin' on the Heartbreak from this book was a mixed bag of feelings. It's books like these that can really traumatize kids who aspire to play along with their favorite songs.

I would love to see a follow-up to these videos where you track down the authors and have them defend their choices. I've heard they were jazz guys and hated tab and hated having to write modern rock so they just didn't care they were wrong.

re: Photograph. The main riff is actually played in the 2 positions you show (though the one up by D/A is done a bit differently) on 2 guitars, as stated by Phil himself on several occasions. Its a bit of a harmonize, and it can't be done perfectly one one guitar, but that is adhering strictly to the literalness of the original album song. Playing it on frets 8/9 is the most common one-guitar way of doing it.

I totally didnt know about that pitch shifting technique where you push the strings behind where youre fretting! Another awesome video man

Unlike the tab book your instruction, place holder, and T-shirt are on point.

Trying to perform these Def Leppard songs in front of everybody by learning from this tab book would give me "Stagefright" 😉 Hehe this tab book ain't "Foolin'" anybody with how much it sucks 🤣 (alright lemme stop myself now)

I literally bought this book off of eBay just a few days before you posted this video. On one hand I'm a bit bummed, but on the other, this will help save me a lot of time fighting against things that don't sound right. I'm still glad I got it, even if parts of it are off, because it's still sheet music for the entire albums. I'll enjoy the process of filling in the gaps on my own. Coming out in 1983, I'm guessing this was one of the earliest rock guitar books with tab. Even guitar magazines were barely getting into it at that point. Considering how unusual Def Leppard's chord shapes and guitar arrangements could be at times - often, yes, avoiding the typical power chord shapes - this isn't an easy one to pick apart for a book like this.

I have this book. In fact, it was the first tab book I ever owned. man, it was bad. The Rock of Ages solo had me throwing the book against the wall because it not only sounded wrong, but played an octave up? I could play it by ear and get the notes better than the book. What's even crazier is that this is a Hal Leonard book, and he's well known for getting the tab RIGHT; He did the tab book for Hysteria, which got the bulk of it right (there's a few bits missing in Gods of War, but for the bulk, he has it right). I learned Photograph through this book, but knew that they were playing it differently (or better to say, there's more than one way to play it), when I saw BOTH ways to play the opening riff in the official video. More than that, I saw that there were two ways of playing the pre-chorus in the video as well, so I just put it down as player preference. But you're right about this book in the fact that it does leave a lot to be desired. And finally, you could tell that this book was published around 1983, due to the pictures of Phil and Pete both being in it, plus the absence of any music (chords, tabs, or otherwise) for Me and My Wine, which came out on the re-release of High'n'Dry.

To a 14yo kid back in the 80's - this would have been gold dust....even if it was tabbed badly

That, "retune your e string while doing a trill at the tenth fret," moment is my new, "worked way better than expected" moment. It's probably gonna hold that spot for a while.

Oh man. Now i know why i still suck at guitar. Everything i learned was from old tab books. That last solo sounds exactly like me. I just thought it was my style of playing. 😂🤘

I suffered this pain years ago learning songs. Thankful for the internet and guitarist like you making it much easier!

Imagine being the kid who spent hours with this book, excited to show his friends that he can rip like Steve Clark, only for everyone to say 'you suck!'

I have that book. Bought it from the record store when I was 13. Spent a month's worth of lawn-mowing money. A lot of it wasn't accurate. Some of it was. Bringing on the heartbreak solo seemed true to the record. Used it to good use back in Jr. High.

Somebody should make a band just doing guitar tab covers.

Dude, I absolutely LOVE your videos on crappy tab. We’re close to the same age and I went through the same things with the Megadeth books, the And Justice for all book and especially the pantera book. It was like magic back then to get a new tab book and rush home and start learning new songs, Great memories 😀

I will say this, having fallen victim to several suspect tab books, it helped me to start learning songs with my ears and not my eyes. Though, sometimes I'll cheat and watch (but of course, also listen to) what the original guitarist does live.

As long as the pages aren’t stuck together, it’s all good 😂. It can be difficult to find accurate Def Leppard tabs. I remember watching an interview with Phil where he said some songs have 7 or more different guitar tracks layered into their recordings, and they have to write live arrangements that work for 2 guitars.

And I actually LIKE your composite of the harmony intro for Bringin'On The Heartbreak.

These videos make me feel so much better. I had some of these tab books as a kid and I just assumed I was destined to never be able to play any songs correctly.

Awesome Video, What model is that B.C. Rich w/the Patrick Nagel graphics?

This was the first tab book I had when learning to play. It was soul destroying trying to play some of the stuff out of it - it was only when I back to learn from UG tabs that I realised how bad those tabs were.

