I actually did it! I didn’t think I was going to be able to but I did!! Feels awesome 
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Having loads of fun with this lesson 
Worked out 3 of them so far and will attempt the other 3 as well:
- Molly’s lips: 5 min.
- Blitzkrieg bop: 15 min. (30 if you calculate wondering why my transcription was different from the first tab I found. Turned out the tab was wrong and I misinterpreted just 1 chord
) - All the small things: 45 min.
Really boosts my power chords as well. Didn’t put too much effort into them just yet.
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Whats wrong with Vaselines? 'bout the right timeframe for you. Anyway I am now sidetracked listening to “Dum Dum” so many classics on that LP, so no transcribing today.
(Diversion from Mollys Lips)
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I love this lesson Justin, but in the tips you shouldn’t have put the solution (talking about Polly here, haven’t done the others yet), you could’ve said that the verse starts with E5 and then make a couple more tips each with a small bit of information, because I tried figuring it out in my own, thought I had it and the tip showed me I didn’t, but it also “spoiled” any chance of getting it right on my own again.
As a beginner, I highly recommend Guitar Pro 8 for this exercise. The ability to add a song’s audio file (ripped from YouTube as an MP3) and then tab along is awesome. This is also a great way to familiarise myself with this incredible piece of software.
I’d gotten my hands dirty in the previous module tabbing out an acoustic rendition of a song I like played on YouTube.
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Never mind, I thought this exercise was going to be way harder than it turned out to be.
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Newbie Old Guy Question:
I am learning for the first time as a 60+ year old and having a wonderful time. I try to do everything Justin recommends and can see the progress so I don’t want to skip this. However, this lesson is intimidating primarily because the songs recommended for transcribing are much newer than my outdated tastes and very distorted. Can you recommend some older songs that would be perhaps more friendly to my 50’s, 60’s and 70’s acoustic loving ears?
Many thanks
Steve
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Agreed. Not my taste at all and to be honest not heard of any of the 6 songs listed! Not quite true I know some from the earlier lessons. Still don’t like them though. Never did really understand the attraction of Nirvana.
Have just listened to Molly’s Lips on YT. Couldn’t work out what they were playing even when looking at the video.
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another app I tried and found cool, is moises.ai - it lets you split instrument tracks, mute vocals, drums, etc and leave only guitar track. Also allows to put any interval on loop.
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This is my experience as well. I’ve tried a lot of apps like this, but Moises is in a class of its own (for now, at least).
Being able to effortlessly solo the guitar parts, slow them down, and add a metronome click makes transcribing so much easier!
EDIT: It also tells you what the chords are…which defeats the whole point of the exercise, of course.
But you can turn the chord display off while doing the transcribing, then turn it on to check your accuracy.
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I hope everyone who found this lesson a struggle is still with us and found that things eventually clicked. If not. why not? To those and newer students may I remind you that you are not expected to play pumping downstrokes at Ramones speed, this exercise is purely to find the right chords and learn to write them down in the order they are played. When it comes to playing along, even if you play one strum per chord you have completed the task. Don’t let any lack of technique spoil your achievement.
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I always thought that transcribing would be too difficult., But using Justin’s steps I’ve just tried Molly’s Lips. It took me about 15 minutes to work out the Chords and Rhythm. I even managed to play along. I’ll try something a little more difficult in the near future. Had a blast with this one. Have fun.
I’ve come back to this lesson and would love to say that all is good and I know what I’m doing. Unfortunately I can’t and have to say that I’m not seeing the point. How does this make me a better player? How does it help with chords & chord changes for example?
This still is the case! I had a listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVZtVOrIbF0I and knowing the chords from the JG lesson thought that I would be able to hear the similarity! Doesn’t sound like the same song to me.
I had a look at a video of this on YT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=268C3N2dDYk and couldn’t really hear the guitar (over the drums & vocals) never mind work out the chords being playing. It was just one wall of sound! How are we supposed to work out what is being played from this?
Justin makes a big thing of starting simple! Well if this is simple then I don’t see a way forward. Somebody made a point the other day (can’t remember who. May be one of the clubs) that frustration is good. In this case I’m not sure that it is.
What happened to the extra songs he says in the video that would be added?
The songs suggested in the lesson do not really appeal to me. But entering power chords as a search in Spotify revealed a number of interesting playlists with power chord songs.
This is how I ended up on 10 A.M. by the Black Keys. Not too difficult but challenging enough on finding the correct power chords. Once you have these, the embellishments are not too difficult either. It will have you jamming along with the song in no time. A feeling of success is always a good start!
I totally understand where you are coming from. I’ve been working on transcribing every day for about 6 months now, and it does get easier, but it can be very hard initially - I’ve still got a long way to go and make loads of mistakes.
With the Ramones song, I would start trying to get just the first chord. At the very beginning of the song hopefully you can hear there are three chords being played. One for 4 beats, then another for 2 beats and a third for 2 beats. This overall pattern repeats 3 times identically.
Try and loop the video so it only plays the first chord (the first 4 beats), and try and find a match by playing notes on the bottom string. It might take a while - if you think you have a match, check the whole power chord sounds right.
Once you have the first chord, then try the second chord and so on. Doing this one chord at a time is the way to get started.
It can take a while, but keep at it - your ear will improve with practice - if I can do it, anyone can!
I’ve listened to this over a dozen times today (incl. versions by Green Day & The Offspring, whoever they are) and still don’t get it. Too much going on, too much distortion, to make any sense of the chords. As I said if Justin thinks that this is an easy one then I stand no chance.
May have to give this section as miss as not seeing the benefit at the moment to me for playing songs.
One other suggestion that will work for me sometimes … can you sing the bass note of the chord?For this song, just sing or hum the note you can hear being played. Try and sing the note then turn off the track and find the note you are singing on the guitar. That works for me sometimes if there’s a lot of distractions in the track.
@mathsjunky Thanks for your help and assistance with this and to answer your question no I can’t sing/hum the bass notes as don’t know what they are. If someone said sing a C note I wouldn’t know what that is. Likewise if i hummed a note I wouldn’t know what I have hummed! I have had no formal singing lessons and to be honest I don’t like singing as I think I sound terrible 
Edit as bold!
Hi Stewart - I couldn’t sing you a C without any reference either, but what I could do is sing one if you played it on a piano (well, my singing isn’t great, but good enough to copy the pitch).
So what I’m getting at here is can you sing the notes being played, while they are playing - sing along to the tune? If I can do that, then stop the track I often find it easier to find the note I’m singing on the guitar than finding the note on the record.
That ability is called perfect pitch and only 1 in 10,000 people can do it. So don’t worry about that.
But you do need to be able to do this:
This is a skill that almost everyone can learn with practice.