Using a MP3 Player to Learn Songs on Guitar

How do you learn new Guitar songs? online?
I’ve been playing guitar for..hm…7 months now. I know plenty of chords, can strum and tune my guitar. Can slide and you know. But the thing is I CAN’T LEARN SONGS. And I don’t know why! You see, when you get a tab, then you’re playing NOTES. But like all average songs, that you use chords ans strumming and stuff, i don’t know HOW to KNOW how to play them. On ultimate-guitar.com, I get guitar chord sheets for different songs, and I know how to play the chords, but u see, writing can’t expain stum patterns and tricks and things…
How about sheet music? In sheet music, is there chords and tricks like written like notes and stuff.
I wouldn’t know cause I can’t read sheet music, and Guitar For Dummies says that’s completely OK.
But they’ll tell you anything since you’re a dummies right?
So how about all you guitar players, how do you learn new guitar songs?
Do you learn online? If you do, how do you?
If you don’t, how do you?

Thanks,
Dreamer
I’ve tried youtube, but they seem to never give me everything i need! =(
I already have Guitar Pro, but like i was saying, notes are easy to learn but what i need is chords and strumming things. Guitar Pro helps me with learning songs like…. Right here waiting
Good ideas, but i’m talking about chords, not notes.
THANKS <3

That was quite a ramble there ;P. I use a computer program for guitar tab called "Powertab" look it up on google, I’m sure you’ll find it for download somewhere. You know on ultimate-guitar how they often have ‘powertab’ written beside some of the songs? Those are files that you use on the program that show you what the notes are. Just click on one of those songs, download the file, run it in the Powertab program and press the play button up at the top. This will play the song as if in Midi format so you can actually listen to it while you’re watching the notes light up on the tablature lines right before your eyes. Another good program for that is Guitar Pro.
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The trouble with tabs is that (except for in extremely rare and special cases, which to me are so beautiful a tear comes to my eye) there’s no way to read the timing. The other problem is that you get a number, and not a note, which is practical but not very informative.

But they’ll tell you anything since you’re a dummies right?
- Not a bad book, but then again I’m not a "by the book" guitarist. They say it’s ok because let’s face it, a huge amount of people’s idols on guitar never learned to read music. They say, oh, well, Jimi Hendrix never learned to read music, but then again you’re no Jimi Hendrix. You don’t have to but man, does it help.

So how about all you guitar players, how do you learn new guitar songs?
- Any way I can. The best way I’ve found so far is using actual printed-on-paper books of tabs arranged for guitar, because there’s sheet music above the tabs that even if you have a hard time reading which note it is, learning the different symbols for note durations (quarter note, eighth note, etc.) isn’t that hard.

Do you learn online? If you do, how do you?
- The reason I prefer books is because this is the internet. Any idiot with an opinion is not only free to but also usually enjoys putting their two cents in. Not everybody who submits tabs to the tab engine has an idea of what they’re talking about, and it’s especially difficult for a beginner such as yourself to tell the difference between bad tabs and the tear-jerker tabs I mentioned before.

It was probably about a year and a half ago. I wanted to learn how to play The Trooper by Iron Maiden. So I did what any guitarist wanting to learn a song does, I went to ultimate-guitar.com and looked it up. What I found there was a needle in a haystack, and I don’t think I’ll see tabs so miraculously beautiful for a very long time. Above the line, someone had taken the time to write in the note durations, in a way that actually made sense. There were some tricky parts to that song, and because of the author’s great deed I learned it almost effortlessly over the course of the next few days. (This is the part where the tear runs down my cheek.) Beautiful, I tells ya, beautiful.

If you don’t, how do you?
- Listen to the song as you learn. You can get as much by ear as you can otherwise if you apply yourself. Experiment with music, try to figure out the reasons why the notes fall together the way they do. Practice regularly.
References :