Rock Goes Classical

Those are good songs . . . not too sure I'd want to learn them on the guitar though . . .
but speaking of Moondance . . .
I'd like to be able to play Moonshadow (Cat Stevens) . . .
that one would be easier to sing for me . . .
and it's not in the Easy Song database.

Joe, I have this book. It's a nice collection of fingerstyle arrangements that are mostly pretty good. These are not going to sound like the recordings that we're familiar with, but they're fun to play. I really like the arrangements of "Vincent," "American Pie," and "Nights In White Satin."

I'm impressed that you're not intimidated. I certainly wouldn't call this a book for beginners.

I don't know about writing out the tab. If your goal is to learn to read standard notation, that might not be the best approach. It's kind of like trying to learn another language and having to translate everything in your head. I think that just writing down some hints about the more difficult fingerings would be better. Since I learned to read standard notation before tab was in use, maybe someone else can jump in with an opinion here.

I can't really comment on learning to read notation from difficult songs... I am still at the beginning stages of learning notation and still only using basic, single note beginner songs. I was trying to learn notation early on my learning it by looking at tab... but I have found that doesn't work. I really have to learn the fretboard, notes, etc and basically pretend that tab does not exist. Learning that a "C" note is here, and a "G" note is there doesn't help me. But, properly learning the notes structure and placement on the fretboard is working.

One thing that made me realize that learning the notation/tab method would work is when my wife finally was convinced to pick up my guitar. She reads notation fluently (she plays a piano, clarinet, mandolin). I showed her a basic song and her only question was "what are the 6 strings' notes?". After a few seconds of playing around, she pretty much played the song I had been practicing for 3 days perfectly. However, she did not play it on the strings that I was learning to play it on. That made me realize that the "NOTE=POSITION" (notation to tab) method would not work. There is a lot more to it than that.

I hope that made some kind of sense.

On a related note...

Jawmunji has some tabs/notation arrangements of some popular music. Most of the songs are way too advanced for me to attempt using notation. I do have some of his arrangements in my practice binder but read the tab for them.

I suggest checking out his site if you want to learn some popular songs in a fingerstyle arrangement.

http://jaw.iinet.net.au/stuff/tab.html

I don't know about writing out the tab. If your goal is to learn to read standard notation, that might not be the best approach.

I think I disagree, at least in the way that I learn. I think that translating it to tab helps me out in knowing by sight what I need to do. I noticed that after writing down the 3rd line I was just flying by because I knew exactly what note and where it was on the fretboard.

I've done the first page and a half of "House on Pooh" corner and it was kind of neat to find out that the intro is actually Winnie the Pooh from the show in a wierd sort of way.

I do a very similar thing. I don't write the tab but I do some annotations about how to play some bars (usually in the book or with post-it). At the beginning I didn't take these notes and if I didn't play that song for a whiel, I forgot where to play each note.

Moreover it is more or less usual this kind of annotations in partitures (at least the partitures for beginners) for several instruments. For example, you can read what finger must use for each note in partitures for piano.

I think there are two terms or concepts: "reading" and "sight-reading". Obviously this approach is not appropriate for the second but it is compatible with the second.

Written exercises and transcription definitely helped me a lot. I'm working through a fretboard workbook and I'm finding that the written repetition of learned concepts is really helping me learn.

Those are good songs . . . not too sure I'd want to learn them on the guitar though . . .
but speaking of Moondance . . .
I'd like to be able to play Moonshadow (Cat Stevens) . . .
that one would be easier to sing for me . . .
and it's not in the Easy Song database.

You could start here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swlnuiOQsBk