TAB - ahh, now I get it!

[selma600]

Having acquired my first steel-string model, I decided to go learn a little about playing "bluegrass" style. (I keep getting asked to play for singing events...I hate just doing the same old chank-a-chank crap, so thought I'd refine it a little.) I found a good teacher to nip off to in between the classical lessons. He uses tab almost exclusively, so I finally have to learn it...and am finding it very nice. The only thing I would say about it is: you need to know the tune already, so you know the shape and dynamics of it; and/or improvisation (esp if the tune is unfamiliar) is important in using it. The other thing that it's helping me with is the whole "chording" technique, which is something I tend to gloss over.
Oh, well...it's fun, but I don't think I will be headed for the Opry anytime in the near future!!!!
One thing about playing for fun - it sends me back to my classical discipline with a much more relaxed attitude!
BTW, the dreadnaugt I bought is a "Blueridge" and is on a par with the Martins that my other two friends are playing at these things. This was a pleasant surprise. I had asked around and heard nothing but rave reviews for their guitars. So if you want a good steel-er without having to part with a lot of $$$$, this is a grand choice!

[Hucbald]

Having acquired my first steel-string model, I decided to go learn a little about playing "bluegrass" style. (I keep getting asked to play for singing events...I hate just doing the same old chank-a-chank crap, so thought I'd refine it a little.) I found a good teacher to nip off to in between the classical lessons. He uses tab almost exclusively, so I finally have to learn it...and am finding it very nice. The only thing I would say about it is: you need to know the tune already, so you know the shape and dynamics of it; and/or improvisation (esp if the tune is unfamiliar) is important in using it. The other thing that it's helping me with is the whole "chording" technique, which is something I tend to gloss over.
Oh, well...it's fun, but I don't think I will be headed for the Opry anytime in the near future!!!!
One thing about playing for fun - it sends me back to my classical discipline with a much more relaxed attitude!
BTW, the dreadnaugt I bought is a "Blueridge" and is on a par with the Martins that my other two friends are playing at these things. This was a pleasant surprise. I had asked around and heard nothing but rave reviews for their guitars. So if you want a good steel-er without having to part with a lot of $$$$, this is a grand choice!

I like using TAB if it's printed out as a seperate stave below the standard music notation (So you can get the rhythm from the standard notation) because it saves an enormous amount of time when memorizing a piece of music.

A lot of classical players are snobbish when it comes to TAB, but that's really an attitude borne of ignorance because the earliest music for fretted instruments was all tablature. In fact, if you look at the grand staff as set up for a piano, it is in fact TABLATURE: It tells you exactly which key to strike and with which finger, which is why reading piano music is so brainless.

Several years ago a very intelligent guitarist came up with a tablature type that had the rhythmic notes, stems, and flags etc. from standard notation incorporated into it. If the note head was black, the fret number was inside it in white, and if the note head was white, it had the fret number inside it in black. The stems, flags, and beams etc. were just like standard notation. And, with that type of TAB in a computer program, you could just drag the note to a different string line and change the fret number if you wanted to adjust the fingering for your personal preference (The program could actually recalculate the fret number automatically). It really was simple, elegant, and brilliant. It made reading guitar music almost as simple as reading piano music. Unfortunately, it didn't catch on.

I'm trying to think of an instrument for which standard notation is less appropriate than it is for the guitar, but I can't think of one. Why? Because there isn't one! This idea that standard notation is preferable for the guitar because it's erudite or something is just idiocy: What's advantageous about something that slows your progress and makes things infinitely more difficult? Nothing.

That said, I compose all my music in standard notation with all the tiresome and ponderous guitar finger letters and numbers, and all the goofy string and position indicators, so I guess I'm somewhat of a hypocrite on the issue. Oh, well.

Hucbald

[WillBee]

tab can be kind of a trap though, forcing you to use the fingering scheme of the author when a better solution may be available.

i'd say also that standard notation is useful if you want to communicate musical ideas with someone who plays something other than a guitar, since tab will be meaningless to them

[daniel711]

Posted by Hucbald:
A lot of classical players are snobbish when it comes to TAB, but that's really an attitude borne of ignorance because the earliest music for fretted instruments was all tablature. In fact, if you look at the grand staff as set up for a piano, it is in fact TABLATURE: It tells you exactly which key to strike and with which finger, which is why reading piano music is so brainless.
Standard notation evolved from tablature, the same way modern writing evolved from hieroglyphics. So, do you think we should be using hieroglyphics, because it's simpler? Well, that's the gist of you argument!! You fail to see that with increasing complexity comes increasing power, and increasing flexibility. You also obviously would rather think of yourself as a "guitarist", instead of a "musician". Imagine if every instrument had its own unique "code" for reading the notes! Sounds pretty "brainless" to me...

[Zak]

heh heh, well put, daniel!
:D

[George Richards]

Posted by Hucbald:
[b][quote]You fail to see that with increasing complexity comes increasing power, and increasing flexibility.

