“They were all over the place!”: Opeth guitarist criticises official tab books that are “completely wrong”
The world of guitar tabs is currently dominated by websites driven by user contributions, so it’s natural to be sceptical of any given tab’s accuracy. But official tab books are supposed to be 100 percent accurate, right?
According to Opeth guitarist Fredrik Åkesson, as a child, he came across numerous tab books from high-profile artists littered with errors.
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In a conversation on the Everblack Podcast, he recalls transcribing songs for the Swedish band’s latest album, The Last Will and Testament, and how his experience as a kid drove him to ensure total accuracy.
“It’s transcribed properly, all the parts,” he asserts [via Ultimate Guitar]. “And then me and Kevin – the guy that transcribes – it’s kind of amazing. You sit there in a Zoom meeting, and it’s reading and playing the solos I did, so it’s sight reading at the same time, like, ‘Oh, that note shouldn’t be in that position, it should be there.’”
He goes on: “We really went through [it] super picky because when I was a kid buying those tablature books, they were all over the place. They weren’t accurate at all, you know, Rising Force with Yngwie, then looking at it – ‘This is completely wrong.’”
But despite the prevalence of inaccurate guitar tabs, Åkesson says it’s easier to learn songs now than ever before thanks to advances in technology.
“Way back when you were trying to figure stuff out, you set a little cassette tape and tried to slow it down,” he says. “It took more time to reveal guitar secrets. It’s easier now. That’s good, I mean, use the tools that are available, it will probably make you learn and absorb stuff faster.
“But this is cool with the book we’re doing because we also did it for Watershed [2008] and In Cauda Venenum [2019] for the same company. So you get this program with it for free. Yeah. So you have the guitars, like four tracks – you can isolate each one and slow the tempo down and loop and etcetera.”
Opeth’s latest album The Last Will and Testament is out now.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
