Final Fantasy IX - Melodies of Life

auriplane

Joined: Sep 06 2008

Well, actually I do have some constructive feedback. I noticed you don't make use of positions in your guitar tabs. In this one, it turns out just fine because the only time you'd need to go past first position is here:

e--2-5--5-7-5-3-3-2-2-0-0-

So this tab is great. But I went back and looked at your FF4 theme tab. Now, that's a decent tab too. But on that one as soon as you hit any high notes you end up entirely on the E string, like so:

e---0-3-2-3-7-5-3-5-5-8-7-8-12-10-8-10-7---7-8-10---10-8-7---

Now I'm sure you can play this, and I can too, but at some point you should try to learn to use the higher frets on other strings too. In terms of "position playing", at any given time your left hand should have one fret per finger, so first position means index on 1, middle on 2, ring on 3, pinky on 4. In any given position you can stretch a bit (at least one fret up and down by stretching your fingers apart, and more when you're higher up the neck), so it's not an iron-clad rule.

But anyway the reason I say this is because, let's say we're looking at this part:

e-----------2-0---0---------------2-0---0-0---0-3-2-3-7-5-3-5-2---
B---0-3-2-3-----3---2-----0-3-2-3-----3-------------------------3-
G---------------------2-------------------------------------------

This song goes up to 7. That's past first position, so normally we'd want to switch positions at the beginning of the phrase, if possible. So, like this:

e-----------2-0---0---------------2-0---0-0-----------7-5---5-----
B---0-3-2-3-----3---2-----0-3-2-3-----3-------5-8-7-8-----8---7---
G---------------------2-----------------------------------------7-

This is easier to play! Not a whole lot easier, but it helps. It's more important in the next part:

e---0-3-2-3-7-5-3-5-5-8-7-8-12-10-8-10-7---7-8-10---10-8-7---
B------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, all on one string. We're already in fifth position (frets 5-8, index sliding up to 4 and pinky down to 9) from the changes in the earlier part, so let's start by putting this in fifth position as well:

e-----------7-5---5-5-8-7-8-12-10-8-10-7---7-8-10---10-8-7---
B---5-8-7-8-----8--------------------------------------------

Just doing that, we have much less jumping around the neck to do! We still go up to seventh position from fifth, but it's a lot easier. Of course, this song fits entirely in the range of one position, so if you *wanted* to (I'm not saying that you're supposed to do it this way or that your tab is wrong, just pointing out that you can do it this way), you could write the entire tab in ninth position, like so:

e-----------------------------------------------------------------
B-----------------------------------------------------------------
G-----------------------------------------------------------------
D-------9-12-11------------9-10-12-10-9---------------------------
A----10---------12---12-12--------------10----10-12--10-12--10-10- x2
E-12---------------------------------------12---------------------

e---------------------------------------------------------
B---------------------------------------------------------
G--------------11-9----9--------------------11-9----9-9---
D---9-12-11-12------12---11------9-12-11-12------12-------
A---------------------------12----------------------------
E---------------------------------------------------------

e-----------------------------------------------------------
B--------------12-10----10--------------------12-10----10---
G---9-12-11-12-------12----11------9-12-11-12-------12------
D-----------------------------12----------------------------
A-----------------------------------------------------------
E-----------------------------------------------------------

e------8-----8--12-10-8--10---------8--10---10-8-------
B---10----12----------------12---12---------------12---
G------------------------------------------------------
D------------------------------------------------------
A------------------------------------------------------
E------------------------------------------------------

Notice how it's still ninth position even though there's some 8s; when the index finger reaches up a fret but the other fingers stay put, that's still called ninth.

Of course, you can choose not to put everything in one position; changing positions, even frequently, is perfectly legitimate, and putting the whole thing in ninth position changes the timbre pretty significantly. (It also lets you put vibrato on all the notes that used to be open notes!) But you can play most of the song in first position and switch positions when you need to, and make a much easier tab than when you put an entire section on one string.

Anyway I'm pretty long-winded, but that's it . . . :-)