The TAB Book Nightmare That Is NIRVANA's Nevermind! (1st edition)

-Sort of low-hanging fruit but I felt the urge to cover it, Nirvana's Nevermind (1st edition). Enjoy!
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[@sillyness3456]

Prog Cobain doesn’t exist, he can’t hurt you. Prog Cobain: 4-6-x-2

[@redpractition]

prog cobain: forty six & 2 edit: comment copyrighted by 1234pistol industries, infringers will be prosecuted.

[@porcelaein]

prog cobain: forty six & 2

[@redpractition]

@@porcelaein my legal team will be in touch

[@breakfaith3031]

prog cobain: forty six & 2

[@devintariel3769]

Cobain, Howe, Wakeman, and Buford

[@Lokidooki]

"Guys, cobain is a crazy guitarist, I got the tab book and he's doing a lot of crazy stuff." - 11 year old me, unable to comprehend the spite in the tab writers heart for me.

[@321doucheface]

lol... are you me??

[@TheSweep12]

Just look lives million times and you ll figure out better than with those shitty books

[@Ervinabrahamian]

That's how I was too! My friend was a huge Primus fan and I was and still am a huge Nirvana fan. I would argue with him all day everyday that Kurt was a better guitarist than Les Claypool was a bass player 🤦‍♂️

[@cchavezjr7]

@@Ervinabrahamian Ah to be young and stupid lol

[@user-we3ef9xx5u]

@@Ervinabrahamian Claypool > Cobain

[@mariokarter13]

This tab book is actually genius. They get you to play the songs just wrong enough that it won't trip the KZbin copyright bot.

[@klisher]

🤣

[@geraldhinson]

It's like Batman - it's the tab book that you need not the one that you deserve.

[@citizen320]

Charming comment. Unfortunately this book existed for like 10 years before KZbin even became an idea on a napkin

[@DetectiveDeckard]

@@citizen320yeah, that’s precisely why the tab book is genius

[@rlawrence9838]

​@@DetectiveDeckardWouldn't that make it more....well...miraculous.

[@jackiejormp-jomp407]

"This is really nitpicky, but the songs are arranged alphabetically" That's not nitpicky at all... that's a stupid decision. Why would anyone think that's a good idea?!

[@guysplace5385]

Probably a copyright move. Only reasonable explanation.

[@gergoretvari6373]

@@guysplace5385 then one question remains: why it it called "official tab book"?

[@gumbilicious1]

It was not too uncommon back then, especially with anthology books. I have a couple old tab books that list songs alphabetically, and honestly I don't see how it'd be too bad of an idea as long as you know the names of the songs. It is probably not how i'd have done it, but this does not seem like a ludicrously unreasonable way to list songs

[@DeathBringer769]

@@gumbilicious1 Unless you're covering multiple albums, you should be listing the songs in the order they are on the album (and this Nevermind book, which is the specific example here being discussed, only covered one album.) If it's an anthology of multiple albums, sure, listing them alphabetically isn't too bad, but for a one album book it's just makes it harder than it needs to be. Many people just think "track 4 was cool" and often don't have all the names memorized for an album. I'm often pretty bad with names myself.

[@linuswang6572]

@@guysplace5385 Why would the order matter in terms of copyright? (Plus, it's an official book.)

[@devintariel3769]

Imagine all the ruined talent shows this book caused :O

[@lonelycrona2388]

If you can't figure out how to hear those mistakes and correct them the you probably don't deserve to win a talent show

[@TK-km7uz]

@@sacredgeometry Yeah i'm sure a beginner who doesn't even know the names of chords yet knows how to do that

[@emanu1674]

@@lonelycrona2388 Talent is a myth kid

[@anthonyfaiell3263]

Hopefully it encouraged them to pursue other things. Because if they couldn't hear how blatantly wrong most of these were, then I don't musician is the right fit for them.

[@jackbootshamangaming4541]

@@anthonyfaiell3263 but if that's what you were taught in the tab books you got you might think it's right that you might think it's something with your setup and stuff I know I've seen it happen plenty of times before

[@artpiratecollage]

Try the wall tab book, "Hey You" has you playing notes behind a capo.

[@oldGnRrocks1]

theres a new "The wall" book. it has that song in nashville tuning and is pretty accurate

[@garysellars8914]

LOL!

[@booxwee3804]

Hol up, what

[@stephandarnutzer5622]

@@booxwee3804 If you're not familiar, Nashville tuning is basically replacing the low E, A, and D strings with their octave equivalents that you'd find on a 12-string guitar.

[@thetruthexperiment]

Haha! Yup

[@nickthelick]

I remember Soundgardens' Superunknown tab book... There was a finger stretch which was almost half the length of the fret board! All my mates were like, WTF? Kim must be a giant!?

[@watamatafoyu]

No, he just had long spindly fingers

[@synthoelectro]

There is an old interview with him where he spoke about how his finger can do stuff like that. I think it was broken or something.

[@hithere748]

I bought a Metallica book(reload) that had some songs that was impossible for a person to stretch their fingers. 😟

[@leviathan_is_me]

The "In Bloom" solo from that book is hell, pure and simple...hell. I NEVER was able to play it. Almost 30 years later I still feel the anger and hopelessness.

