Some of you are mentioning the intro where Tony holds the octave E while doing the bend. You're right but I'm only addressing the actual bend technique in this video. In a future video I'm going to cover the octave E as well as another detail for the intro. Very exciting times. :)

@skyyukna505

2 жыл бұрын

You have to do the Pearl Jam Ten tab book (original version). It's a disaster.

@bcaz84

2 жыл бұрын

The original pearl jam 10 tab book was horrible. Even flow not even close not even the right key. They did redo the book and release a more correct one just recently.

@thexdude

2 жыл бұрын

In short, you hold the 2nd fret of the D string whilst bending the nut of the low E string, holding a power chord shape

@corporalclegg914

2 жыл бұрын

hi Mike, do you have ‘21st Century Schizoid Man,’ by King Crimson anywhere in your backlog of vids? that would be a great tune for people to learn that aren’t yet aware of it. as you know, it has Licks for Days! unfortunately, I don’t think it’s widely known by younger shredders here.

@Cthulhu_Awaken

2 жыл бұрын

This is totally new to me. By "octave E" do you mean the E on the D string, 2nd fret? Cool little detail if so, like Jimmy Page adding an open D to a D that's already there in the Whole Lotta Love riff to make it sound fuller.

This Iron Man tab plays more like Aluminum Boy.

@ReizokoRyu

2 жыл бұрын

ALUMINUM BOY lmaooo !

@jimmyjohnspizza3666

2 жыл бұрын

Mike needs to see this

@mccalltrader

2 жыл бұрын

Zing!!

@AcceleratingUniverse

2 жыл бұрын

/)

@corporalclegg914

2 жыл бұрын

Winner!

I couldn't afford tab books back when I started out, so I had to figure out my own incorrect ways to play these riffs.

@roollout4131

2 жыл бұрын

I used to borrow tab books from the library that were really messed up

@Driessens_Peter

2 жыл бұрын

even worse, i had to steal them,

@94SexyStang

2 жыл бұрын

playing the wrong way is called "Improvising", LOL

@KINGBublepop

2 жыл бұрын

I love your profile picture!

@404TVfr

2 жыл бұрын

That's the based way to do it

Dude you've found such a good, interesting and algorythm friendly video format with the 'bad tab book' format! I love them!

@BlakeSpohn

Жыл бұрын

And it wont get old!

The Nevermind tab book almost scarred me for life. The way they have "Lithium" transcribed is just a mess. It's funny, because I just started "leaving out" the parts that didn't sound right, assuming I wasn't skilled enough to play them properly, so I just played what felt right to me. Turns out, I was on the right track all along!

@jeffarney7762

2 жыл бұрын

I bought that book too as a kid and 75 percent of it made no sense lol

@zachrembrandt1978

2 жыл бұрын

I remember trying to play that and it was so awkward in the position they wrote it, it was'nt until years later watching vids on KZread of Kurt that I saw how easy it was!

@christopher4443

2 жыл бұрын

Props to those people who transcribed it

I started learning guitar in the internet era, and i think on the TAB side, its even worse now, becouse every confident Joe can publish a tab, they are so so wrong, that i gave up really quickly, and started learning by ear, which is a good thing, but i dont deny that the unlimited video recordings of the actual artists helped a lot too.

@mattcook476

2 жыл бұрын

I agree, most important thing is listening.

@jesseoreilly1792

2 жыл бұрын

I pretty much got to the point where I will look at a few tabs to get some ideas if needed, but then I just compare it against the recording and learn that way.

@charlesrocks

2 жыл бұрын

I learned Master of Puppets by ear as well and from watching now James Hetfield played it on Live Shit Binge and Purge

@davidperrott5098

2 жыл бұрын

If I could go back I would definitely rely a lot less on TABs and much more by ear. Same with digital tuners as well.

@hunterenglehart8519

2 жыл бұрын

I’ve always played by ear

That bending behind the nut technique is new to me. Can confirm after trying it out it also sounds cool on ukulele.

@eddierayvanlynch6133

2 жыл бұрын

👀 I'd honestly like to hear that now. 👍😎

@Weshopwizard

2 жыл бұрын

Check out John5 Behind the Nut Love. Incredible.

