How to Add Guitar Tabs to Your Posts

[dirkji]

I made a video to show you how to add tabs to your forum posts. The video screen is a little small, but I think you'll get the point. You can use the same system to add guitar chord diagrams, next to the guitar tabs button is the guitar chord diagram button.

YouTube Video

[Gabriel]

This will probably a very well used feature on this site!

However, it would be great to have a nice clear way of notating rhythm as well. Is there a known way of doing this in TAB?

Thanks,
G

[Christophar]

Sweet. A tab button is awesome (I'm noticing a chord button too which also looks useful). However I also agree with Gabriel tab is nice but it dosent supply us with any means of reading the rhythm.

[dirkji]

I agree about rhythm, but it's hard to integrate rhythm into tabs, I've seen some attempts, but none of them were very good in my opinion. I'll have a look at the possibility of standard notation in a forum, but that's not going to be easy.

- Dirk

[mr. beaumont]

i have a slow internet connection so the video's not working out. is there a way to do bar lines?

nevermind, i think i got it...

[aPAULo]

Dirk, I dont know too much about website making, but is there a way that maybe you can write out the rhythm on paper and scan it onto your computer(if you have a scanner at your house),and then somehow get it onto the website? Ah what am I saying. Im just trying to spark an idea.

[dirkji]

Mr Beaumont - To do bar lines you can type a '|' at every line.

Paul - Yes, you can insert images in your posts, there's a button 5 to the left from the Tab button that you can use to insert images. It's a bit af a cumbersome system to show rhythm though.

- Dirk

[EclecticGuitar]

Thanks Dirk! Being able to post tabs is a nice feature to have.

In regard to the rhythm issue, you would almost need something like PowerTabs to be able to clearly post the actual notes and rhythm with the tab. But a PowerTab button is probably too difficult to make work on a forum.

[PeteMoss]

What about taking a screenshot of a powertab file and uploading it as a jpeg?

[gravyTrain]

I think a rudimentary way of showing rhythm, might be to do something such as write the chord on one line, and slashes on the next:

D-7 Gmaj7 F#-7b5 B7
/ / / / | / / / / |

Maybe for different value rhythm slashes may require something else.

q = quarter note
h = half note
h. = dotted half
w = whole note

so you could do:

Dm7 B7 F#7b5 Am7 E-
h h q q h


...just an idea

[rampestamper]

Hey,
is it possible to upload Guitar Pro/Powertab tabs to the forum.
That's a lot easier to read and tab, 'cause the rhytm stuff is there automaticly.
Grtz,
Jorrit

[dlight]

As a standard notation reader from WAY back, I'd really prefer to see that sort of format, as opposed to tabs. I appreciate that it's difficult to achieve in computing terms, but hey, this is the 21st century! For every problem, there's probably a solution, so long as we have the will to search for it! There must be some computer-literate soul out there who can give us a hand!

[pierre richard]

learn notation....disipline man...I'd like to see the "tab" sites where they are and not here..

learn notation....

nose in book learning notation and time on the instrument perfecting your chops....pierre.........

[Sailor]

I couldn't agree with Pierre more ! notation is the language of music.

Sailor

[dirkji]

Music is a language in itself, it doesn't need notation. Notation is just a means of communication between musicians or between a teacher and a student.

Traditional notation is not better than tablature. Tablature is a very old means of notation and has been used for stringed instruments since the year 1300 or possibly much earlier.

Traditional notation had the disadvantage that you can't notate where to place the fingers.

Tabs have the disadvantage that you can't notate rhythm. It's much easier to learn though, which is good for beginners

- Dirk

[doc]

Hey Dirk I am new and wanted to say I agree with music is definitely a language, a audio part (spoken) and a visual part (notation). I think that there is an advantage to not only speaking the music, also being able to document it too. I use both tab and traditional notation, in fact, using them together gives me a "3D" picture of the music especially for guitar. So I vote for learning and using both together. Then again there are a number of other musical notational systems out there : ^ )).

doc "george"

[Sailor]

Hi Dirk - as an old elementary music teacher and a forum afficianado, (nearly 700 posts), I respectfully disagree with the assertion that tabs are an acceptable form of notating music.

True that tablature has been around for a long time. Our current notation also has its' origins in the Ars Antiqua of music history; Pope Gregory the Great, (690 -704), as well as Leonin and Perotin, the School of Notre Dame etc........

Tablature, and for that matter, figured bass, mean tone tuning, sackbutts, crumhorns, and all else has its place in history; significant at the university level for idealistic future pedagogs and for thesis material.

Tabs are, at best, a crude form of a chord chart specific to the guitar. When you learn to read music you can play simple jazz heads on your soprano recorder, tinkle a favorite melody on piano, or like a lot of us, change instruments entirely without having to learn a completely new language.

If anyone remembers the scene from Amadeus; Salieri has paid Mozarts maid to steal some scores that he has been working on. He stand before the fire and looks at the score. He sees A minor, notices the tempo and dynamic markings, "hears" the opening of the Confutatis. Then as it modulates to C major he hears, and sees, the Cmajor triad outlined, Sotto Voce, it's the Voca Me, high voices in 3rds. He drops the score overwhelmed by its beauty.