[@iamspartacus6713]

maybe you should write lyrics about your angst and hopelessness

[@thevirtuoso8362]

​​@@iamspartacus6713bout his teenage angst? I'm sure they paid off well

[@compelledmops]

​@@thevirtuoso8362but I guess now he's bored and old

[@pina4583]

​@@compelledmopsperhaps he became a self-appointed judges judge

[@nyoemm]

@@pina4583 fairly certain that's more than what they sold

[@AnWe79]

It's almost like they were trolling guitarists for not being able to read sheet music. I also remember the late 90's (or maybe early 00's) when both the tab books were wrong and the tabs you found online were wrong. Fun times!

[@BirdmanDeuce26]

Picked up guitar in the early '00s...there was nothing like learning a tab only to realise that the only way it made sense was if the tabber's own guitar was out of tune

[@Roberto-nn6kb]

Today online tabs are still wrong xd

[@r.edward5701]

Dude!!! I was playing rusty cage wrong for years!! Just figured it out about 5 years ago and I wanted to find the guy who out the tab into the book and drive a screwdriver through his eye

[@mathuwhycough6591]

I tell my students to not trust online tabs. This kind of crap from back in the day has me assuming you can't trust tab from strangers

[@AvisPraeda777]

Trolling guitarists for not listening to the songs close enough.

[@RyanYewell]

This literally was THE only tab book I ever bought, along with a Fender Stratocaster knockoff. I remember spending months trying to figure it out, and one day realizing I should just be playing a lot of bar chords and going with the feel. I remember trying to play that exact part of 3 notes of In Bloom and thinking it sounded nothing like the song. Funny to watch this video so many decades later.

[@izzyspanx5601]

We should start a class action suit. My guitar career was sabotaged early on because Hal Leonard was gas lighting me with tab books.

[@willo7734]

I finally figured out that most of the tab books were garbage when I started looking up tabs online in the late 90’s. Random internet people created way better transcriptIons than those “professional” tab book publishers.

[@sajasafosajasafo8207]

Same here Ryan, I was teen with not much money. I was ripped off. In fact I still have that tab book somewhere. This was a great video. Thanks for showing us TAoG! Damn I feel old

[@magusreaver]

My peavey predator hides in the closet in shame.

[@daveyboyd784]

I think they decided to throw in what the bass was doing at that moment for some odd reason. I did a lot of playing by ear and I can recall doing that myself sometimes while I was coming up with "my version" of whatever it was I trying to learn. Lol

[@tinymountain]

I was in 8th grade when Heart Shaped Box came out. Guitar Player magazine had an issue with the tab. Nobody in my class understood that the song was in dropped D (myself included), but my ears knew it sounded utterly wrong. It was the most popular song in my guitar class, so I just suffered through a year of hearing it played incorrectly.

[@lukesteiner8934]

drop C#*

[@elvira8280]

I had a transcription of Heart Shaped Box that was in Eb.

[@Lalop11]

Back in the 90’s it was so frustrating the amount of books with errors. Once I discovered guitar tab websites I stopped buying guitar books. Websites also came with mistakes but at least I didn’t had to pay for them 😁

[@VanBradford]

Plot twist: the book was written by Kurt to mess with people who try to emulate Nirvana.

[@RemnantCult]

Would be the kurt thing to do.

[@Bloodray19]

No offense but I really don't think he would've been able to write sheet music or tabs. He didn't even know the names of the chords

[@daishoryujin95]

Sounds plausible.

[@slapbass8723]

@@Bloodray19 man let's just laugh at the joke

[@somerandomfurry4621]

I could see him doing that

[@monkeyrebirth]

"Nevermind" was the only TAB book I bought that I thought "I can already play this better than what's written here"!

[@jgreen2015]

Same regarding the drums! For some reason in the breakdown of Drain You as like triplets on the kick!? 🤨

[@SeanFerree]

Kurt had a way of simplifying things. This book has a way of complicating things

[@pachecyasack01]

Books like these always made me think I was tone deaf and I’d just play what felt right after a while. Nothing worse than staring at a tab book playing the same thing over and over thinking it’s you and not the book. I learned to play by ear and these books made it obvious why that’s important

[@CMFL77]

No shade intended Kurts way...but how on earth does a professional tab writer screw up a guy that writes almost exclusively in power chords and simple riffs so spectacularly?! Im sure if Kurt had seen the prog chord interpretation he would have had a good laugh! Really enjoy this series - keep them coming!

[@everythingkumo1041]

Probably would blow his mind *padum tss*

[@07foxmulder]

“nO sHaDe”

[@anthonybyrne1084]

I think Kurt Cobain would agree

[@kilgoretrout321]

They probably outsourced it and rushed it to capitalize on Nirvana's popularity

[@Rex-golf_player810]

@UC-hHqTs4tYuQWs0i4tcsYLw outsourced it from who though Some fuckin idiot who couldnt tab powerchords lol

[@Luigi55555]

This tab book feels like it was written by people who were just expecting a hair metal band and thought that the songs were more complicated then they were

[@stephenc.4319]

I think they hired like a composer or pianist or something. Someone who has no idea to actually play a guitar or the shapes to use.