Tell that to the early-music crowd some time and see what happens . . .

[daniel711]

What "early music" crowd?? What does that mean??

[Hucbald]

What "early music" crowd?? What does that mean??

It means you're an ignoramus.

I CANNOT BELIEVE you actually think music notation evolved from tablature. Music notation evolved ENTIRELY within the vocal medium for, oh, about THREE-HUNDRED YEARS before it became standard to use it for instruments, And THEN it was primarily an organ-speciffic medium so far as "notation" for instruments was concerned (Which is one reason that the "grand staff" evolved as, essentially, "tablature for keyboards"). Most non-keyboard instruments had their own notation systems outside of standard practice throught the middle ages and well into the Renaissance. Jeez. "Edumacate" yourself, will ya?

Hucbald

[dap22]

Hey all,
I think ALL of you should try to get your hands on LUTE TABLATURE and compare it to what we call 'standard notation' and what we call 'tabs' You will find its about 50/50 on each side. Hucbald said that "several years ago a very intelligent guitarist came up with a tablature type that had the rhythmic notes, stems, and flags etc. from standard notation incorporated into it. If the note head was black, the fret number was inside it in white, and if the note head was white, it had the fret number inside it in black. The stems, flags, and beams etc. were just like standard notation." That actually sounds EXACTLY the same as what this guy named John Dowland did. Actually, so did his son, Robert. Wait a minute...no way, so did Francis Cutting, Juan Vasques, Luis de Narvaez, etc...get my point? The tablature system with "rhythmic notes, stems, flags, etc." is the form of tablature which the earliest fretted instruments used.

Check out the First Booke of Songes or Ayres, dated at 1597...at first glance that tablature will even appear moreso like our standard notation than our current form of tabs. Also, lute tablature often used letters...not numbers, to denote where on the fretboard to play the note. This of course proves a benefit with instruments that have moveable frets...such as lutes.

We have already had the tab vs. notation argument so many times before, and here we go again...ahhh....yikes :(
Before I begin, I am about to talk about our online guitar tablature, not the lute tablature which is infact greatly different.
Fact is, we are classical guitarists, a musician. We owe it to ourselves to learn notation as it offers many more benefits than tab. If you try to learn something based on TIME, and opt to take tab instead of notation for this reason only, then I pity you. Music deserves to be given the proper amount of time and study for the award that it gives you in return. Doing tab is like rote memorizing a book...it shuts off opportunity for improvement, creativity, difference, etc. Its hard to play a tab without havign previously heard the piece...and in that sense, you are merely copying, not creating.

Notation takes a bit longer for those untrained, but can infact, be extremely fast if you practice it often. Sight reading is expected and tested for when applying to most conservatories of music. In my auditions I was NOTasked to sightread a tab, instead, I was asked to sight read notation. With notation, you have the opportunity to create before completely learning a piece. You can play the piece with respect to the composer without having heard it before. You easily will understand the rhythm, syncopations, melody lines, musical text ideas (stacatto, leggatto, crescendo, forte, pianissimo, etc.) from merely looking at a piece in notation without playing it...I haven't even heard of or seen that done in internet tablature! I guess thats why people sight sing notation, but can NOT sight sing tablature.
Also, tablature forces you to play notes in the exact position listed. With notation, you pick what position to play in, where to add vibratto, which right hand fingerings to use...you cater it to whatever is better for you.

Do you understand the benefits of why notation is more desirable than tabs? There is a reason as to why notation is taught at music schools rather than tablature. Duh!

Now, memory was mentioned. Some said that tab is easier to MEMORIZE than notation. YIKES! It is not necessarily the form in which something is shown that makes it easier to memorize, rather, it is the method through which it is encoded. Now might be a good time for some to study Semantic Long Term Memory before they make statements of whcih they are uneducated.
Havign said that, it is possible that maybe someone finds it easier to memorize soemthing written in english than in spanish because english might be their first language...but lets consider this:
A tab only tells you what fret to play the note on. If it has the 6th strign (E) drawn, and has a 2 written on it, all you know is second fret...you don't know if it is F sharp or G flat
Notation: You can look at it and visually see whether the pitch increases or not. Then once you see the note, you learn where on the neck that note is...therefore, you will know that that F# written there is on the second fret. So you have memorized the form from visibly seing it (when pitches increase and decrease), you have then memorized the name of the note by reading it, and you have memorized the position of that note on the neck of the guitar from understanding what the name of it is.
Therefore, in Tab, you only physically encode the note 1 way, wherease in Notation, you encode it 3 ways (visually and physically).
The final step is our audition. We hear the pitches, we often end up memorizing the pitches moreso than the actual music. In tab, you only memorize what you have heard, but don't have anythign to connect it to. In notation, you memorize what you have heard, however, you are able to connect it to a visual image of the music staff through which you read.
Thus, notation would be easier to memorize than tab, and notation is more reliable because you have encoded the piece more ways than in tablature.