@Weshopwizard

2 жыл бұрын

Here’s the link. kzread.info/dash/bejne/Y31oqrezmK7SlZM.html

@charlesdarwin7253

2 жыл бұрын

I don't think anything sounds "cool" on a ukulele.

@sadcatwizard

2 жыл бұрын

@@charlesdarwin7253 truer words have never been spoken

There's also the fact that Tony Iommi did down-tune to compensate the string tension to his fingers (since he is missing the tips of two fingers), so it's also possible the transcriber just thought that was what Iommi was doing on those first couple of Sabbath albums before they started tuning down to C-sharp.

Years ago I had this book. In the song Paranoid they printed the lyric "People think I'm insane because I am browning all the time". It was not the worst book for tab at the time but pretty close to it.

@Andy-England-1967

Жыл бұрын

My copy says frowning (The purple cover version)

@larryblumerjr

Жыл бұрын

My copy says "counting all the time" (Sesame Street version)

@MCSlammerMcJammer

9 ай бұрын

​@creamwobbly did you actually say ozzy is a shit singer wtf

This reminds me of when I tried Rocksmith on my Xbox. I was playing "Jesus Christ Pose" by Soundgarden (I believe, it's been a few years... may have been the "Outshined" chorus), and the game was telling me to play notes on the A string when I was positive it was all E string. It didn't even make sense the way they had it transcribed, when it was obviously higher on the neck on the E string. Obviously, playing it the "right" way registered (because it was the right notes) but the fact that as an amateur guitarist I knew it was misleading me, it made me put the game down and never touch it again.

@stratotele12

2 жыл бұрын

It was definitely Outshined. I remember exactly where you're talking about. It's the riff that starts immediately after the phase "till I'm down on my knees again". They have some weird string skipping thing when it's really all played on the low D string (drop D tuning).

Nowadays tuning down 1/2 step is common knowledge but 40 years ago it was not. As a kid i always wondered why learning from book never sounded right. Ended up playing by ear. How many people gave up because they thought they just couldnt get it. Great series man. Love it.

Shout out to Mike for remembering the original entrance theme of THE ROAD WARRIORS!

@jeffarney7762

2 жыл бұрын

The Road warriors were my introduction to sabbath!!

4:25 that behind the nut technique can also be used to add vibrato to natural harmonics without a whammy bar.

I have this book, and when I was younger always struggled with Iron Man because of this! One little thing with the bend at the beginning, Tony actually plays it slightly different to what you showed. He still does the bend behind the nut, but he also adds the e an octave higher as well (played at the 2nd fret of the D string) which isn’t bent. It creates an awesome dissonance, that resolves when the bend is released. I always played it the way you showed, until Tony was showing me how he does it himself… never seen anyone else actually play it this way, so it’s gone completely unnoticed!

@TheArtofGuitar

2 жыл бұрын

You're right but I was just focusing on the bend for this video though. In a future video I'll be showing the octave plus another detail. Excited.

@ACDCofthe21stcentury

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheArtofGuitar looking forward to seeing it! Sabbath are my favourite band, and I’ve always been a massive fan of Tony, and his playing style (thanks to his ‘work accident’!)

I gotta say, as far as guitar channels go you're really nailing it. I love the way you come across as a fellow guitarist not a lecturer.

Learned to play in the 90s and yes it was hard getting anywhere with just tab books. I found a series of books in my language that covered famous songs with a play along cassette that would do stuff like put the guitar on one stereo channel so you could pan and hear what was going on, or remove the guitar and play the parts yourself. That and a metronome was I had. KZread is an absolute goldmine for anyone learning to play today, or learning anything for that matter. I didn't even know I needed a distorsion pedal when I brought my first electric home after playing regular acoustic.

@216trixie

2 жыл бұрын

Tab isn't a good way to learn.

@gergoretvari6373

2 жыл бұрын

@@216trixie it's a starting point and it can be good

@SuperStrik9

Жыл бұрын

@@gergoretvari6373 Plus in the the 90s and earlier it's pretty much all we had plus our ears. I'm grateful for it as learning songs by ear really helped develop it.

The main riff also switches to single notes across the E, A, & D strings, rather than power cords on the E, during the vocals

@aligatorsandwitch72

2 жыл бұрын

Iommi does that all the time during verses. Another instance is in their self titled song.

It isn't just a note, he plays the E chord when bending behind the nut.