[@DashinGhost]

@@stephenc.4319 iirc I think Tentacrul made a video about a Beatles song book where the guitar chords or something were written by pianists and it messed up guitarists.

[@trashbirdie]

Hair metal = complicated? Even Grunge is harmonically more inventive

[@JustAdude291]

@@trashbirdie tell that to dokken

[@simco4692]

I had a red hot chili peppers tab book and the one song that stuck out to me was breaking the girl. Granted, it was in Eb tuning so no crazy chord shapes until you got to the chorus where it had you doing chord voicings of Abm, Eb7#9, Emaj7, Gb and Eb7 using solely the 2nd to 5th strings. I always remember that it had a disclaimer at the beginning of it that you shouldn't be discouraged because John Frusciante played it this way and played guitar for 10 hours a day. I then saw him on the funky monks documentary playing something completely different and got really annoyed. That being said, those chords in the tab book helped me develop my chord changing skills so every cloud...

[@yoosh9034]

2:46 There’s a three note sequence very similar to this in “In Bloom”, but the last note is a semitone above the preceding note. It would be correct if the note was an open A string rather than open D, looks like a little transcription error.

[@liame2273]

Looks more like the person writing the tab was hearing the bass line and thought it was guitar 🤣

[@mrturtle9129]

​@@liame2273No, i think it's really a guitar, just third note is wrong, first two sounded exactly like original

[@topher4677]

5:36 Ah yes, flagner! My favorite guitar effect!

[@TheArtofGuitar]

Haha!

[@TheArtofGuitar]

Check out the BOSS Flagner pedal I just posted on my FB and IG (the art of guitar)

[@misterthegeoff9767]

In my mind that's pronounced to rhyme with Wagner

[@gareth7762]

Is it not flanger? I suspect a potential woosh moment

[@95manneya]

Finally I realize it wasn’t me that sucked, but rather the books that sucked!!

[@chrislawuk]

It’s possible it was both… just kidding mate :) I sympathise

[@guitaraholic83]

Been saying that since middle school!

[@francescolavilla271]

Thank god for you tube…

[@kilgoretrout321]

Something that every dictator or pastor's wife says at one point

[@mr.mystery4577]

Whatever helps you sleep at night

[@billrutherfordmusic]

Having been led astray by a few badly edited tabs as a kid, this is so cleansing for my soul! ❤️

[@charlielapp2427]

Andy Aledort was one of the few guys you could trust to properly transcribe anything. Also a really great player as well.

[@richardcelaya7361]

kenn chipken was also a really good transcriber

[@disfibulator]

As a teenager, I had this, Pearl Jam "Ten," and Smashing Pumpkins "Siamese Dream." It took me a while to realize that the books were full of errors and that I was not struggling because I was bad. It ended up being a good ear-training exercise, but the makers of these books don't deserve what we paid for them. Btw, I still have the books.

[@Seaby41]

Feel ya there. That might be the larger problem. Bunch of kids thinking they were just terrible at guitar and putting the guitar down.

[@braaainz3267]

Burn them at the stake!!

[@tvviewer4500]

It's almost like they did this on purpose.

[@ashscott6068]

I think they were trying to avoid falling foul of copyright. I think most people sussed it as soon as they saw the same song tabbed out in a magazine and played it that way and realised it sounded way more accurate

[@watamatafoyu]

It's because they wanted to laugh at cover bands playing it wrong.

[@raleighdentcompany]

This book destroyed my hopes to ever play anything from Nevermind in 1996.

[@boozm]

you are not alone, I was just as mystified as you in 1996

[@stevenlindsey2056]

I hated Nirvana. I still do but I learned it by ear because it was popular.

[@jarrett7335]

@@stevenlindsey2056 you're cool

[@steveschwartzman7131]

As a beginner in my 30s, these reviews have been an honest confidence builder to me. I've come upon a few of these exact tabs, and it's easy to feel discouraged because you can't make difficult shapes work - but this taught me that the more I play, and listen, I can eventually feel the flow of the music and play songs I originally thought were impossible for me.

[@angrygoldfish]

All of these problems were EXACTLY what I experienced growing up using these horrible tab books. And for years, tab web sites fought the tab book publishers for the right to release their own tabs that were usually a lot better.

[@guitarmaniac83]

Trying to learn Lithium from this book was a nightmare.

[@garysellars8914]

Probably mentally scarred for life bro. Seriously these tab books are total crap. I would just try to learn it by ear nowadays. Buy 'Transcribe' and you can slow bits down loop portions over and over. Better for you as musician as well training you ear.

[@boozm]

@@garysellars8914 as soon as I started using transcribe and figuring things out by myself, was when I finally started improving at guitar... 9 years after starting...

[@markusliu283]

Is Endless Nameless also there? It can't be wrong I guess . LOL

[@jeremyhead7546]

It was a lot easier just learning it by watching his hands on Live Tonight Sold Out when I was like 10

[@Ervinabrahamian]

@@jeremyhead7546 I still have that VHS but no VCR 😢

[@BubblingSyphilisSund]

I can't believe this book was ever allowed to hit the shelves. Jesus Christ.

