12 Reasons Why AJFA is the WORST TAB Book Ever Made!

***I found out they fixed a lot of these mistakes and the-released the book eventually. I’ve never seen it but apparently you can still buy this old, messed up, version as well. I’m glad I got the bad one for nostalgic and collectors purposes but I recommend the revised edition if you’re learning. I think. Haha.***
-Imagine my excitement when I first got the book as a kid, and my torment when it steered me in so many wrong directions. :/
Thanks!!!

[astroandyborgloh]

OK, but the AJFA bass-tab-book is correct: 96 empty pages :-)

[thoughtsbeforesleep]

The worst part is that when you're a beginner you tend to assume the tabs are correct and that the problem is with you, even when they are so obviously off the mark. Even when the actual notes were right, sometimes the locations they wanted to you play them made them way harder than necessary!

[prometheustv]

I guess you could say the tab book didn’t do the album Justice. 😂

[STRENGTHTHRUJOY]

A sad thought: Imagine how many kids who might've contributed something to the world of guitar who gave up because the horribly wrong transcriptions killed their love of the instrument.

[TheJerseyNinja]

So funny story. The first tab book I every bought when I was learning how to play was the death magnetic one, then a few months later I went into guitar center to get the AJFA one that I saw before and it wasn’t there anymore. I asked the guy if they had any more and he said “we pulled them off the shelves. Trust me little man, you don’t want to waste your money on that book” I thought he was being an ass and saying he hated Metallica or something which offended me so I was upset and asked him why would learning Metallica be a waste of money? And he said “no man, the book is so wrong you’ll actually be so upset you spent your money on it. Blackened is so unbelievably wrong, just that tab by itself makes the book a waste of money” then he gave me a copy of one he made himself which was spot on and perfect for free. Now he’s my hookup at guitar center to this day for things just released or out of stock things and employee discounts and such

[josh]

When James and Lars purposefully tab out the songs wrong so nobody will steal their music.

[Jakemetal]

This is what happens when people who only play piano try to transcribe guitar

[Kylora]

Anyone who tabs a G power chord as [3x00xx] is a cop.

[dadbrad]

Wow, decades of exonerated frustration released with this video. The healing begins.

[PGD]

I remember 17 years ago my guitar teacher was trying to walk me through the To Live Is To Die intro out of my copy of this tab book and he kept saying "what? they're crazy" and making corrections with a pen. I had only been playing guitar for a few years at that point so I thought it was a strange concept that a book could be wrong because I held it up as being this definitive thing, but I'm glad my teacher made those corrections. It's just too bad we didn't go through the rest of the songs because they did perplex me later when I tried to learn them on my own.

[kbotmac]

Man, this book messed me up when I was a teenager. I still have it after all these years.

[nathanjewett]

The funny thing is that I’ve had this book for over 15 years. I started playing guitar at age 12 to rebuild the strength in my left hand after a horrible accident. Due to that accident I am unable to move my pinky and ring fingers separately so I had to adjust how I play some songs and take “shortcuts”. Due to this I never actually realized AJFA tabs were wrong. I just assumed I was playing them incorrectly due to my injury and inability to move all my fingers separately. I adjusted the song tabs accordingly to make the songs sound closer to how they are on the album. In doing so, I inadvertently taught myself how to play the songs closer to the right way than how the tabs said to play them.

[timg]

As a newbie guitar player, the Blackened tab in particular was incredibly frustrating for me. I remember going to the Sam Goody in the mall just to learn the riffs to that song and feeling like I sucked because I could never get it to sound right. It never even occured to me that the tab could be wrong because it was the "official" tab book as far as I knew at age 17. I just figured that I was doing something wrong. It was very discouraging.

[vodkaman]

I remember trying to learn Smells like Teen Spirit from a transcription in a guitar mag and it was arguably too accurate notating all the aspects of Kurt's loose style of playing where the main riff would be annotated every repetition because sometimes Kurt hits an extra string or causes an <ah> because left hand finger isn't fully depressed. I spent forever trying to learn it note for note, until a friend told me I needed to concentrate on getting that loose feel, playing along with the song that trying to recreate every one of Kurt's imperfections.

[joetroutt]

This album mystified me being a drummer. Lars did so many different fills and beats it was just hard to wrap my head around it all.
My ear wasn't as trained as it is now though.

[SignalsMusicStudio]

LOL Incredible video, this is bringing back all sorts of painful memories from my early guitar playing... really fun to watch and I didn't even realize how bad it actually was!

[jaybee-]

Oh my ! all those years of grinding and grinding and grinding and thinking that I suck suck suck... I felt this video in my soul

[michaelcaits]

You realise, of course that pre-1998 most “Guitar” books were actually written by keyboard players. In fact some of the worst books written had no tablature at all. I also recall that any Guitar books published with tablature were often rife with incorrect chord inversions and rhythm errors, because the limitations of the software being used “corrected” visual anomalies that occur with cross-string, cross-octave and extended voicing notation. Spare a thought for the guy who transcribed Metallica’s AJFA - his dreadful errors are enshrined for eternity!

[Matru]

I'll see your AJFA tab book and raise you Megadeth: Rust in Peace tab book

[richardjones]

I don't play any musical instruments, understand zero of what you're talking about, but I love watching your videos!!