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  • Learning guitar tools

    Posted by jorgemac on September 4, 2026 at 9:45 am

    Some of the learning too that I use to help me along my guitar journey are the Songsterr and the Ultimate Guitar sites. I used these when learning next week’s Lesson “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers. It added things after playing Tony’s version. Very helpful.

    Songsterr is probably my favorite learning site. It taught me how to interpret Tablature.

    It also allows me to slow down the songs so that i can practice at a learning speed to any song that want to work on. Currently working on The Allman Bros. “Bluebird”. I slowed it down to 80% and now it is fairly easy to pick up the great lead lines and the chord progression. I the beginning i used to slow the arrangements down to 50% to pick up how to break the song down.

    The other site is Ultimate Guitar. This site works well , for me, with folk style music.

    Both sites have an upgraded version that cost about $10 per month but I found it to worthwhile for my purposes of learning new tunes and being able to break down the lessons to manageable chunks. Check them out if you have advanced to an area of picking that can use a little push with certain songs.

    jorgemac replied 2 weeks, 4 days ago 4 Members · 6 Replies
  • 6 Replies
  • marion white

    Member
    September 4, 2026 at 12:35 pm

    I agree,ultimate guitar is great . It has helped me a lot

  • jorgemac

    Member
    September 4, 2026 at 1:15 pm

    Both sites were helpful when I was learning St. James Infirmary a few weeks back. Songsterr had versions by Justin Johnson, Snooks Eaglin and a tradition finger picking version were very helpful.

    I combined the Traditional Version for the finger picking and the the other 2 versions to develop my own licks and fills to make the song my own.

  • Skyman911

    Member
    September 4, 2026 at 1:55 pm

    I use Chordify, Songster, Music Notes for playalong learning. Ultimate Guitar for printing tabs. I probably use Chordify the most. It has a pretty vast library of songs, and I like how it scrolls when playing the songs and showing when the chords/notes show up. It flows better for my brain for some reason than the other ones. The premium version, you can slow things up or speed them up. The free version gives you one free song per day, however no ability to adjust speed.

  • Bill_Brown

    Member
    September 5, 2026 at 9:30 am

    Hi @jorgemac , hope you’re having a good Labor Day weekend! Sunday and Monday are supposed to be beautiful weather days here in the Western PA area – dry, sunny, hi temps around 80, and best of all – LOW HUMIDITY!!!!!!

    Ultimate Guitar is where I go to find versions of chord progressions and lyrics for songs I want to learn. But it’s Youtube for me, to learn how to play and sing those songs. I’ve found that at “YT”, I can see original artist’s and “cover” artists versions, which allows me to choose a general demeanor in which I want to “perform” the song. Also, I can see tutorials from various music “podcasters” (for lack of a better term) that teach the songs at various levels of competency. To be honest, I don’t know very much about some of the other sites mentioned here in this thread, maybe I’m just stuck in the “old” 2020 era (LOL).

  • jorgemac

    Member
    September 5, 2026 at 12:29 pm

    Hey Bill B,

    Forgot all about the you tube stuff. Thanks for the comments.

    I used to try them, but, liked the fact that I could slow down the Ultimate and Songsterr lessons, change music keys, Print out the songs tabs, including bass, harmonica, even some cello lead lines like the Blue grass group Crooked Still with a lead Cello player and a great version of “Ain’t no grave gonna hold my body down”.

    Also many of the song tabs have an added sax or organ line devoted to the song’s vocals. That is an easy way to develop a melody lick. Just copy the Sax/vocal tab that has already been converted to guitar tab notes and you can then arrange it to fit what you are trying to say through your guitar.

    This works really well with finding the in-between vocal notes using your slide/bottle neck.

  • jorgemac

    Member
    September 6, 2026 at 9:17 am

    I have been learning the Dead version of I know you Rider over the week end and the Ultimate Guitar version has been very helpful. I was able to slow it down and concentrate on 3 separate parts – rhythm, lead and vocals. 1st worked on the vocal portion, then the rhythm, then lead. Their breakdown of all 3 portions was very helpful. Now playing it around 90 BPM and hope to get up to 120 by later today. Great fun.

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