Ultimate Guitar Websearch

Guitar I
Directions:
1. Follow this link: https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/
2. Complete the tasks given in the left column. In the right column, replace what I’ve
written with either the answer to the question or a screenshot of what I ask you to
find.
3. Click the “SUBMIT” button when you are finished

Extra info:
- PLEASE ask for help if you get stuck or confused.
- You have three full class days to finish this
- If you finish early, either make-up or re-do past assignments OR find a song you
would like to learn and learn it!
 Task and Steps Screenshots or Answers

The front page gives you quick access to lots of

areas of the site. While people usually come here
for music, there are also helpful video lessons,
forums, and places to share yourself performing.

From the front page, locate the “Explore Tab

Catalog” box and click on the “2000s” link
under “Decade”

This is a list of all the songs on the site that were What are the titles and artists of the three most
originally released between 2000 and 2009. popular songs from the 2000s?

On the left side of the screen, you can further filter 1. Coldplay - yellow
by things like difficulty, tuning, and genre. 2. Coldplay - viva laa vida
3. Keane - somewhere only we know
Scroll until you find two different versions of “Hey
There, Delilah” by The Plain White T’s?

Let’s find out why. Click on either of the

versions you see.

This is what music pages generally look like on this 1. Official

site though (obviously) the actual text of each song 2. pro
will be different. The song itself appears in the 3. Chords
center and right of the page, while the top and left 4.Tabs
have more navigation and search options. 5. guitar pro
6. power
Look at the left column at “More Versions” 7. video
8. ukelele
9. bass

Ultimate Guitar works similarly to Wikipedia - Based on this star/reviews system, which version of
anyone can submit a song and, after reviewers look “Hey There, Delilah” is most likely to be accurate?
it over and approve it, it will be published on the Which do you think will be the least accurate?
site.
Most: Hey There, Delilah (ver2)
This is important to note - nothing here is Least: Hey There, Delilah (ver8)
absolutely perfect. These are all community
submissions by guitarists from around the world
who have figured songs out on their own and typed
them out here. So each of these “versions” are
different ways the people have figured out how to
play this particular song.

When picking a version to learn, there are two

important things to look at - how many stars it
has (5 is good, 1 is bad) and how many people
have reviewed it. A song with a high star rating
and lots of reviews will probably be pretty
accurate, and a low rating with a low number of
reviews is less likely to be accurate.

Look towards the bottom of your screen. It scrolls along with the music to make it easier for
the musician to play.

Towards the top of the screen is a search bar.

Let’s say that I really want to learn how to play

“Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd.

Type “blinding lights”into the search bar and

click “search”.

This is where most newcomers get confused - there

are a lot of songs here!
City of blinding lights
Scroll down and see how many other songs came
up as suggested results because they have a title
similar to “blinding lights”.

Scroll up to the top of the search results page.

The first results have just “The Weeknd” as the artist, but the next section lists “The Weeknd feat.
Rosalia”. It’s really common for songs with featured artists to be listed several times - both with, and
without, the featured artist. This is also true of remixes, live versions, radio vs. album edits, and any
other specifics of a performance. If you’re looking for a song with multiple variations or contributors,
you may need to look for different combinations of listed artists.

Notice also that some of the song titles say “Blinding Lights Intro”. These won’t show you how to play
the whole song, just the opening section.

Look all the way to the right of the page under the What are the other possible “types” that appear on
column heading “Type”. this page?

The first type listed is “Official” followed by “Pro”. 1. Official

2. Pro
3. chords
4. Tab
5. Guitar pro
6. Bass
7. Video
8. Ukulele
9. power
These “types” refer to a few different things.
“Bass”, for example, means that that version is
designed for the bass guitar, “Ukulele” versions
are designed to be played on the ukulele, etc.

“Official”, “Pro”, and “Guitar Pro” all have lots of

built in features and are generally highly accurate,
but they require premium subscriptions.

For the most part, you’ll be using either “Tab” or

“Chords” versions.

Click the “back” button to return to the search

results page

Usually, all of the information you’ll need to learn

Dm, Am, C, G, G/F, G/E
to play the song is on this page somewhere.

Yes , the Capo on 3rd fret,

Around the middle of the screen, find the heading The song strumming pattern is in that speed and it
“Strumming”.

Some songs will give you the strum pattern written

out. The notation is a little different from what we
use in class, but it should be similar enough that is showing it .
you can figure it out.

If not, though, click the play button next to

“whole song”

Scroll down a little bit to see the Intro, Riff, and

Verse 1 of the song.
Have you ever seen or used music written out like
The Intro and Verse work the same way we learned it is for the Riff? If so, can you briefly describe to
in class - the chords given are played with the me how it works?
strum pattern you found above. (if you haven’t, don’t worry, we’ll learn this next
semester)
The Riff, though, is written differently.

It shows the chord placement .

Let’s say you really did want to learn this song, but Now, what are the four chords you can use to play
the Dm chord is too hard for now. the song?
Em , G , D , C/D
Look to the bottom of your screen and find the
word “Transpose” near the “Autoscroll” button
you found earlier.

Not all songs have this “Transpose” feature, but

most do. This will change all of the chord names by
the same amount, and sometimes you can find
combinations of chords that are easier (or harder)
to play.
Click the “+1” to the right of the “Transpose”
button and see what happens.

Keep clicking until a “7” appears next to

“Transpose”. This means you’ve moved the chords
up 7 half steps, or 7 frets.

Using the “Transpose” feature can make the chord

shapes easier to play, but it won’t sound like the
real song unless you also move the capo. This can Since we were already on Capo 3, and we hit “+1”
be kind of hard to figure out, but generally, you 7 times, what fret would our capo be on now?
would have to move your capo up one fret for each Fret2 .
time you click the “+1” button, or down one fret
for each time you click the “-1” button.

Try playing just the chords of the two versions

of the song we’ve found. Which of these two versions would you rather learn
to play and why? (There’s no right answer here -
Dm, Am, C, and G with Capo on Fret 3, and just tell me your opinion and why)
Version 2 because it is much each with knwn
Am, Em, G and D with Capo on Fret 10. chords and placement of the chords is easy.

Scroll back to the top of the page. Look through the list (notice that there are
multiple pages, sorting feature, and filters) and
In the top left, click on the word “Tabs”. This find 3 songs that you recognize and might enjoy
takes you back to the most popular songs list. learning to play on your own.

Under the heading “Explore Tab Catalog” click Copy and paste links to those three songs here:
the “Chords” button. This will show you the most 1. Die With A Smile
popular songs that have chord versions. 2. Perfect
3. Birds Of A Feather
Now, think of a song that you like that wasn’t on
this list and type the title or artist into the
search bar at the top of the page.

Using the steps we learned earlier, select the

version of the song that is most likely to be
accurate and has a chord version, and click on
it.

With any time that you have left, try learning the song that you chose.

Remember that you can use the “transpose” feature to help you get an easier set of chords, as long as
you also remember to move the capo (I can help you with this step more if it didn’t make sense the first
time).

If, after a while, you decide that you don’t actually want to learn this song - that’s fine! Search up
another one and try it instead!

I am not going to ask you to learn or play this song in class, but you should keep
working on it (or any other songs you think of) just for fun. Not only will you be able
to play songs that you enjoy, but you’ll start to notice lots of improvement. :)