This easiest of easy guitar tabs, Sharks, will remind your students of the scary theme to the movie "Jaws."
Using guitar tablature and also standard notation, this great beginning guitar song uses just three notes -- A, B, and C.
Your beginner guitar players will find this piece very easy to master. Just one fret, to the next fret! Because it employs the ominous half-step melody sound almost everyone recognizes as inherently spooky, kids will enjoy learning it.
Please scroll down the page for the link to the free printable PDF.
And because Sharks is so simple, it is perfect for finger placement work. So often, kids want to use the same two fingers, 1 and 2, for every melody note, no matter where it is on the guitar neck. Or, even worse, kids like to slide the index finger from one fret to the others!
Students need to strive to match finger numbers to fret numbers in the early stages of learning how to play easy guitar tabs. In this song, that will mean LH (left hand) fingers 2 and 3.
I would demonstrate the guitar tune for them first. That way, they'll know that the seemingly endless back-and-forth of the B and C has a target -- the surprise "jump" to the open string A. (Of course, it isn't a jump, as the entire melody takes place on the A string, but it SOUNDS like a jump.)
Above the easy guitar tabs, the standard notation tells them how long each note lasts. There are only two kinds of notes in the rhythm: half notes (lasting 2 beats), and quarter notes (lasting 1 beat).
The repetitious nature of the first line of notes reinforces the need to carefully follow the notes with the eye...until your students have memorized the words of the song, they are likely to rush ahead, getting lost and tangled up in the notes. So slow them down with a finger or a pencil tracking the notes as they move along.
Separate out the rhythm from the notes WITH them by tapping on your own guitar and saying, "One (two), one (two), one (two)...one, one, one, one...!" etc.
Tap only on the "one" and whisper during the "(two)" of the half notes. As simple as this may seem, it is great practice, because many of your students will forget to wait two beats for the half notes at the beginning of this song.
They will gradually acquire the habit of counting under their breath if you are always doing it with them, and encouraging them to count aloud.
This is one of the best habits young musicians can form, because rhythm is perhaps the greatest difficulty in music...and yet it is the heart of music.
Forget about having your guitar students count "1-2-3-4," at least for a while. Too much going on.
Let them count each note as its own unit (quarter notes = 1, half notes = 2, dotted halfs = 3, etc.), until the note values are really solid, then gradually change them over. And eighth notes? Save them for later, or else teach the song by rote.
A much better, slower and creepier rendition of the Jaws theme song is the movie trailer, available at YouTube. The full creepiness of the song comes across, but I just couldn't bring myself to post it here, because the images are so disturbing (I'm pretty old-school when it comes to violence).
If you have found this blow-by-blow analysis of Sharks' easy guitar tabs tedious, then I suspect you've been teaching beginning guitar students for a while already!
Use what you can, and ignore the rest. Have fun with the Jaws theme stand-in, Sharks!
The link for Sharks:
Download free printable easy guitar tabs for Sharks guitar pdf
Becky:
A thousand thanks for your beginning piano and guitar songs.
I've already printed several for my children, including the Pretty Little Horses TAB and Carol of the Bells for piano. What a wonderful resource!
Naomi :
Hello and thank you for having so much to aid in the learning process for the for the guitar!
I am 56 and learning myself, and at the same time trying to teach my 7-year-old grandson as I learn. He has vision problems and I was wondering if these songs are printable so I can enlarge them.
Thank you for making such a great website!!
Dana:
Hi, Naomi, everything is downloadable and printable! You just need to scroll down each page until you come to the blue text links that say "Download Waltzing Matilda for guitar in the key of D" for example.
All the first-year material I give my beginner students.
Piano keyboard sheets, scales, chords, note-reading exercises, and over 256 pages of music!
This beautiful song book for piano & voice "Esther, For Such a Time as This", available as a digital download, tells the riveting story of the time when Jews in ancient Persia faced a foe named Haman, and how a brave young queen risked her life to save her people.
A good choice for a singing story-teller, an operatic group, a short theater production, or a class of children!
This book is also available from Amazon as a paperback.
This book is available as a digital download from this site. Visit this page to see some free examples from the book.
It is also available from Amazon as a paperback!
This is the perfect easy start for little pianists.
And when they start reading white-key notes on the staff, this is a fun easy resource to say each week, "Choose a new black-key song at home this week and figure it out to show me next lesson!" They will be spending more time at the piano.
A perfect read aloud storybook
for little boys or girls.
The Adventures of Tonsta highlight the travels of a very young boy with a good heart, who goes about helping folk in trouble.
With a red cap on his head and a sack of tools slung over his shoulder, Tonsta seems to meet people in distress wherever he goes.
Lots of trolls in this book - including one who gives him a Christmas gift!
Do you have a story or a question about teaching guitar? Do you think it is a hard instrument for beginners, or easy? What have been your challenges?
Please note that all comments are moderated, and will not appear until I have approved them. Also, IF YOU ARE ASKING FOR MUSIC THAT IS NOT IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, YOUR REQUEST WILL BE IGNORED. That's pretty much any music written in the last 75 years...
Hi, I'm Dana! (Say that like "Anna".) I'm the owner of Music-for-Music-Teachers.com, and a newer site, SingTheBibleStory.com.
Like some of you, I've been playing the piano since early childhood, and have added a few other instruments along the way, plus an interest in arranging and composing music.
You can find out more about me and the reason for this website at my About Me page.