How frowned upon is using guitar tablature?

[Jazzpunk]

There's a great anecdote on Dean Brown's instructional DVD where he recounts auditioning for Billy Cobham. Cobham put this really complex piece of music in front of him for his first tune! He said he got through it but could tell Cobham was not impressed. Than they jammed on a standard shuffle groove and he won him over and landed the gig!

I think it's a fantasy to think that in today's world, you'll get past the audition process at that level without being able to read the music that the composer puts in front of you. Nobody at that level is going to hand you tab that's for sure. As Dean's story proves though, if you've got the feel they're looking for you'll get a chance to smooth out the bumps before the next rehearsal!

[Space Pickle]

There's nothing wrong with using tabs if that's what you want (particularly if you're a recreational player) and you don't have to read a note to be a good jazz player - jazz is all about using your ears.

HOWEVER, the flip side of this is that TAB is *for* guitar players and it does something musical notation doesn't: tells you *which* C note to hit.

I don't buy this. IMO it's obvious which C note you should play when you put it in the context of the chart. Some stuff is easy enough that you can play it correctly in multiple positions on the neck. There can be many correct fingerings. For example, I was reading something down yesterday and it had a C7 voicing written in (CGBbE). There's only two ways to play that on the guitar: 5th string 3rd fret or 6th string 8th fret. Easy. It all comes down to how well you know your fretboard.

[czardas]

Originally Posted by fep

I think there are a small % of the players that can sight read fairly difficult pieces really well without having played or practiced the piece before.

I've heard that there are a handful of guitarists, maybe 5 to 10, that get 90% of the work in Hollywood and make a very good living doing it. Then there might be thousands of guitarists available for that other 10% and they can't make a living by only being studio musicians.

Sure there are a few players wth special reading skills, but some music is just technically too difficult to play convincingly without serious study. There is no session musician alive who could sight read a transcription of a modern Bulerias by Gerado Nunez or Manolo Sanlucar and do it justice. There may be a handful of players who could study this music for years and come close to emulating such mastery of the instrument, but sight read the music - not a chance. Admitedly TAB wouldn't improve the situation. I find TAB harder to read than written music. I agree that reading music is a good skill to practise, perhaps an essential skill for some styles of guitar music.

[Modalguru]

In most cases tabulature does not show time values. It also says nothing about tonality, accidentials, etc. You cannot communicate tabs to musicians playing other instruments.
I can read, but have used tabs alot before learning to read. Today it's still hard for me to concentrate on the standard notation when there's also a tab underneath. I've really thought about blackening all tabs...

Cheers, Modalguru

[czardas]

Originally Posted by Modalguru

In most cases tabulature does not show time values. It also says nothing about tonality, accidentials, etc. You cannot communicate tabs to musicians playing other instruments.
I can read, but have used tabs alot before learning to read. Today it's still hard for me to concentrate on the standard notation when there's also a tab underneath. I've really thought about blackening all tabs...

Cheers, Modalguru

I think one of the problems is that the books that focus on sight reading skills tend to be a bit dull. Once you have gone beyond Hal Leonard, it starts to get interesting. Knowing what music to buy isn't really so straight forward. My teacher composed his own elementary reading exercises. After this we went on to Sagreras Methods 1 and 2. These books are for classical technique and are written in Spanish, but reading this music was very helpful to me.

Books such as the William Leavitt Methods are really to be used with a teacher and are are less suited for a beginner learning alone. I would not recommend using them to start. Once you have found a good book, without going beyond reading one or two pages, each set of exercises should be repeated for several days until you can read through the music with just the occasional mistake. Then it's time to turn the page and work through the rest of the book in a similar fashion.

[Modalguru]

Originally Posted by czardas

I think one of the problems is that the books that focus on sight reading skills tend to be a bit dull. Once you have gone beyond Hal Leonard, it starts to get interesting. Knowing what music to buy isn't really so straight forward. My teacher composed his own elementary reading exercises. After this we went on to Sagreras Methods 1 and 2. These books are for classical technique and are written in Spanish, but reading this music was very helpful to me.

Books such as the William Leavitt Methods are really to be used with a teacher and are are less suited for a beginner learning alone. I would not recommend using them to start. Once you have found a good book, without going beyond reading one or two pages, each set of exercises should be repeated for several days until you can read through the music with just the occasional mistake. Then it's time to turn the page and work through the rest of the book in a similar fashion.