[@devintariel3769]

Hey if things like the 1980s dodge challenger, and the film Foodfight see the light of day...

[@nedim_guitar]

Yeah, holy crap! 😂

[@dralithi]

Just like any project management sort of thing, if you have short deadlines and/or bad quality assurance, that's what you get. They were probably in a rush to get every penny they could out of those notations while it was still relevant.

[@StreetPreacherr]

Yeah, I really doubt that a young Cobain was in his basement learning alternate chord voicings, when a regular power chord sounded just as good through a cheap amp with enough distortion ;) Whenever I see tab that looks too complicated I immediately assume it's likely WRONG... Guitar players are LAZY, and usually will find the EASIEST way to play a section. If you see tab with really awkward chord shapes, or long stretches for notes, first check if there's a 'better' way to play the same chord, or if you can find the same note closer to where you're already fretting, rather than needing a full 2 octave scale length. That's the cool thing about the Guitar, it's one of the few instruments where you can play the SAME NOTE in different positions!

[@gamerzstudios9450]

@Adele K It’s not the same song though, Come as you are has greater variations of melody.

[@timmachin3830]

My friend had this horror in about 1993. I spent ages trying to play Come as you are like that. 20 years later I taught my 6 year old daughter to play it the proper way in about 20 minutes. That book was just plain cruel to the beginner.

[@notsure4746]

I think I know why the book has the unnecessary progginess: Programs like Guitar Pro can import midi files and transpose them into tab. In my experience it would frequently make odd note choices randomly like that. Whoever put that book together probably knew more about midi than guitar. Which also explains the lack of understanding of effects.

[@briansullivan3424]

In some cases, that makes sense... Like, in "Come As You Are", playing the A and C# up on the 7th fret of D string and 6th fret of G string when it could've easily been played on the 2nd frets of the G and B strings in the open chord.. that, to me, seems like what you're talking about- it's an unnecessary position jump that Kurt didn't play that was more of a typo than anything Plus, the actual music notation would look identical whether you played the accurate 2nd fret or the needless 7th and 6th fret version. However, some of these other decisions, like the strange lick in the intro riff of In Bloom... nobody in the band plays that (from what I remember, it's just a held powerchord with a drum fill underneath), and yet someone in publishing thought to include it. That's not a midi issue... that's like a weird transcriptionist's version of fan fiction... lol

[@radtod]

That's exactly what they did, however on Nevermind Kurt added some faint alternative layers to give the songs a fuller sound, advised by the producer, the program probably picked those up.

[@drd8974]

whoa yeah! I never thought of this as some crappy early 90's computer software conversion. 28 years later, now I understand why I could never play On a Plain. Also @The-Art-Of-Guitar that buzzy Jazzmaster low E... oof put a Warmoth bridge on that thang!

[@dangerkeith3000]

I had this book and trying to play "On a Plain" made me want to give up. I knew something was so wrong with it...but this was the "official" book. What was a 14 year old to think?

[@steelheron1309]

I'm starting to think that there isn't a tab book that isn't trash.

[@Idiomatick]

Like 90% of tabs are shit unless the person that made the song makes the tabs.

[@n1nj4l1nk]

My Train of Thought one seems pretty bang on, I'm not a great guitarist though so I might be wrong.

[@AbsoluteAbsurd]

TTNG’ tab books are accurate. Because its by the band themselves XD

[@blitheringape5321]

protest the hero and ne obliviscaris and Orbs do good ones cause uh they wrote the songs

[@brianlorah1378]

The Mammoth Metal Guitar Anthology seems remarkably accurate for most songs. I think the quality had increases dramatically. Generally any tab book published in the last 10 years is far superior to anything put out in the '80s or '90s.

[@s.e.n3264]

When I first started playing, I used tabs... For about an hour then quit tabs. After my fingers got good enough, I started learning songs by ear. And watching bands playing live so my eyes would see what my ears were hearing.

[@swapode]

This reminds me of when I joined a band as a drummer for the first time. We were mostly doing Metallica covers and generally speaking, Metallica isn't really hard to figure out, so I was doing fine. But then someone lent me a notation book for (IIRC) Ride the Lightning and I was flabbergasted by all the odd intricacy I had apparently missed by ear, like weird little 16th shifts and such. Since I was a beginner it took me forever to realize that nothing in that book had anything to do with what Lars Ulrich played. I'd really love to have another look, but I think it might've been the "prog" version of Metallica. Or maybe, since making fun of Lars is always popular, someone transcribed a botched practice session as accurately as possible.

[@blakeneely21]

YES! This tab book was the source of a few arguments in my teen years! I remember holding nothing short of a tribunal with video evidence sourced from my bootleg concert VHS tapes to prove my point the book was wrong.

[@watamatafoyu]

Videos now are the only way to get it right, because they play it slowly and repetitively so you can verify with the track whether it's correct or not.

[@splashsplish8201]

2am and guitar videos... but must watch hehehe...

[@USSCYT]

Absolute same!

[@jonsnothere84]

I recall the time this book came out, we all questioned it and played it differently. Our thoughts were that it was not an authorized version so to avoid copyright issues they just did intentional errors in the tab.