@waylong25

2 жыл бұрын

Not necessarily the chord per se, but really, the E octave on the D string.

@elinino5275

2 жыл бұрын

Pinky on the E and he plucks that and open E and with index he bends. There a video on you tube where iommi explains

@MKDumas1981

2 жыл бұрын

A taint bend.

Have they lost their minds? / Can they write tabs or are they blind?

@nckhed

2 жыл бұрын

I even sang it in the wrong key. 😂

@MKDumas1981

2 жыл бұрын

Can they transcribe at all? Or, if they do, will they fall?

The initial bend, in the tab, sounds like the intro of kickstart my heart

I love that you can refer to what 'Tony' did while talking about the Iron Man riff. One of those perfect coincidences.

Lol.Thanx for the memories. This was one of the first tab books I ever bought and for the longest time as a beginner guitarist I just thought I was doing it wrong. It wasn't until my ear was good enough and I was able to figure songs out by myself that I realized that not only this book but just about every one I had were garbage. I also had a subscription to Guitar For The Practicing Musician ( teens of the 80s will remember ) that had 4-5 transcriptions every month and were usually pretty accurate from what I can remember. I still have a bunch in storage. I am curious now about their accuracy.

I learned the pre-nut bend from Randy Rhoads and my guitar instructor. Half of my guitar lessons were writing in the correct numbers in the tab... I cannot stress how valuable a quality guitar instructor is.. and I think these videos show it!

I still have this Anthology. We learned all of our Sabbath songs from this book and generally, it never was a major problem as far as the key went. We all were playing it a half step sharp. It sucks to find out that it was so hard to sing because of that though. I pulled double duty in all of my bands and had to deal with these kinds of errors daily. Live and learn ey?

This series is just so damn awesome

Iommi also used really thin gauge strings so his bottom strings are not normal bottom strings. I think it actually sounds better with the root on the A string on my guitar

I rlly love this guys videos, I’m not having any full lessons off him but the small tips (like the pinch harmonic one you did) are just brilliant

I learnt to play solely by ear, so when I have looked up tabs I've always been confused as they just felt and sounded off. So I've not bothered with them since. I think it serves you better to just figure out and practice scales. Every guitarist has 1 or 2 scales they rely on, so most of their riffs derive from them. Once you have that pattern recognition, when you commit sounds and finger placements to memory, figuring out songs becomes a lot easier.

Loving your videos. Such an artistic way of unmasking tab books.

Totally had that book and this video brought back SO MANY memories of embarrassment having to first tune my whole guitar down and then relearn the song all over out of frustration. I actually remember using my ZOOM 4040 pedals pitch shifter to try and lower my guitar so I didn’t have to relearn it. I can actually still remember the song the “wrong” way just like you played it…

I appreciate this whole series, it's so validating to find out for sure after a whole childhood learning sheet music for various instruments and thinking I couldn't make songs sound even close to correct because I was a dumb kid that in many cases where I suspected the transcriptions were flat out wrong they probably really were

This was one of the first tab books that I bought after I got my first electric guitar back in '92. Luckily I also subscribed to Guitar World magazine right around that time. Iommi had an Iron Man lesson in one issue that showed the correct way to play the main riff and circular riff, and also explained how to do the bending behind the nut technique.

This series is awesome! Thanks for demystifying these tab books. I remember the feeling of this inner struggle when I started playing guitar: the struggle between what the tab reads but what my ears hear. This will surely empower many players out there to trust their instincts and instructors. Guitar is not just playing, it's talking about it with others, it's discussion, it's philosophy, an art - And you Sir, are an artist! You also have a great way of putting these errors into a context, meaning it doesn't discret the authors but sheds a light on hypothetical scenarios of their work process and what might went wrong - all highly educational!

@216trixie

2 жыл бұрын

Tab is a lousy way to learn guitar.