I don't use any books about sight-reading. I use transcriptions and method books. I only work on material, which can be applied to songs immediately. The only exercices I do are arpeggio and scale exercices, which my teacher shows to me. I do some chord exercices, too, which are always related to songs I am working on.

[czardas]

When I say books that focus on sight reading, I really mean methods that include reading exercises - that is a set of progressive exercises with one purpose in mind, ie to develop reading fluency. While it is not essential to be able to sight read music to play well, I think that many guitar methods fail to adequately address this skill, and tend to focus mainly on music written for performance instead.

[matt.guitarteacher]

Originally Posted by SwingSwangSwung

I hate to say it but if TAB has rhythmic values notated, I can site read it a lot better than I can standard notation. But that's because I grew up on tab.

I try to spend more time on standard notation these days. Peer pressure.

That's awesome.

[Dark Star]

TAB is like marijuana: It should be allowed, but only for one's personal use.
Really, TAB can be good to show a specific passage & how it is phrased, but the drawback in that it only displays that one passage. It's like those old "shape-notes". Very helpful, but you wouldn't want to be using the stuff as a mature musician.

[EinarG]

Sometimes, when I transcribe solos, I might tab out long phrases if they sound better played in specific strings and frets. But, when I learn melodies or write, if it's something that sounds very good, I just write what position I'm in or something in the lead sheet.

Most of the times I don't bother...

[JohnW400]

One of the best reasons to learn to read is that it opens up a wealth of music for other instruments that can be played on the guitar. Piano books, Violin, Clarinet, etc etc.

I worked out 3 Bill Evans arrangements from his piano scores. Of course I had to redo some voicings, but not as many as you would think. They are all chord melodies.

I've also worked out 2 Chopin pieces for guitar based off of the original Piano score.

The other books I've used are Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Violin. Looking for arpeggio studies, then that's the book for you.

To me TAB is actually more confusing. It's just a bunch of numbers. Looking at notes you can actually see the direction the music is taking. Scales look like scales. Arpeggios appear on the lines or spaces in order. I can look at a piece of music before playing it and get an idea of what's going on. Fret numbers don't do that for me. Understanding what you're about to read/play is half the battle

[kenbennett]

In my opinion, it is easier to show positions and fingerings on standard notation than it is to show time durations on tab.

When the music is complex, neither one will save you.

One of my guitar teacher friends does not allow any tab in his studio. I think that is the right approach for a teacher. Students will seek out tab if they want it, but for at least that one hour a week they are reading notes.

I'm not a great real-time reader, but I prefer notation to tab. Looking at notes I can figure out where to put my fingers faster than counting up which fret on what string.

It becomes sort of automatic. You see the note, you know the note, your finger lands on the nearest logical place to play that note within the context of where you are and where you are going. In other words, if the note can be played in the position you are already in, then that might be the best way to play it. Otherwise you can mark up your score the way you want it.

[fep]

When I've notated music to share on this site I usually include two staves, standard notation and tab. I do that so everyone can read the example. It's just a matter of communication.

I don't have anything against tab but for my own purposes I only use standard notation.

Once you get used to standard notation, it's easier to read than tab... imo.

In standard notation you can read groups of notes. For instance, you see 4 notes going up the scale starting on B with a key signature of G... that's B, C, D, E right up the scale. Or you see another group of 4 notes all on the lines starting on G... G, B, D, F# easily recognized as an arpeggio. So you're not reading individual notes, your reading groups of notes. Kind of like reading words as opposed to letters.

Reading in groups of notes like this is something I can do in standard notation but not in tab.

[max_power]

It's no doubt that tab is easier to use, and more intuitive than standard notation... but it really is a waste of time to learn it. No one is "great" at reading tab right away - they develop the skill set through practice. I don't habitually read tab anymore, but whenever I do I can read it very quickly because I used tab frequently during the first 6 years that I played guitar. If, during that whole time, I had been struggling through sheet music instead of reading tab, I would be a much better sight reader than I am now. Just realize that, if you read tab frequently, or if you write out your music into tab form frequently, you are spending time doing it - time that would be better spent practicing sight reading.

[markerhodes]

Originally Posted by kenbennett

One of my guitar teacher friends does not allow any tab in his studio. I think that is the right approach for a teacher. Students will seek out tab if they want it, but for at least that one hour a week they are reading notes.

I think that's a sound approach.