[@hormigaleer8856]

l thought the same buddy

[@toshineon]

For some reason, this reminds me of the songs in Rocksmith that would always be tabbed really strangely just to avoid tunings below C. But then they kinda changed their minds, I guess, because when they released Staind songs in the game, they had their true tuning, which was something absurdly low, like drop A-flat.

[@matteodelatorre2063]

I seem to remember the Bleach books made quite simple songs impossible to play and also did not recognise Drop D or possible even C (Blew). What hurt the most is the extortionate price of these books. Mid 90s they were about 20 pounds or probably about 25 US dollars. It was depressing when you found out how atrocious they were. Hendrix books were no better and used to include impossible chord sequences.

[@varsityathlete9927]

i had those hendrix ones man they were so bad.

[@bwgti]

Me too on those Hendrix books. I forgot about those.

[@GregDixson]

Oh god, I've got the Bleach one too 🧐 yea these books weren't cheap, and seems like they had us learning the hard(impossible) way 😞

[@rome8180]

I think that little lick in the opening section of In Bloom is someone mishearing what the bass is doing. If you listen to the isolated bass, he does a somewhat similar chromatic riff.

[@danejurus69]

No they just tabbed it wrong. There is a quick part there at the end of that riff.

[@DavidRFIT]

If you check out Justin Sandercoe's lesson on In Bloom he does that very lick and sounds awesome.

[@garysellars8914]

A lot of that does happen when people transcribe. I transcribe a lot of blues harp stuff and sometimes when the guitar is also playing a riff the two parts can intermingle at points and it becomes quite difficult to distinguish exactly what the guitar is contributing to what you're hearing. As a result you think the harp is playing more than it actually is at some points. I use 'Transcribe' and you can isolate things a bit better with that and loop things which makes it easier.

[@bamuz]

I’ll never forget the joy of online tabs

[@dvyt433]

Crazy. That was the first tab book i bought back in the day where i realised the transcribers could be really wrong. I'd seen plenty of mistakes before but that's the book that made think they were not all that good! Glad you thought so but i think later versions did correct it and I'm not sure anyone is buying the books now. To be fair it inspired me to figure out stuff on my own which i have done ever since.

[@TheArtofGuitar]

I'm so mad at myself. I must have just glazed over the "Flagner" mistake (and misspelling) which some of you pointed out. If I could do it again I would have brought it up and then played Come As You Are with extreme Flanger....I mean Flagner effect on it. Would have been hilarious but I blew it. Oh well, still a good laugh after the fact. :)

[@jamesford2192]

Are you the son of that guy that plays different guitar pedals on KZbin? You look identical to him… ya my bad don’t know his name haha

[@B-Shango13]

Not sure if I had the same edition but I definitely remember some of those mistakes. I think the "Polly" chorus had a bad chord in it too The correct chord was Bb I think but the book had some wrong chord that never sounded right. Cool video brought me back to being a kid jus starting to learn how to play. Thanks

[@baberuth894]

can u do a video on the string nut you have? installing esp

[@blitheringape5321]

what about reading that as a 10th fret on the A string when your close up shows an 18? or is that just a weird print thing? I guess it's all weird print stuff

[@travisking8577]

Oh well, whatever, nevermind.

[@TheArtofGuitar]

**Updated** Anyone commenting on the opening In Bloom riff connection notes, the real version is open E string, then G#5 to A5 power chords before starting over. It's not the single-note F, G#, D, single-note run that's in the TAB book. Live Kurt appears to do an open E string and then 4th (G#) to 5th (A) frets as single notes before returning to the top. Much different sound.

[@SousSherpa]

I noticed problems with this book, and the Incesticide book. The band doesn't transcribe them, they pay someone to do it. Andy Aledort and Wolf Marshall are great transcribers. They are usually right on.

[@mitzi856]

that single not lick in the intro is the bassline in the background they just didn't notice it was the bass a lot of people do add that for the effect cause it sounds weird without it though it is played differently

[@TheArtofGuitar]

@@mitzi856 If you listen to the isolated guitar track you’ll hear them as power chords but the key note is the A at the end instead of the D which is what the book says.

[@mitzi856]

@@TheArtofGuitar cool didn't know that was under the impression you just thought it was a weird thing they made up

[@stephenjeffrey1982]

@@SousSherpa Wolf Marshall was responsible for the Master of Puppets tab book and everything that had wrong with it. Although he was better than most. His Ride the Lightning was one of the better books

[@balorprice]

You've got all those sounds so spectacularly spot-on. Several times I had to rewind to see if you were playing them yourself or you found the real guitar stems for playback

[@FreeBrunoPowroznik]

The mistakes are put in deliberately to catch out plagarists. Cartographers do this with maps, put a bend in a completely straight road so they can prove in court that their work was the copied source.

[@superduty4556]

That's a pretty good theory

[@technolung]

They made a useless product to catch copyright infringers? 😂

[@patrickftw8464]

lol I'd hope that's not the case. let's teach a bunch of people the incorrect way to play so we can catch those big bad plagiarists! everyone may find our tabs to suck, but at least no one will copy us

[@JohnMcNicholas]

Trap streets!