@WeeLammTunes

2 жыл бұрын

@@216trixie The one time I spoke to a guitar teacher, who is an accomplished Jazz musician, he asked what my goals were. I said, I've been playing a while and I'd like to clean up some of my bad habits. He said, 'there are no bad habits, but we can also learn good habits too. In my mind, learning only by TAB is incomplete, if your goal is to be a good mimic but I don't discount tabs as one of the many tools we can make use of.

love the videos man, you're one of the only channels keeping me learning. Also, I love the shirt man

I remember learning how to play Iron Man as an early teen, by ear (never did bother too much with the solos, usually just wing it or what ever), and it took me years to realize how Tony actually plays the main riff; I taught myself doing B5 on the A and D strings at the 2nd fret, sliding up to 5th and then 7th, and so on, not realizing Tony did it on the low E and A strings, starting at the 7th fret and going from there. I did know how he did War Pigs though, so that should have clued me in earlier. Then later I got the Just Say Ozzy EP on CD, and hearing Zakk do War Pigs, I realized he was doing lower frets on the A and D strings similar to how I did Iron Man, so.... yeah.

Cool mention of the Road Warriors! Awesome video as always.

Love your mic'ing technique on that whiteboard. The tone you captured from it is incredible!!! ;-)

nice video. I'm actually a bass palyer , and i've noted the "more difficult than it should be" situation on MANY black sabbath, Iron Maiden and metallica bass tabs. best examples is IM stuff though, quite often they'll have the learner runing up and down the neck ,when harris plays his notes up and downt the strings (ie he is baring strings and staying in what is called "the harris box" ) . they'll technically have the right notes , but in the wrong spot of the neck from where he actually plays it , thus making the whole damn thing harder to play than what it actually is. they do this real bad with butler's lines too. usualy the issue with metallica bass tabs is they'll have the bass just doubling the rhythm guitar , which is not at all what cliff or newsted is doing.

Great video!! I got this tab book in 7th grade, and I still have it!!! My guitar teacher at the time hated when i brought it in to learn a BS song. He used to make corrections in pen on the tab sheets in the book. It does have cool song selection though, like Voodoo and Country Girl.

Damn! your set up and tone sounds amazing on this vid!

Great video. Im so lucky that I learned it the way you play it. The CORRECT way. Love me some old Sabbath. This is exactly what I've been studying lately too, all the old stuff from them. Tony is a Beast. 🤘

I learned guitar by ear, long before the internet and before the mass availability of tabs. My motto is that if it sounds right, it is right. As videos became more and more available, i consistently found that my ear led me correctly in nearly every instance. I can't even get into tabs because its far easier for me to listen to something a few times and visualize the notes on the fretboard and then get on with playing it. If i want to check my work, i just watch a concert video. Not a fan of tabs at all.

I must admit I like your videos, both when you show us the proper ways to play some of the more interesting riffs, and especially when you are humble enough to post an update to correct inaccuracies. Thank you for being a true musician. While we see video evidence of Tommy bending behind the nut on many of his newer instruments, I believe the original recording may have been done on his 62/63 Les Paul/SG Special, which had a bigsby style tailpiece. I agree the 'Behind the nut' technique comes close to replicating the original sound but it has issues. The string length behind the nut is a fraction of an inch whereas a movable tailpiece utilizes the entire string length. This implies less force is required to reach the starting note and the release can be more consistently controlled.

I never would've guessed the "behind the nut" bend. The tab book I had told me to do a whole step neck bend to get the note Looking back I can't believe I didn't break my dad's guitar from it

@jackpijjin4088

3 ай бұрын

Good lord! That's not a bend, that's a kung-fu neck reset!

As a kid, my Dad would take my brothers and I to the UIC Pavilion in Chicago to see NWA wrestling. We loved the Road Warriors! Hearing Iron Man played as their entrance music was awesome. Not many people knew/remember they used Iron Man. 🤘🏻

I remember my mom buying me this book in the 90's and tuning to E flat so the tabs would match the song. I had no idea how wrong some of the parts were, but at some point I just started learning by ear with the cd's or tapes I had. I had forgotten about this book, it's been many years since I had it.

Lol, I just left a message on another one of your videos referencing this exact song with that bend starting the song. I have that exact book and used it to learn Sabbath long before the internet

That was my suggestion! I'm so excited to watch.

Your videos make me feel so much better about learning songs and thinking I was jus terrible at playing and now when I se some hard ass riff I just think wats the same notes but easier fingering? Thanks for doing this

Nice Heisenberg shirt

This series is just awesome! What a great idea.