10:20 True tell sign that in fact these were all originally written for piano and they probably hired a noob guitar player to write the tabs without a thought of accuracy.

Love you Your great down to earth. Trying to learn I just brought a guitar a week ago.

Awesome review of this book. This was my first Def Lep music book and it was definitely confusing. I cut my teeth on the book though. It got me started on learning my favorite songs. I still have it, maybe it will be worth something someday.

That's why I was so discouraged when I started off playing from tab books, because the shit was mostly wrong.

Fun fact steve and phil played the intro to photograph differently steve would play up farther on the neck mean while phil was hovering 3rd-5th fret range.

Quick question. What bc rich was that, that you used in the beginning? I love the look of that graphic

LOLOLOL... This cracked me up! I bought the tab book, too!I I only played what sound right to my ears! Just pieces. I am glad I did but I mostly played by ears and by feels. Now, I am thinking of getting Vidami wireless, been a long way from rewinding cassette tapes! btw, "Guitar For Practing Musicians," used to admit and correct their mistakes in their next issues. Great video to come across and now I'll subscribe and thumbs up!👍🏼🎸😊

I had this book back in the 80s shortly after I started playing electric guitar. It was so frustrating trying to play these songs. So hard and most things didn’t sound right. I’m glad it wasn’t just me! Thanks so much for covering this book!

Man that solo at the end sounded so good when you played the real version, I need to learn that asap

Great video. Also its really cool that you look a little like John Cusack from the 80's too.

Hilarious. I grew up using tabs and this is familar. I always like Angus Young's quote, "if your playing AC/DC and it seems difficult, then your playing it wrong". These tabs were so bad I had to cleanse my pallet by listening to the actual songs.

I've broken too many strings (particularly the high ones) while down-tuning as the string is ringing out. Now, I just hit the note and check the tuning, mute the string, turn the tuning peg down, check the tuning, mute, tune down... repeat as necessary. It's ever so slightly more cumbersome, but I've never broken another string during tuning. It's even helped my ear a little bit too, and now I can often know exactly how much to turn the peg to get it exactly in tune without hearing it ring out.

I remember a Dokken book that was pretty terrible. I think it had Tooth and Nail and Under Lock and Key.

There was little collaboration putting these tab books together back in the day. I'd find mistakes all the time. You know, pre internet days when you had to learn everything by ear, or from someone else. If you got lucky maybe you'd catch a glimpse of how to play it from a video or live at a concert. I'd see the same song played so many different ways. You had to piece it together. I've got 30+ yr old Guitar Legend tabs. Then things like Ultimate Guitar came out and that was helpful. Now it's easy to look back at all the videos and see how things were properly played and you can learn songs here on KZfaq. A luxury we didn't have in the early 80s when I began playing. Pretty much everything I learned was self taught, by ear...and admittedly I missed a lot of stuff. Technology has made life so much easier for guitarists in so many ways.

what is the model of the BC RICH guitar you start off with? graphic is killer

Of course, anyone of our age-group, when seeing something dodgy like that instruction about speeding the tape up, will usually be reminded of the "pull the string off the neck to fret-out on the pickup" in the Master Of Puppets solo.... lol

Didn’t even think about bending the string while tremoloing. Steve Clark is the man!

As a 13 year old brand new guitar player back in 1989, this and the Hysteria tab book were my first books. I do have to say, the interview of Steve and Phil at the front of the book taught me far more than this book's tabs....

I had that same book back in the day when it was new. I felt the shame and despair of feeling my fingers would never get into those positions without some sort of hand torture device pulling my fingers apart. Watching this is therapy for the young part of my soul.

Great video. Tab books were/are very hit and miss - a bit like KZfaq today :) Some just turn the songs into "campfire" versions, and others (like what you have) were just best guesses from a guitar player that was probably under contract to crank out one of these books each week, and made their best guess.

That fifth note on the Die Hard The Hunter intro sounds flat. So I checked it against a TAB app I have. It says to pick the open B string instead of doing it on the second fret.

The book was probably made back in the days of the cassette when deciphering a song takes a lot of rewinding/playing. Rather than buying tabs at the time, I used my saved up money for blank tapes so I can record songs from original tapes and use it as my scratch tape for rewinding/playing section by section. Back then, it didn't matter if it's accurate or not. As long as the song sounded close, it was good enough for us. We still had fun playing it. What I got from the cassette era was listening and figuring out the notes and finding how to get it to a comfortable fingering on the fret board. Even when I was eventually able to buy a tab book, I stuck to fingering that was comfortable for me so some sections in the book I didn't follow.

0:43 EPIC!

