Tab for full self accompaniment songs with rhythm/backing, fills & solos???

[Doug Anderson]

I love to play dobro and sing and I'm looking for tab for fun country, bluegrass, singer songwriter, Americana, pop, etc. songs that includes tab for chords/backing, fills and solos? I prefer GBDGBD but would be ok with other tunings too.

Most of the books, online stuff, etc. just have the solos or melody?

Any ideas where I can find these? OR other resources? Or good teachers for this style?

[Bill McCloskey]

I would suggest you check out Lessons with Troy. Great stuff there.

[Joel Monson]

I used Doug Beaumier's licks and Don Helm's style licks for the background of Doug's arrangement of Walkin' After Midnight

www.joelmonson.bandcamp.com

[Michael Kiese]

Hi Doug,

The best TABs are the ones accompanied by music notation, so you see what the TAB is doing on a staff of music. Try to prioritize that type of TAB if you find multiple versions of the song you're looking to learn.

TABs are a great way to quickly add songs to your repertoire and bulk it up.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with TAB, it is a means to an end, and it gets you playing.

That being said, I highly suggest that you pick at least 1 or 2 of your favorite songs and learn to play them on your own. The process of doing that is highly valuable. A lot of the traditional folk songs do not have complicated chord progressions, and they are highly learnable.

First figure out the chord progression and the form of the song, and then use that as a guide to find your positions on the steel. The melody will be right in those positions. Figure out the easiest and most economical way to play the melody, and you've learned the song.

Personally, I use a hybrid of both transcribing by ear and TAB/Notation. I can learn songs on my own, but I don't scoff at TAB as they can be a great resource.

I've studied a lot of Jerry Byrd transcriptions, which has been very helpful in "getting into his head" to see how he thought. I've definitely taken some pages out of his book. Why hack my own path through the jungle, when a master has already created a path right?

So to sum up, I'd recommend Troy Brenningmeyer's stuff, "Lessons with Troy". You can find his stuff on YouTube. He covers a lot of steel guitar playing, and has tons of resources which cover exactly what you're looking for. But don't let that stop you from tackling a song or two on your own. You'll be surprised at what you're capable of!

https://www.youtube.com/@LessonsWithTroy
www.LWTstreaming.com

Enjoy!

[Fred Treece]

If Troy has done a self-accompaniment lesson, I haven't seen it. Here's something I whipped up on TablEdit, hopefully it will help. Based on Travis-style guitar fingerpicking. the first 5 bars are all about getting the thumb doing alternating bass, the next 5 get more of a full chord sound going, and the lest 5 are the alternating bass with a fingerpicking pattern and ending with a fairly simple fill. Just G-C-D? There only about 9000 songs you could play with those chords

GBDGBD Tuning

Dobro Travis.png

[Fred Treece]

Wow, that turned out huge.

Remember to try to palm mute the alternating bass, just like Chet.

[Doug Anderson]

Here's something I whipped up on TablEdit, hopefully it will help. Based on Travis-style guitar fingerpicking. the first 5 bars are all about getting the thumb doing alternating bass, the next 5 get more of a full chord sound going, and the lest 5 are the alternating bass with a fingerpicking pattern and ending with a fairly simple fill. Just G-C-D? There only about 9000 songs you could play with those chords

GBDGBD Tuning

Dobro Travis.png

This is great! I really appreciate you sharing this.

[Doug Anderson]

I would suggest you check out Lessons with Troy. Great stuff there.

I spent a bunch of time on Lessons with Troy checking out several great lessons on backing, fills, solos, etc. These were VERY well done and there were lessons that gave specific licks with tab, other lessons that were a mix of tab and theory and other lessons that were concept lessons to help you understand the underlying concepts. They were VERY helpful for me.