[max chill]

Remember when you were a kid, and you couldn't read a language yet, and you had to look at books with pictures? You couldn't write, so you took out your crayons and drew pictures to tell a story. Then you learned to read and write, and suddenly the world of communication was open to you. That's the difference between tab and notation.

[matt.guitarteacher]

I learned to read music on the guitar the way I learned to read on the saxophone, and long before I knew that there was such a thing as a chord grid. I think that if you have any aspiration to be a real player, especially in jazz or classical, you need to learn to read notation.

That being said, I think tab has its place. Waiting until you can read music well enough to read “Iron Man” or “Dust in the Wind” seems silly. So, for me it’s a style/reading ability issue. As a guitar instructor, I guess you would call me a “TAB whore”. :-)

“Stairway to Heaven” to kids who haven’t learned flats and sharps yet? Yep. You wanna learn The White Stripes’ “Hey There Delilah”?. “Well, Johnny, first we’re going to have to learn to read notation in 2nd position and introduce sharp key signatures, and you’re not even reading on the 5th string yet”. I don’t think so. I pay the family bills by getting people to pay for the next set of lessons.

I’m in a market where most of my students, at least to start, are young beginners who aren’t as serious as I am about music. And why should they be? If you’re a good teacher or player, shouldn’t you be more “into it” than those you teach? If you’re lucky enough to be in a market where you can only take advanced students or the highly motivated, sending the “mortals” on to some other teacher, that’s great, but I take a lot of pride in being able to teach anyone. I also take pride and enjoy teaching students who couldn’t learn from some other teacher.

Originally Posted by max_power

I hear this a lot, but I really don't buy it at all. Sure, it's harder to sight read on the guitar than on, say, the saxophone. But other instruments have it at least as hard. Violinists and double bassists, like guitarists, have multiple places in which to play certain notes...but they don't even have frets. Not only do they have to sight read, but they also have to place their fingers in the exact right spot or else they'll sound out of tune. Try doing that while having to look away from your instrument at a sheet of paper.

I think the guitar is much harder to read music on than these other instruments. I’ve read music on guitar for over 25 years, although not on the entire fretboard. I also played sax in school and picked up piano in college, about 20 years ago. I’m not a great pianist, but I still find that it’s less confusing to read piano music. Guitar is an always has been my main instrument, and I've put many more hours into it. I think the problems with reading on the guitar have to do with the unique characteristics of the instrument itself.

Regardless of the octave, the amount of polyphony or the uniformity of the keyboard layout, the piano keyboard just makes sense. Middle C is in one place. On the guitar it’s in 5 (concert pitch). There may be 5 repetitions of the same pitch on the violin, but I don’t think so.

However, the most confounding thing about the guitar is that each key/chord/scale feels exactly the same as its counterpart one half step higher or lower. On the saxophone or piano, there is a kinesthetic identity for each particular key you play in. Db “feels like” Db. On the guitar, the opposite is true. Kinesthetically, Db feels exactly like C or B. It even feels exactly the same starting from the 5th string. Until you get to the B string… Oh, crap! There’s that too!

I’ve goofed off a little on the violin and don’t think that it has the same reading problems, although it’s a much harder instrument to learn to play. I’d liken the fretless issue to that of embouchure or other technical considerations, of which the guitar has its own. The violin has a much steeper learning curve than many other instruments in this regard, but it’s a technical issue, not a reading issue. However long it takes, once you know Db on the violin, it’s automatic. You feel it in a way that’s much more natural than on the guitar.

With the guitar, you have to consciously remind yourself to think about pitch, because if you have any kind of ear, knowledge of theory, or experience in playing, your fingers tend to “take over” when you get to a familiar pattern up the neck. The guitar requires unique criteria in sight reading material. The material must be random enough, almost to the point of being unmusical, to keep the reader from being distracted by patterns. I don’t see this as an issue with sax, piano or violin music.

Maybe others are different, but I just see the pitch and play it on those instruments. Learning to recognize patterns at sight and play them as pitch groups is a plus on other instruments. It's a positive benefit of higher level study. Until you learn the guitar fretboard pretty thoroughly, you kind of have to surpress this in guitar reading; more micro than macro. Then, later, allow the macro back in.

As a jazz player, you also have to be able to scan ahead in the music to make decisions about position based on what’s coming next, and decide how to revoice chords which are impossible to play on the guitar.