How do you like that BC Rich STIII/Gunslinger? One of my favorite guitars is an 87 STIII USA custom shop with a mahogany body and ebony fretboard. Killer guitar.

I love this series it’s awesome and there’s always an impossible stretch in every tab book

That Rock of Ages solo is like those knock off movies called something like Transmorphers or Galaxy Conflict they put in the checkout line at the grocery store so grandma can mistake it for Transformers or Star Wars and buy it for you for Christmas.

where does he get those stickers on the bridge i saw the same sticker on his gibson sg and i just loved it

Where did you get that Vol. 4 Shirt? Looks nice

This was the very first tab book I owned back when learning guitar. And yeah… I knew parts of it had to be wrong. It did teach me some things that I still use to this day though. I learned how to play rock guitar with stuff from this book. So I kept the stuff that worked…whether it was what was in the song or not…. And then never used the bad stuff. Horrible book. But we just didn’t have a lot back then. It was all by ear or what your buddies older brother showed you. So things like this book and then the Doug Marks lessons were crazy cool to find. On that note… how about a video on Doug Marks lessons (the old cassette ones).

where did you get that Duran Duran Rio BC Rich? That guitar is amazing!

What is the name of that BC rich!! Love the artwork on it

Omigosh, I had that book too! Back in the olden days, when I was 12. I still have it somewhere… Switch 625 was my favourite. This takes me back. Looking back is all I have to look forward to at my age.

whats the name of the song with the last solo you played?

I remember anybody's early '90s circus magazine would have a little bit of guitar tab in the back of the magazine. When Steven Clark died they show the guitar tab to photograph and I'm pretty sure they did the intro the same way you showed here as be incorrect aversion

I mostly learned by ear. If I learned by tabs, these are the books I would have gotten. So I'm *really* glad I got to skip that whole process. The only 2 tabs I learned from was Over The Mountain transcribed by Wolf Marshall, and Black Star transcribed by Steve Vai. Both of those were pretty good, though.

so where would we get good tabs from ? Thanks .

Hey Mike, wich guitar are you using here? B.C Rich...

Love the guitar. I've been on a Duran Duran kick for the past month or so. I think it was John Taylor's bass riffs.

Oh man this gave me a good laugh, appreciate it. Anyone who used to buy these books has gotten at least one that was laughably bad. I remember I bought an Iron Maiden book I was so pumped because on the back it had the song Still Life included which was rare and when I got it nothing sounded right like the tab for that and every song in the book was hurrendous. I went online to write a review and warn people and I noticed it wasn't just me about 10 other people had already 1 starred it complaining. Its the Maiden guitar book with Eddie holding a flag.

What model BC Rich guitar is that?

I want that bc rich guitar, what’s the model name please?

When playing cover songs do you play exactly how the original artist plays it, or do you change things up a bit? Sometimes it works, sometimes... not so much but, I never want to be an exact copy when playing covers.

It's interesting seeing the "Rock of Ages" solo transcribed without pinch/natural harmonics, ending up played in the wrong octave. That bit about using the tuning peg is a clever interpretation, but imagine trying that live if your monitors aren't great, and just hoping you tuned it back up correctly.

Having been a life-long fan of Def Leppard, and also having learned a lot of Def Leppard songs, I honestly don't want to buy this book, I'm just gonna rely on Ultimate Guitar Tabs and my own ear.

What's the guitar at :10? Looks like a Patrick Nagel design. Killer guitar.

It must be so hard getting your muscle memory to chill out while you're intentionally learning the wrong way to play a song you've likely known for decades at this point. Appreciate the dedication to showing just how wrong some of these books were back in the day. The only full big fat tab book I ever bought was Black Sabbath's We Sold Our Sould For Rock n Roll. I dont have any repressed nightmare memories (that have been rediscovered, anyway) from that book, but I also havent looked at it since I was prob 16 or 17. That said it was published by HL, and they seem to have a decent reputation for their tab books. I def. remember learning the 'behind the nut' bend on the low E for the into to Ironman, and picking up a few of the seemingly random licks from Warpigs when its all quiet and the highhats keep time during the verses. My point is, at least I didnt take a hammer to my fretting hand out of sheer hatred for my inability to play the tab in front of me, or at the dissonant sounds it may have produced with my teenaged digits doing the work.

Which model is that pink Jackson?

I have a tab of Dokken's Kiss of Death from back in the day where two full bars near the end of the solo are not even transcribed ! Imagine listening to that sick tune on loop and wanting to learn how to play it. You spend your hard earned money on the transcription, come home, grab your guitar...and find out it's not even complete (the rest was transcribed wrong too of course). I was livid...