The one benefit I found to learning songs the "harder way" is if you've committed to them long enough before discovering the right way it's actually stillb good practice for dexterity and transitions and whatnot. Also just helps you learn your way around the fret board so if you happen to break a string you can still hack your way through to the end using the alternative notes instead of stopping a performance altogether

Your tab series highlights the reason I learned by ear. I couldn't reconcile what I heard with the tab books, and always considered them idiots for writing these transcriptions, thinking "what are they listening to".

I had that book for a week when I was 15 and my friend's friend asked to borrow it at a jam session for a few days and I never saw him again! It bothered me for over 20 years but now this finally gives me some solace, lol

I still have that book, now I want to revisit it after not looking at it for 15+ years

Awesome video! Also Loving the Heisenberg t shirt! I was actually watching Breaking Bad when you uploaded this video. I seriously need to get learning this, not only because it's a killer tune and I LOVE it, but I have a black SG so I kinda feel a little obligated haha! 😂

You've uncovered pain that I've buried deep down inside for years. Haha. Thank you for showing us that we weren't wrong about this tab book.

Fantastic Series. Being a product of the 80s, I'm loving this. 👍🎸

These videos are the story of my early guitar career. As soon as I saw the title of this video, I thought "I bet that 3-1 thing in the intro is in there"...

As a young Metallica/Megadeth fan back in the day those tab books messed me up bad. Set me back for years.

The Road Warriors were my introduction to Sabbath as well!! That intro was monstrous

Back in the day (20 years ago), I flicked through a Dookie tab book, and every single song was entirely made up of 6 string barre chords!!! It put me off completely but luckily I had a friend who knew power chords who showed me how to do them.

I’m watching without my guitar and saying, ‘Hold on. How DO I play it?’ I learned it from a magazine in the mid ‘80s. It was in the correct key, but you suggest more appropriate neck positions. It had turned into muscle memory fairly quickly when you only had 1 or 2 song transcriptions PER MONTH at your disposal.

Hawk and Animal rule! Rip! I'm pretty sure this song and the LOD led me to guitar! Great videos, Mike! Thanks🤘

Tony did it as easy he could because of the fact he had lost the tips of his fingers that you use to make the chords, he made his own prosthetic fingertips, but he still had to simplify a lot of his playing, which made it easier for me to learn, I didn't use and don't use tabs cause I don't know how, but I'm ear and sight learner. Some people say that playing by ear and sight is hard, but not for me, guess I was just born this way. I'm too old to learn anything else now. Thank you for showing a new generation how to not suck through no fault of their own, bad tab books are to blame for a many guitar players bad playing, shame on the people who publish it

I learned to play the opening note accidentally when tuning the E string and my friend said, "Hey, that sounds like Iron Man." I played it by turning the tuning peg up and down for years. Then I saw a video of Jimmy page doing a behind the nut bend (Song Remains The Same maybe?) and was blown away!

This reminds me of the time Marty Friedman first heard Into The Void. He was so confused why his playing sounded wrong and convinced that Tony Iommi was untouchable, until he figured out that it was tuned down.

I have this book. It was the first tab book I bought way back in 1988. I've always known it was off, but learned to make adjustments.

You need to find the Led Zeppelin books that were transcribed by a guy named Ray Donato in the 80s. I had the second volume which included a transcription to the Rain song that was presented as though it were to be played in standard tuning and that's how I learned it at 16. It had some weird chord shapes but it actually sounded cool

The main thing I've gathered from this video is that book learning will never be able to compare to learning from your friend Steve in his garage

Man, I've been playing this riff wrong. Thanks for the great lesson.

That book is a complete disgrace. The solo to Planet Caravan is all over the place. I think whoever did it understands music but has never played a guitar.

@mrbigglesworth_Official

2 жыл бұрын

Very true, the solo for PC in that book is a mess

@eddierayvanlynch6133

2 жыл бұрын

A lot of the older tab books were written by piano players, especially the easy or "EZ" guitar books. I have "Pop Hits" books written for trumpet and sax that were an equal waste of cash. (Wrong rhythms, key signatures, etc.) Music publishing has been a bit of an oxymoron for anything non-classical for decades.

@aligatorsandwitch72

2 жыл бұрын

My guess is it was written out in standard notation in some rudimentary PC software and used a script to generate the tablature. IMO this explains all the weird positioning issues.

