Okay, after nearly 20 years of learning cover songs I have just recently seen the light when it comes to learning a new song. Here are a few things I try to follow...
(most of these are common sense but I'm just now using them all together)
Wear Headphones (it helps you hear parts you've never even heard before and it helps to pick out those tough to find notes)
Listen First (sitting back and listening closely to the entire song helps you visualize all the parts and their orders in the song)
Write It Down (write down the order of the songs parts, i.e. intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, break, outro and any chords you know for each part. One example I've seen on a video is to write the note or chord and follow it with slashes to show how many times to play it. i.e. Intro C/// D/// A///////)
Tune To The Song (i.e. some old AC/DC has messed up tuning, so either tune your entire guitar to a low note in the song or change the pitch in a program such as
Winamp using a
pitch DSP/Effect plug-in, for AC/DC change pitch by +0.04 oct and for those bands that tune to E flat then change the pitch by +0.08 oct) (I use the AudoMaker DSP/Effect plug-in)
Slow It Down (if a part is too fast use a plug-in to slow the song down up to 30%)
Find The Key (if you can find the key of the song you can use chords and scales that work with that key to find the parts faster. Some hard parts or runs can be found by playing the individual notes in the backing rhythm chord)
Find Some Tab (if you get stuck go look at some tab, I use
911tabs.com because they rank the tabs and they have guitar, bass, & drum tab links. keep in mind a lot of the tabs out there have parts that are wrong so use your ear and you be the judge)
Watch A Video (hit up YouTube and find the original video, a live video, or a lesson video for that song, i.e. search YouTube using '
TNT guitar lesson solo' to find a video lesson on the TNT solo. Also, watch the orginal guitarist closely to see where he plays the parts in the song when he plays it live)
Play It With Feeling (don't just learn it and play it like a robot from the tab, listen to how much expression the original guitarist puts into it and take the time to play it over and over until it just feels right, don't be afraid to put your own twist on it)
I'm sure there are many more tips but this is enough for now. I would like to thank many of the local musicians who have shared a few of these tips with me.
Please add to this if you have a good tip and don't forget to put the Banana in your pocket before you go on stage!!!