May I know where’d you get your guitar

If there's a book I'd love to hear gone through, it would be the book for Jars of Clay's first record. The book didn't explain the EABEBE tuning, but in the long term that was probably good for me as a budding guitar player. These videos are great man. Thanks for sharing them.

i have this old black sabbath book (idk if youve covered it) with a black and red cover which has songs from multiple different albums, my dad gave it to me, most of the song tabs are wrong and they even call some of the names of the songs wrong lol

Can u please do a review on that guitar and your other pink Jackson guitar

Is that a custom b.c rich guitar , I frigging love the early 90s nail boutique lady aesthitic!

Omg this is hilarious! I have the same book, now, admittedly, I suck at playing guitar, but now I know that it’s not only me sucking, it’s the tab. Self confidence, half restored. Thank you!

Loving the Sabbath Vol 4 t-shirt. Classic. You should do a Black Sabbath riff special. 🤘

Nice Buffy tag on the Jackson there!

That bend-behind-the-trill trick is pretty nifty. Thanks bad tab book for inspiring this video so I could learn it.

Haha! - I still have that book - Bought it back when it was fairly new out. I was in a band with a few mates at the time, and yes.... A lot of it was wa-a-a-a-a-ay off being 'right'. Had to figure my own ways to do several bits of it, but as a basis to start from it was kinda OK....ish.... in it's day. Good enough for us to learn 'Too Late for Love', 'Die Hard the Hunter', 'Lady Strange'... and for me to eventually learn to play Switch 625 a few years later.

For Photograph, although Steve played the riff live at the 7th fret, I believe in the studio it was recorded at the 2nd fret position. The timbre sounds more trebly and not as warm and fat on the album version.

I remember back in early dial up days .there was a website Olga I think. I spent so much time printing out bullshit that didn't make any sense lol. I took me several years to figure out lots was just wrong and had nothing to do with my playing.

Awesome guitar... gunslinger? What's it a signature or something?

I was wondering if you could do a page by page review of “ Guitar Tab White Pages Vol. 1” ?

Been thinking of learning some Def Lep tunes do they use standard tuning or should I drop one of my guitars down 1/2

I found that some people transcribe music better than others. Wolf Hoffman used to do transcriptions for Guitar Magazine....not sure if he still does anymore or if that mag is still being printed, but I always felt that Wolf provided the best transcriptions in tab and always seemed very reliable. Even with Wolf I woukd find that it didn't always sound right but it was close enough to figure out from where he began. Sometimes it's just tuning....so many bands use different tunings of course so you have to tinker and discover the right tuning before you even start. Anyway....I feel and understand your pain. I was lucky enough to have a brilliant guitarist that had a brilliant ear...he would play it on guitar and then tune me in using a keyboard. Always helps ti surround yourself with great talent.

Ah I actually remember this book and playing with it back in the day, even then I knew it was wrong. Now I have students who sometimes bring me internet tabs so I can help them with it and they are quite often pretty wrong so I correct them.

Can you please do a greatest techniques of Andrew stockdale or Kevin Parker

Great topic! Mind blowing how off the official tab books are. It has me wondering if i could have played so many songs better bc the tabs were completely wrong.

Oh wow... I have this book. I bought it back when Pyromania was still fairly new. I remember trying to play some of the tabs and thought it was my lack of skills that made them sound so off. I probably haven't opened it in years... But at least now I know my lack of skills wasn't the only problem.

I never read the comments. With that said I thank you for this channel and your hard work. And YES I know what you do is not easy. I’m 49 now and have played since I was 16 years old. I have an OG Jackson I bought around 27 years ago brand new. I had to swap the fake Floyd Rose tremolo with a real one. After that I stopped breaking string saddles. A licensed Floyd Rose is made of pot metal. I was playing so much I changed my Earnie Ball supper slinky #9’s every 2 weeks. At the time 250.00$ was a lot of money. But I’ve never had a problem with the guitar to date. I would like you to make a video about knock off tremolos and also what strings are best for a fixed bridge guitar to drop C. I’m Todd from Texas and I approve this request. Yes you can use my name and location.

I can't wait to see what tab books come next. But, with Sheet Happens and everything, I feel like we're rapidly approaching the end of bad tabs (hopefully). Imagine; a world where you open a tab you just found, there's only ONE VERSION, and it's CORRECT! Sounds impossible, hopefully it isn't tho.

DUDE! CHECK OUT THE TAB BOOK FOR “EXTREME II: PORNOGRAFFITTI” - The “Get the Funk Out” solo is absurdly hilarious! 😂

Is the rhoads tribute accurate? I hope so and to me seems right but I'm not a pro