[@razzledazzle1462]

That's a great theory

[@RodneyMcG]

The amount of peple that still defend these things is amazing. The push back on the anti tab videos i've done is crazy. You would be shocked how many people hired to do these books are pianists, and don't play guitar at all. Great job calling these out.

[@ashscott6068]

They defend them, cus if you play it properly, you're just using two fingers. They're proud of themselves for playing it in a way that looks more technical, even though it sounds like ass. I say: If you're ashamed of your power chords, don't barre the fifth and octave; fret them with your ring finger and pinky. It will be a lot harder for people to notice what you're doing. :D (it also sounds better, cus you get more even pressure and better intonation)

[@elvira8280]

Who does (or rather 'did' pre internet) get hired to do guitar transcriptions? Is it just session musicians and people like that?

[@hunam3876]

That's what I thought. They hired a classic education fella that doesn't even play the instrument these are written for and called it a day.

[@spiritoftime8464]

The in bloom part is more like messing around with the chords and being sloppy. I know because when you write or play songs without drums you try (at least I try) to recreate the patterns messing with the chords, so it can sound like you're adding notes when you're not

[@standinsilence]

I love that someone is making these videos about tabbooks and their errors. Will definitely watch more on this channel.

[@salem2450]

I got a really massive kick out of this, one of the funniest guitar related videos I've ever seen. Keep up the good work

[@croay]

its like they put out someone that have never played guitar in their entire life, told this person how the guitar is tuned and commissioned the transcriptions

I am guessing that this is the outcome when someone with neither relative nor absolute pitch scores the songs on piano and then sends the music notation to someone else who has a fundamental understanding of tablature but does not play the guitar.

[@t3hgir]

"someone else who has a fundamental understanding of tablature but does not play the guitar." W T F

[@TLTeo]

Which to me begs the question - why does someone understand tablatures without playing guitar? Why???

[@dansch19]

Add to that a generous amount of typos that can be found in all these books. Certainly in the printed writing so no doubt all in the tabs as well. Its just a mess.

[@badsocks756]

@@TLTeo maybe they play bass (like me)

[@noesunyoutuber7680]

@@TLTeo Because they write tabs for a sheet music publisher - it's easy to imagine Hal Leonard were just giving new tasks to old employees who didn't know anything about the subject. Like all those Metallica tabs that are clearly written by someone who's never shredded in their life, or the inexplicable classic rock/hard rock licks in this Nirvana book - they got some dude who doesn't listen to the music they're notating to fill it in.

[@davidbeeson6030]

I love this idea for the video. I have come across so many bad tab books. Great video!

[@GrantBoyer]

This was the first tab book I bought with my first guitar. I learned power chords from this book and I'm forever grateful for that. But I remember a lot of these mistakes, and I remember being so confused. I'll never forget the way they botched the tab for Come as You Are. This brings me back. Thanks for this!!

[@LeglessWonder]

A cool sequel to this series would be “Tab books that were surprisingly perfect”

[@Darmani2MB]

Are there any?

[@highlander6582]

whats the reason for pointing out something that is correct, what am i learning from that?

[@oldGnRrocks1]

@@Darmani2MB the exodus books, sheet happens, and anything evan bradley touches is amazing. (he tabbed like 5 dream theater albums, the new jp and lte3 albums for free)

[@iganpparamarta8813]

Petrucci’s Suspended Animation is perfect.

[@LeglessWonder]

@@highlander6582 how to play said song correctly, the way the artist does. This ain’t rocket surgery

[@kevind3094]

this is pure nostalgia! i still have this book and when i bought it soooo long ago, i used to wonder how they put in so many weird fingerings that didn't make sense lol

[@simonesaponaro4913]

Thank you for making my day almost every day 🙏☺️

[@genx7006]

I had that book. And it was at the time I was learning guitar. It explains SO much. I quit playing electric guitar shortly after that and stuck to playing an acoustic. I haven't picked up an electric since.

[@smurfofdarkness]

I started playing in the 80ies and of course I spent hours full of despair and (finger)pain trying to get through these super messy tab books by Metallica, Megadeth and Iron Maiden. Thanks for the series, it brings back memories of nervous breakdowns and stoic self torture 😄 Great channel, by the way!

[@penttikoivuniemi2146]

I've noticed similar problems with songsterr tabs lately, I'm teaching a kid bass and he likes all sorts of mid-to late 2000's metal bands for some reason so I've had to learn a bunch of Slipknot and Bullet For My Valentine songs. Since I don't listen to them myself, I just check out the songs and find a tab, then compare the two while I try to figure out how to play them, and practically always I run into nonsensical fingerings, like somebody transcribed the songs into notation and then automatically generated the tab. Of course there are also wrong notes and what not a lot of the time, but usually they are less egregious than what's in these books.

[@biopanda4226]

I’ve been using songsterr forever now and unlike ultimate tabs they don’t have all the songs I’m looking for

[@karim6119]

I stopped using tabs for that exact reason. Tabs which you find online (e.g. songster or ultimate guitar) have so many mistakes in them.

[@georgewalker3702]

To be fair, just about every song without isolated bass tracks are charted wrong.