I'd love to see you take a look at some old Guitar World magazine tabs. I lived and died by those as a kid!

I remember getting my first electric guitar (standard strat) and learning this song soon after, and chipping off the edge of the nut at the low e string from bending behind it. Haven't played that part since ;-)

Like 2 weeks ago I was watching something live streaming from Kyle Dunnigans and I saw you donated to his page. I've been watching so many of your vids since then. Yo!

I feel a lot of us are tab players, me included, and yes I have this book. Thank you SO MUCH for these videos on correcting bad tabs!!

I've been really enjoying your bad tab books series. I came to the guitar in the 90s and the tab books that I learned on were awful. They really did make it very difficult to learn. A lot of teachers were still insisting that you learned how to read notation (which is still an excellent idea BTW) and play off the non tab books which were also notated wrong 🤯. The attitude was that real musicians only read notation (and DO NOT play rock and metal) and you don't get to be a real boy until you read it also. It was the stone age of guitar education! Very frustrating. I'm glad I stuck with it though, learned music, and lived to be a guitar player in the golden age of guitar learning with youtube! An interesting side note: Many of the worst tab books I have ever seen had the distinctive Hal Leonard label on the cover. They've gotten better, but in the 90s they were laughably bad books. Great job! Rock on!🙂

I have this book, and I agree with your critiques! I've tried to learn other Sabbath songs, and I will find tab on the Internet instead of looking in this book! Who knows what is right in it? Great work in your videos!

Used that same book. Found similar with the song Paranoid was a step up. My singer hated me when I first played it wrong.😅

Damn man, if you were my teacher, I'd sign up in no time. You have the best vibes.

Love this channel

I notice you got the slash pick ups I like them I put a set in my 2017 les Paul studio really gave me that 80s sound I was looking for got a nice crunch but clear great sounding just on clean as well

The half step tune down was a standard thing for Tony Iomi. He had issues with finger pain/arthritis and regularly tuned his guitar down to lower the tension.

@Freddie-Stinkler

11 ай бұрын

what about in the beginning of war pigs where you play the open E string along with the power chords? The guitar is tuned normally there. The same can be said for the solo where he also plays the open E string along with the A string.

I always thought I was bad,at figuring out songs,,,but I have found so many bad tabs,, im back to doin it myself.

That book isn't wrong. It's the tab for the live at Twin Peaks version

There is also a bass tab book for the We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'N' Roll compilation. It also contains a lot of errors. This isn't surprising because many of the bass lines are really difficult to make out.

It's so satisfying to hear him play it in the wrong key, and then suddenly hearing it the right way.

Dude, please please get a band together and do a cover of this song, following the tab book. It would be absolutely hilarious. 😂😂😂

There were so many parts in countless books that just sounded insanely wrong to me. All I had done on the violin for years was to make up the parts I didn’t know or thought I was not skilled enough to play. I’m glad to know it’s certainly better in the long run. Thank you for confirming so much misleading information should just be ignored.

Sick shirt Mike.

Bending that first bend behind the nut was how I learned it in 1990.

I have this book! Spent most of my teenage years thinking everything sounded off and have spent most of my adult life re learning these songs correctly.

As I posted on other videos, these were never transcribed by people. This was done via computer software back in the day. The “transcriber “ only reviewed and if it was good to go it was published. Transcriptions only got better as technology transcription software improved.

I own like everybook you have done this for....way too funny

I learned to play guitar back in 85 to this sabbath anthology

Great video, factually very accurate. I saw a live Sabbath video years ago and noticed how he played a lot of classic riffs up high. He played really light gauges on account of his hand injury, perhaps 8-gauge on this. I wonder if his reliance on the low E is to compensate a bit? The main riff just feels better to me at the 2nd fret position with my 10-gauge setup. But the other riffs should be played at the original positions for all the reasons you mentioned.

The sad thing is some of the tab books that are bad that you exposed, it’s like my tab book library lol. I’ve got this one and the Metallica and justice for all book you also covered. I didn’t spend too much time with the books and I’ve always known the tabs in books were off, so I sort of expect it.

Wow the Road Warriors were what introduced me to this song and to Sabbath too.

Best series on KZread.

What is that tailpiece all about? I've never seen one like that.

@stefanhambleton4808

2 жыл бұрын

Looks like it might be a les trem 2.