"Sharks" 
Easy Guitar Tabs

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. 

Perfect for beginners

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.

Good finger practice

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. 

Play it for them so they know where it's going

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).

They will think they don't need to read the notes...

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.

Start building the counting habit

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. 

For the full creepiness effect, find the Jaws trailer

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.

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About the Author

Dana Thynes

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.