Originally Posted by max_power

The real reason that guitarists can't sight read is because the modern form of the guitar is a relatively new instrument, and accordingly it has a very weak, non-uniform pedagogy. The guitar is also an instrument that easily allows one to visualize patterns and shapes, which makes it very possible to play the instrument without knowing what notes you're playing. The piano is similarly visual, but of all the modern instruments the piano has the oldest, strongest and most uniform pedagogy, so nearly all great piano players are well versed in theory and can sight read well. It's also due to standard practices. The first thing you learn on most instruments is how to to sight read; the first thing you learn on guitar is how to play "Smoke On The Water".

I fully agree with the state of guitar pedagogy. I ranted about this in my blog on teaching guitar in the school classroom a few years ago. Guitar pedagogy is decades behind piano in my opionion, but I still think that the patterns and shapes aspect is as much of an obstacle in the "ease of reading" category as it is a benefit in the "ease of playing" category.

I think reading skill is essential, but there’s a reason why those lutists used tab. They weren’t playing “Smoke on the Water” either. (Hey, what’s wrong with “Smoke on the Water”?) ;-) As a teacher, "Smoke on the Water" has a lot more motivating power than "Modal 3-Note Song You've Never Heard Before Because It's not Real Music/Learning to Sight-Read Song".

I say teach both!

[mr. beaumont]

Yeas, as a guitar teacher, I have to use tab--gotta keep folks interested and keep them playing and remember that for many, it's just for fun.

When a student expresses interest in jazz though, I give it to them straight (no chaser)--there's some things they're going to HAVE to be able to do, no excuses...reading is one of them.

And when they counter with "Wes couldn't read," (or whoever)I quietly remind them that when they can play like Wes, they get their pass.

[matt.guitarteacher]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

When a student expresses interest in jazz though, I give it to them straight (no chaser)--

[max_power]

Nice post Matt, you brought up some great points. I still disagree about sight reading on the guitar being particularly more difficult than on other instruments...I firmly believe that, if sight reading were a standard practice among guitarists, they wouldn't complain that it's so much harder to do on the guitar.

Nothing's wrong with Smoke On The Water, I was just illustrating a point. For almost any instrument other than the guitar - piano, sax, trumpet, violin, flugelhorn, oboe, you name it - every note you learn to play is learned off of sheet music. For a while, almost everything you play is something you're sight reading. It makes for a slower start, but results in a more thorough knowledge of the instrument.

[Kman]

One of the best jazz guitarist I've ever seen is a guy named Tony Gaboury who teaches at Berklee. He once told me that he didn't know how to read tablature. I was surprised to hear this but he was not kidding. I tried to explain it to him but he was still very confused. I have never open another tab book since he told me that.

[czardas]

matt.guitarteacher

Good philosophy you have. I find difficulty motivating most of my flamenco students to learn to read. There are hardly any famous flamenco players that can do that, so it doesn't seem important to them. Of course they all like the tab. I have yet to find a method that will encourage them, because there are hardly any flamenco music books that don't use tab, and they don't come to me to learn to read music.

[ejwhite09]

I think tab is great to get you going, but you should quickly disregard it. It can easily become a crutch, and IN MY OPINION is the reason you can jam with a guy on a tune and then get him to a jam session and he's crap because he has no ears. This is really a radical change in the past guitarists had some of the best ears around because we tend to learn from trying to play what we hear on the radio in the first place, as opposed to classical musicians who are learning from paper from the get go and get serious ear training once they've mastered fundamentals of their instruments( I played violin in 5th grade we had no ear training the whole year in any direct way, we played lullabies, which are great ear training, but it's so abstract...we got none of the 'i play this note at the piano, you play it back to me until the next year and half later).

I use tab now frankly when I'm lazy and don't want to take the 10 minutes to figure a song out. I used to use it exclusively and after some embarrassing musical situations I abandoned it completely, did intense ear training and swore, if I couldn't figure it out by ear I'd just keep trying. I can figure most songs out by ear, even complex tunes, especially melodies...still working on harmonies(complex ones that is)....I figure out the entire Firebird Suite finale in one go! A year or so ago, I would have wasted a day on google looking for tab or sheet music.

The learning curve is steep but if you train your ear, it will become faster than any visual aid.
And if you're going to put music on paper in front of you and take the time to read it first, learn to read music. That will help you.

In my opinion, tab is only really used for music you should be able to play by ear.