I started with Justin Guitar last year at this time. I am still in grade one mode 6. I won my fantasy football league and have some money to spare. I am trying to learn Wish you were here by Pink Floyd. His YouTube lesson is good, but I wish I had the tab. I am thinking about buying the songbook and/or tab feature on this website. My question is should I try both or does anyone recommend one over another? I know it’s been asked before but I wasn’t sure in the way I asked it. Thanks Tim
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Hi Tim, here’s one opinion for you from an early Grade 3 beginner…I’d start with one of Justin’s books for now, and maybe think about subscribing to Tabs some time in Grade 2. In my experience, many of the tabs are more sophisticated than the song versions presented in the lesson, and often include lines for multiple guitars. That’s great as we gain skills, but at our early stages I’ve found it most productive to exercise the skills Justin is presenting in the lessons. Start with the book, and if that doesn’t feel satisfying get the tab subscription (renews annually) when you feel you’re ready. 
I’m curious about one thing: you mention the YouTube lesson…are you following Justin’s lessons through the website? If not, you really should do. There is supporting text for each lesson, and a tab pointing directly to the appropriate topic in this Community for the lesson.
Back to the books: do be aware that most of the songs in the books are not presented as full tab…in fact, in Beginner Songbook 1 and 2 there are no tabs. If you haven’t found this web page yet, you can see the contents of each book here.
Keep us posted on what you decide to do!
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Hi Tim,
The best thing for you is going to be based on how you learn. You may need to try a few methods before you figure out what works for you. There are probably low-cost and free options to experiment with before you commit to buy something.
I did not do well with chord sheets. This is what you will see in the songbook(s) Judi mentioned. I have the ‘Easy Guitar Songbook’ and do not see it for sale. I got mine from Amazon in the US. I found I did not use it, even though I was working with that app at the time and many of the songs were in the book that I was playing fom the app. I used the app through grade 2 and really liked it at the beginning, but noticed that I needed to get on to other methods by grade 3.
It looks like you enjoy the single note picking that is in Wish You We’re Here. This is probably better absorbed by tab and the video lessons than chord sheets. The chord sheets (and of course the video lessons) are good for strumming style songs. Make sure you are aware of the large library of video lessons and that you can filter by grade level, chords, and some other stuff.
What I did find and still do (I’m beginning grade 4) is that being able to slow down a song to play along with it works best for me. I also liked to see tab initially because it gave me quick access to the correct notes, but later I am using my ears a lot more and can pick out many things without the need for the tab.
So far, I think the most useful tool I have is the pruchase of Guitar Pro (Grade3, Module 19 has a lesson on using it). GP allows me to alter the speed of playback, enter my own tab, and is the file type Justin uses in many lessons when he has ‘resources’ available.
Creating your own tab is covered in (I think) grade 2, but the slowing of playback is the handy part you may like now. There are certainly free options for this, but GP is the tool I have chosen to get familiar with.
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thank you so much for taking the time to respond
Thank you for your response! I really appreciate it!
Re your comment about Guitar Pro - that is what I use also and I find it a very effective learning tool. As you say the BPM can be adjusted, I can write my own tab or adjust a tab to a different pattern. It’s also helped with getting an understanding of music notation. I have also imported tabs from Ultimate Guitar and then simplified them down to a Beginner level e.g. Three Little Birds.
I did complete grade 3 but am currently doing a more thorough revisit.
I have the Beginners Course book and the Beginners Songbook. I also subscribed to the Songs because, like you I don’t particularly like chord sheets and prefer to use tabs. I use these in combination with the website modules and the Practice Assistant. I have the app but I prefer to use the website.
so what you guys are saying is the song book uses the chords vs tab? I was kinda hoping it had both
I have both beginner songbooks, they provide the chords, lyrics and strumming pattern suggestions, but not tabs for riffs and solos and melody lines.
That being said, I find the books very useful for what they cover.
I’m also not a big fan of chord sheets. But they’re so pervasive that I’m forcing myself to learn how to use them. Still, I tend to prefer tab or even standard notation (with the chords written above) because they’re usually better at conveying necessary information about timing. I bet the guitar group I’m starting to play with is going to “love” me when I bring a song in a pro-looking tab format. So far, everything I’ve received from them has been in the chord sheet format.
Very occasionally, I’ll encounter a chord sheet that has additional timing information written out in some way or another. I’ve seen a couple different ways of doing it, and tbh, they’re all better than what is the most common. But usually, those come from someone who has taken a chord sheet and then added more information to it. I was watching a live online playalong my wife was doing last night and I’m pretty sure the lack of timing info for the chord sheet was messing up the playback. I knew most of the songs they were doing, and the guy running it kept getting ahead of where my wife and I both thought he should be, and I think what was happening was that the chord sheet would say to play a particular chord, but not for how many measures, and the guy running the playalong would play it for just one measure when it was supposed to be played for 2 measures.
As for resources to utilize, I find myself using Justin’s tabs a lot more often than anything else of his. Even the lessons, but I do at least use those. I have the songs app and just have used it some. But not a lot. It has been a help for me to start wrapping my head around chord sheets, though.
I bought Guitar Pro. I haven’t used it much, but as I get to more challenging songs, I fully anticipate transcribing stuff into it that I can’t find in the format I like. At least that was my intent with it.
I also like TrueFire. When I’m working on a new song, I will often combine information from both Justin’s song lessons and the song lesson on TrueFire. Each one has bits that I find really helpful, but it also seems like TrueFire lessons include more depth if you want to revisit a song later on as you gain more skill and wish to learn different parts of the song, or how to play it in alternate tunings (usually the case when the original song was played in an alternate tuning), and so on. Whereas Justin’s (beginner) lessons tend to cover getting you up to speed with strumming.
I’ve gotten some utility out of Ultimate Guitar, too. There’s some iffy stuff in there, too, so it’s kinda hard to use as a raw beginner, but the “official” and “pro” tabs in there tend to be quite good and have a player you can adjust for tempo, transcribe into a different key, and whatnot. The usual crowdsourced stuff is often written out in chord sheet format with strumming suggestions and I almost never like those. I also dislike the old school ASCII tabs that some people submit there. Timing information is often not conveyed to my preference in those. But again, the “official” and “pro” tabs you get access to with a paid sub (I got it for $25/yr last yr and it just renewed at the same cost) are worth it, IMO.
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I am trying the tab subscription and I guess I need to tinker with it a little. I was hoping it would follow along with the song or do I need to download the song app as well?
It does not follow real-time if that is what you mean. The tab is expected to be accurate as far as Justin is concerned. I have access to the tabs and have no complaint. You may still want to find a program to slow down the playback while maintaining the proper pitch. Do a search on the forums here for some options.
The song app is the beginner app. It has a follow-along mode, but it is showing you the chords for beginner strumming.
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Hi Tim, I was wondering whether you had visited the Wish You Were Here intro lesson in module 8? The website lesson has the tab for the intro and is a good place to start. I think the beginner songbooks are a good purchase regardless. The beginner songbooks do focus on the rhythm and strumming but that is a very useful skill to develop even if you only want to play lead or solo guitar. The beginner songbooks do have tab for the major riff or intro for some songs.
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