Finally, the Grand staff of piano is NOT WRITTEN IN TABLATURE. It is written in standard notation. Sure, piano only has one exact spot for each key, as opposed to the various differen enharmonic positions for the same note on different strings and frets on the guitar. Of course, though, the piano has a treble and bass cleft, wherease guitar only has treble cleft (unless you look at Dominic Frasca, who for ONE guitar, with no loops, composes often times using two treble clefts and a bass cleft...just go to his website www.dominicfrasca.com for examples)
Also, piano notation might tell you the exact position of the note (whereas guitar it is somewhat ambiguos) it doesn't tell you the exact finger to use. I am using Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart as a reference point in saying that...

I hope I have made myself clear.

[BigMac5]

What I don't like about TAB is that I end up thinking about strings and fret positions intead of which notes I am playing. With music notation I am always reading notes. I see a note in musical notationand I think A, B#, F#, G, not second string second fret.

[George Richards]

Reading standard guitar notation is simply a part of good musicianship, and there's no real excuse for not being able to do it if you plan to play classical music in any serious way. Reading music is not just about playing it, it's also about conceiving it, and in this way it's a powerful skill, even if you sight-read slowly. (If you play for fun, however, do whatever seems like fun.) For those playing repertories that were originally notated in tab, reading tab (and there are several types) can also be important and helpful, especially for baroque guitar, lute, and vihuela music.

I also think all guitarists should have some familiarity with modern tab, as it appears everywhere, but most notoriously in the pages of Guitar Whirled Magazine. True, tab places more focus on fingerings than pitch relationships, but fingerings can be very important, and you can learn a lot from working through somebody else's fingerings.

[daniel711]

Posted by Hucbald:
A lot of classical players are snobbish when it comes to TAB, but that's really an attitude borne of ignorance because the earliest music for fretted instruments was all tablature.
I CANNOT BELIEVE you actually think music notation evolved from tablature
Uh, whose the ignoramus??? So, Huchbald, do you just have short term memory failure, or are you just copying from a text book, totally out of context?? :lol: :lol:
Music notation started when Di Medici invented the solfege, and placed little round symbols on lines to depict the tones of Gregorian chant. Why don't you cut the nonsense with your "textbook terms" that you don't really understand, or if you do, can't explain in plain English. The "Grand Staff" came eons after the do,re,mi,fa..... single line chant notation. Who do you think you're fooling here? All pretension, no substance
:P

[daniel711]

Hucbald
_________________
B.M. Berklee
M.M. SWTSU
Ars longa, vita brevis.

Wow, that's alot of letters next to you name!! It just shows how far some people will go to avoid work :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Jubilee Valence]

Having acquired my first steel-string model, I decided to go learn a little about playing "bluegrass" style. (I keep getting asked to play for singing events...I hate just doing the same old chank-a-chank crap, so thought I'd refine it a little.) I found a good teacher to nip off to in between the classical lessons. He uses tab almost exclusively, so I finally have to learn it...and am finding it very nice. The only thing I would say about it is: you need to know the tune already, so you know the shape and dynamics of it; and/or improvisation (esp if the tune is unfamiliar) is important in using it. The other thing that it's helping me with is the whole "chording" technique, which is something I tend to gloss over.
Oh, well...it's fun, but I don't think I will be headed for the Opry anytime in the near future!!!!
One thing about playing for fun - it sends me back to my classical discipline with a much more relaxed attitude!
BTW, the dreadnaugt I bought is a "Blueridge" and is on a par with the Martins that my other two friends are playing at these things. This was a pleasant surprise. I had asked around and heard nothing but rave reviews for their guitars. So if you want a good steel-er without having to part with a lot of $$$$, this is a grand choice!..."....was created The DREADNAUGHT!....both Martin & non-Martin created He them...."--atta gal SELMA600!-way ta' go!!!!..."tab" does help for all the obvious reasons...me?..."ear" only......on the right hand aspect, you should have NO problem with Travis & Kain'tuck'ee Thumb styles--I'm a natural Hillbilly but the syncopation was a little tricky at first!( I had NO classical training at all..no P-I-M-A...)--So, Welcome! cous'....

[selma600]

...and then there's figured base....

I am starting to see tab as useful in two ways:
to "store" fingerings in a clear way
and as kind of a "sketch pad" for working out arrangements which can later be written out in proper notation.

just my deux centimes

[selma600]

![/quote]..."....was created The DREADNAUGHT!....both Martin & non-Martin created He them...."--atta gal SELMA600!-way ta' go!!!!..."tab" does help for all the obvious reasons...me?..."ear" only......on the right hand aspect, you should have NO problem with Travis & Kain'tuck'ee Thumb styles--I'm a natural Hillbilly but the syncopation was a little tricky at first!( I had NO classical training at all..no P-I-M-A...)--So, Welcome! cous'....[/quote]

Maybelle Carter lives!!!!!
Hey, I made my cursillo group and the sunday school kids learn "In the Highways!" (speaking of Maybelle)