[@undertakeredgar]

I love songsterr. Lol. Helps me learn alot. But your right. A tab will be super nice one day. Come back a month later and someone uploads a diff tab thats completely messed up

[@burnoutzzz]

Thats why to learn songs I always do a combo of by ear and multiple tabs online, i get to see what notes I gotta play but I can hear if they screw something up.

[@AdventuresWithPennyLane]

I'm so glad I found this video! I thought I was picking it apart too much. I bought this book back in '96 and since have been revising it

[@QerstyBass]

Regarding the alphabetical order of the pages: Growing up in the mp3 era I had one player that was not designed too well. It did not read the track number data, it just sorted alphabetically so that's how I got introduced to it. When I later heard the real order of the album I was so confused why breed wasnt the opening track

[@cadetri9716]

3:07 This appears to be a confusion between the guitar and bass parts. The bass on this track does that little walk up. Why the tab makers confused that, I don't know. But i've been playing this song correctly on bass for many years and there's no doubt in my mind that's where that awkward 3 note group comes from.

[@NytronX]

Check out this performance, Kurt plays a little walk up line there, albeit different notes: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oIuQY6KCnbioosU

[@jdubbs79]

Thought the EXACT same thing when I saw that: clearly notes from the bass part

[@Splifftone]

....except the third note would be an A, not a D.

[@papipanda3884]

That one random bit in "In Bloom" I'm pretty sure they used the bassline in it, Krist Novoselic had a groove rather than normal root notes, but that's just my guess

[@MichaelTurner856]

I thought the same thing

[@pentastarr666]

it was the drum fill

[@sfigato1]

I just listened to it, never noticed it but the guitar does actually play that weird riff, he never plays it live tho

[@IwoIwanov]

I have this exact edition. Your remarks about this volume are spot on. - Great content. Thanks a lot.

[@matthewhendrickson5194]

First book I got starting out. Most things you mentioned knee capped me too and makes sense why! Great vid man! If you find the revised version part 2 would killer! Peace

[@albertevers6932]

Why are all tabs wrong? Do the people who make tabs just not care at all? Should sue Hal Leonard.

[@markharc7615]

Actually watch the video- his nitpicks aren't that important, if the only issue on Smells Like is the tabber put the wrong effect and put two notes in a different position, that is pretty damn good in my book. Either way you use the tab and your ears and you will be fine.

[@DmonkeyProductions]

@@markharc7615 you should finish the video bro.

[@benddawson]

@@markharc7615 I mean considering alot of beginners would pick this book up these 'nitpicks' are pretty major hahaha

[@caleb428]

@@markharc7615 it's not about that, it's about making the tabs way more complicated than they need to be, which is bad enough until you think about how only beginners are gonna be using the tab book

[@matturner6890]

@@markharc7615 dude no, it literally tells you to play completely wrong notes and chords and whoever wrote it doesn't understand Kurt's style or even how to play guitar at all. It's useless.

[@chrischamberlain2168]

Will need to check which edition I have. Great video.

[@impoopnrightnow906]

I owned all of the tab books you've reviewed so far and as a beginner, these mistakes were very confusing. Like, do I trust my ear or the "experts" who tabbed out the songs? 🙄 These vids are great, man!

[@HorizonMelt]

It's so rewarding and satisfying to watch these critical videos about these books, many of which I owned. I spent so much time frustrated and feeling incapable because of how I was misled by these way-too-often sloppy works.

[@kyledevlin9620]

just like how translated books use editors. tab books should use guitarists. this was clearly written and arranged by people who didn't play guitar. however, the notation seemed pretty accurate

[@joncoates9757]

Another mistake, I don’t think come as you are was played with a ‘flagner’ effect

[@chesterdraws7981]

Would sound better with Dobly 😀

[@Patrick-857]

Wasn't it a Small Stone? That's kind of blurring the line between phaser and chorus. But fair point, flanger is very different and very wrong.

[@kushguitarsuthar8218]

It was a chorus

[@benedictjephcote6815]

No wonder it's overcomplicated, it was tabbed by a Wagner enthusiast.

[@ichabaudcraine2923]

I love this video and your approach and regard for beginners. I remember getting tabs off the internet to try and realising they were miles off, but amazing to see it in an official publication. Also, I knew Nirvana used to tune down to D a lot but never realised they had songs in drop D. On a Plain makes so much more sense this way, especially the chorus.

[@godchi1dvonsteuben770]

In "Breed" I've seen Kurt alternate between power chords, and single notes. Live though, I've never analyzed the album recording enough to know, off hand, if he does it on the studio version.

[@Fallub]

On 5:36 the book even tells you to use reverb and "flagner" :D

[@drfabriciomnogueira]

xD

[@electronicscaos]

Yeah! The "Cobain Chord" is something. That strong upper string's song is the force of his music

[@Mntgmry19]

This was really my introduction as well, I bought a Strat copy and this tab book although thankfully I took a few lessons as well and my guitar teacher kept me right. Particularly enjoyed the suggestion to play Come As You Are with reverb and “flagner” at 5.39.

[@ellisclyde309]

My dad got a copy of this tab book in the 90's and he passed it down to me and i learnt from it too when i started playing

[@bigimskiweisenheimer8325]

I never considered that bogus tab books could be a thing. I will certainly research several before determining the actual finished product. Thanks for the info.

