PRESENCE - Volume 56
Inspiration For Guitarists
One of the biggest mistakes guitar players make when learning from tab is this:
They jump straight into the details before they understand the big picture.
Fingerings.
Slides.
Hammer-ons.
Exact fret numbers.
All important — but not first.
Before I play a single note from a tab, I always stop and ask three questions:
What key is this song in?
Which CAGED shape is this built around?
Where are my landmark pentatonic shapes on the neck?
That’s my GPS before I start driving.
Most players skip that step and just start memorizing turns.
A great example of this is Blue Sky by the Allman Brothers.
On paper, the intro lick looks like a bunch of scattered notes up and down the neck.
But once you pause and zoom out, everything gets simpler:
You can see:
The key the song is centered around - E Major (It’s usually the 1st chord of the song!)
How the phrases connect directly to familiar pentatonic landmarks
Suddenly the solo isn’t random anymore.
It’s organized.
When I learned songs years ago, I used to treat tab like a spelling test:
“Put this finger here… now here… now here…”
It worked — but only for that one song.
Now I treat tab like a map:
“This phrase is coming from Shape 1… this move connects to Shape 4… this lick outlines the chord…”
That does two powerful things:
First, the song makes more musical sense.
You understand why the notes work, not just where they are.
Second, the song becomes reusable.
Those same ideas show up in dozens of other tunes.
This is exactly what I teach students to do:
Before you play the tab, figure out:
The key
The main CAGED position
Your landmark pentatonic shapes
Then learn the details.
It’s a small shift in approach — but it completely changes how fast you learn songs and how much you retain.
So next time you pull up a tab, don’t ask:
“How do I play this?”
Ask first:
“Where am I on the neck?”
Your playing will get clearer, faster, and way more connected.
Talk soon,
Dustin
P.S. This is the same method I use in my GPS lesson linked below — learning songs by locating the key, the CAGED shape, and the landmark pentatonics before touching the tab. It turns memorizing into understanding.