Ok, everyone knows what guitar tabs are right? No? Well it’s just kind of a way to learn how to play songs on guitar without having to know anything about music really. Basically it just shows you the string and the number of the frets you have to play in order to play the song. I almost built a career out of using them. Almost. Here’s a picture of one. Go grab a guitar and you’ll be able to play the riff to Sweet Home Alabama:

Since YouTube came out, a bunch of people now cover songs and upload themselves playing them and sometimes singing them too. This is either a) to show people how good they think they are at playing (note: they normally aren’t actually that good AT ALL) or b) to help people learn how to play songs by taking tabs to the next level by actually SHOWING them the chords they needed to play. A is pretty stupid but B is semi-useful.

Anyway I was trying to figure out how to play the solo to Salt, Peppa, Spindrella by Johnny Foreigner (he plays his guitar in some weird tuning so it’s hard to figure out ok?) and I stumbled across this video, which has been set up by Philippino website www.guitartutee.com. If you haven’t heard the song maybe listen to it here first, you’ll probably recognise it from your local indie disco as it’s a bit of a floor filler…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-PY53SdyUY&feature=related

Now, everyone knows that hardly any guitar tabs are 100% correct, but this one is beyond a fvcking joke. I mean, for a start, there’s only guitar in the last 1/4 of the song – the rest of the music comes out of some eletronic box that the drummer presses buttons on because they’re so indie and hip – but this guy is playing guitar all the way through the song. Ok, granted, this isn’t that stupid as he’s still playing the equivalent chords but it’s supremely dumb because the dude plays it SO BADLY. He’s completely out of time and slows down/speeds up and misses notes all the way through the three minute video.  The best part though is that at the end, when the guitars kick in in the song and the lead riff comes in, all he does is stop muting the chords and keep playings them, only louder. Where the fvck was the solo that I watched this video for two and a half minutes to learn?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-eROKRnX6E

So essentially the video is just him playing the same three chords (badly) for three minutes, 3/4 muted and then 1/4 straight. What is the point of that? Is that actually going to help anyone play the song? He could have just shown them the ‘riff’ (if you can even call it that) and played it a couple of times (he might even have been able to play it properly) instead of just playing the same thing over and over again and making loads of mistakes for three minutes. I mean he doesn’t even have to change strings or chord shape, how can he play it so badly? And then upload it under the name guitartutee and claim that it’s a ‘lesson’ in how to play it? To illustrate just how bad this cover is, the lead singer of the band has even left a comment on the video saying ‘yr playing it wrong’. It’s the most liked comment on the page.