[@narvizz87]

The Vai's Real Illusions: Reflections Songbook is a mess at least on the first song. The double hand tapping part was transcribed with hammer-ons for one hand. Also, the Deftones self titled songbook has some very weird fingerings on a lot of songs.

[@wade998]

I bought that book back in 1994 and was wondering about everything you said. Glad someone else wondered the same thing!

[@JoeDaveycrockettsoundlabs]

Oh my god! As a guitar teacher this video is pure gold. I get plenty of students coming in with all sorts of terrible tabs (looking at you Ultimate Guitar).

[@uum6]

The "weird augmented sound" @ 10:36 sounds exactly like the start of "Give It All" by Rise Against.

[@stephenjeffrey1982]

You have to check out the Appetite for Destruction book. The run in the middle of the Sweet child o’ mine solo is hilariously wrong and was the first time back in the mid 90s I considered the notion that the official tab books could be wrong (followed by Blackened)

[@jackhaugh]

I still have that tab book!!! I loved Nirvana, and had just started playing guitar about 6 months before Nevermind dropped. I was a freshman in college at the time. I heard someone in my dorm playing Smells Like Teen Spirit on electric guitar less than a week after the song was released, and I ran down to their dorm room, pounded on the door until they opened it, and made them show me how to play it on guitar. The guy was in a band that had a gig the next day at a local bar. They made me their “Roadie” so I could get into the show underage.

[@mattm8689]

Holy crap. No wonder I couldn’t learn how to properly play Nirvana songs from these tab books. I had them all and I was always so confused. I found it far more helpful to watch KC live over and over again to see how it was done.

[@prometheustv6558]

If I saw this book, I would say, “Nevermind” and just walk away.

[@DavidRFIT]

You took your time, hurried up, the choice was yours.

[@2m7b5]

I had this book. And I did. Didn't pick up the guitar again for years. It made me think these songs were way harder than they actually were and it was super discouraging.

[@existentialistremnant6231]

@@2m7b5 Yeah, I've had the good fortune of learning this album online through tutorials. Marty Music made most of these songs ultra easy, but I still screw them up sometimes.

[@liohrt]

I remember buying this book when I was a beginner at guitar and always thought playing nirvana needed years of knowledge and practice due to bizarre chords and strange shapes... And my guitar teacher trying to tell me that those book were official so it was "THE WAY" to play it... 😂 (the big era before youture and internet as we know it today). Thus, a very big extra detail: something like 20 pages were upside down in my book making it even more complex to read. I remember complaining to the book store to get a new one, and they were just "turn the book on those pages, you can still read what's on it"... Glad i didn't quit playing nevertheless

[@calokid]

Playing through tabs always confused me for these reasons. Happy to find your videos!

[@GeorgeFromThe856]

Your analysis is on point, yo 💯

[@hazzmando]

For a lot of these broken tabs it feels like they only wrote the staff notation, and the actual tabs were auto generated from that and the chords written above the staff. That would explain many of the weird chord voicings and the full chord voicings as well. They probably only gave the actual tab a quick once-over before publishing.

[@Grajilla]

The come as you are mistake made me write off the whole book as a kid, even a few months into playing guitar it was obvious what the right way was. I also remember the tab book for 1984 by van halen being awful, although it might have just been me who was awful at the time.

[@boozm]

I remember being stupid enough to actually think that was the proper way to play it, especially because my guitar teacher went on this rant about 'these books are made by experts, not one tempo or note or chord is wrong'

[@maxscardanelli6185]

@@boozm I'm curious, was your guitar teacher on drugs at all? Cause no sane guitarist would think that that book is right.

[@EltonMcManus]

I still have my version and remember getting the basics from the book, then just watching videos and copying from the TV. This book was how I learnt to play guitar, would never get rid of it.

[@vikingslayer34]

This was my first tab book. Thanks Kurt haha

[@danejurus69]

The first ever book I bought. I remember there being chords in Teen Spirit that I wasn't sure were really there or mistakes the tabbers made. But here's what's weird. The version you have doesn't have some of the mistakes my version had. I guess they made multiple versions, all with mistakes.

[@Krankenstein105]

Were there ever any tab books in "ye olde" times that were actually tabbed correctly???

[@jaywalshmusicandsong1736]

Guitar magazines had great tabs in the 80s and 90s.

[@pb12661]

guitar magazines had the most accurate tabs back then. most BOOKS were shit.

[@bobdillon1138]

Not in my experience even some of the so called experts in the guitar mags got it wrong and todays stuff isn't much better.

[@ThaiThom]

No.

[@jean-francoisbergeron6100]

Iron Maiden Powerslave/somewhere in time is really good for its time, as is Randy Rhoads Tribute. Both late eightys done by Wolf Marshall

[@leviathan_is_me]

I appreciate you leaving the excess string after putting new ones on...its that attention to detail for a Nirvana vid....😊

[@danielbyrne4531]

This is SO validating. I was always wondering why tab books seemed hard af to play. I eventually learned about voice leading and economy of motion and figured the books might be nonsense but this is nice to see. Great vid!