The actual "notation" of music can be read, heard, and has an intrinsic beauty unto itself, like calligraphy.

Guitarists are always relegated to seemingly be "folk" musicians, confined to a few shapes and an oral tradition. I contend that learning the 7 notes is no harder than trying to figure out how a song actually sounds using tabs.

Try walking into a music store and sight-singing an unknown piece of music from a tabbed out chart.

If tabs can even begin to convey the experience of music, someone should TAB out Arnold Schoenbergs Verklate Nacht for me and post it. Then I'll recant my whole premise and apologize.

Sailor

[dirkji]

At the end the only thing that matters is: can you play or not...

1000s of people learn how to sight read but never learn how to play their instrument properly. Here in Belgian music schools, the only thing the students really learn well is sight reading. If you take their sheet music away, the 'music' stops. This is true for a lot of amateur classical musicians, they don't have music in them, they only see someone else's music on paper.

A serious musician should be able to read because it speeds up the learning process and you need it at gigs and studios. But sight reading should not be the first thing children learn in music schools because it kills the interest in music in many children.

I learned sight reading very late in my musical carreer because I had to to do conservatory. I'm a good reader now, but I still use tabs, both to learn and teach.

The fact that you don't "hear" tabs is because you never practiced reading tabs. I hear both tabs and traditional notation.

Cheers,
Dirk

[dirkji]

PS Wes Montgomery never learnded how to read, didn't stop him from being one of the most amazing guitarists of all time...

[Sailor]

Good points Dirk - I too came to sight-reading later in life. I guess I'm just tired of guitarists "thinking" they can't read when I know they can. I guess we all peek at a TAB now and then to grab a tough grip!

I really need to buy you a beer for all I've gotten out of this great site!

Sailor

[6stringdavey]

Notation is Euro centric and the majority of the planet could care less about one more damn thing that Europeans have foisted upon the world with their sanctimonious attitude. Get over it, some of the best music on the planet is played by people who could care less about notation.

[JohnW400]

You should learn to read. Guitar isn't the only instrument out there. If you write music it would be impossible to expect a different instrument to understand what you want them to play if all you use is tab.

Using tab insures that the player must have heard the music prior to playing it. You may know where to put your fingers but thast's about it.

Imagine a composer trying to write for a small ensemble including guitar. He would have to learn not only tab, but the guitar itself so that he could properly notate the tab and not tab any odd of impossible fingerings.

Furthermore if you can't read then you limit yourself in the type of music you could transcribe for guitar. Figuring out a good arrangment from a Bill Evans piano score becomes possible only by ear.

Tab is good for guitar players. Period.If you want to be taken seriously by other non guitarist musicians learn to read.


Legal Disclaimer - "You" refers to person or persons in an abtract sense and not necessaily the reader. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purley coincidental . Please don't anybody read this, get pissed off and think I've singled YOU out.

[Sailor]

Stop singling me out John...LOL!!

"Notation is Euro centric and the majority of the planet could care less about one more damn thing that Europeans have foisted upon the world"

Hmmm...
Well, most of the music we talk about here is Western European in origin so I guess it is also euro centric by necessity?? I agree that most indigenous world music doesn't follow western notation nor should it. BUT, playing Mozart, Vivaldi, transposing, transcribing, teaching theory, conducting, playing multiple instruments, reading jazz heads,...very hard without reading the language. Try to convey the story of Moby Dick or War and Peace with an oral tradition...pretty hard. Sometimes we need to read and write a language to convey it to others!

Reading music is a simple tool...that's all. It's just as hard to read tabs or try to memorize of figure out tunes by ear...all good stuff.

Why would anyone not want to read the language that they love??

BTW, is "foisted" a word??

Sailor

[SwingSwangSwung]

Originally Posted by dirkji

PS Wes Montgomery never learnded how to read, didn't stop him from being one of the most amazing guitarists of all time...

Add Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles to the list of guys who couldn't read (being blind), but who cranked out some decent tunes.

[Sailor]

I think everyone is in agreement that many great musicians never learned to read music. That being said...for the rest of us...we have the resources and the time, probably, to learn the language we love.

You will spend as much time deciphering TABS as reading music AND it only applies to guitar!! I like to sight read and it enables me to pick up nearly any instrument and play a basic tune...I can also WRITE what I play or hear.

There is no good argument for NOT reading...only guitarists are stubborn on this point!!

Sailor

[604bourne123]

I haven't learned it yet I'am gonna

[JohnW400]

Originally Posted by SwingSwangSwung

Add Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles to the list of guys who couldn't read (being blind), but who cranked out some decent tunes.

Yes except that they use special editions of Sibelius. I read it on their website

[604bourne123]

you can get different keyboards rather than sight but by feel little nodes for different notes-rests-eighth notes -thirty second punch them then the sound comes over the woofers

[Sailor]

604Bourne...If you need some help just ask. We have lots of good ideas on reading that will save you YEARS!!

Sailor

[604bourne123]

Originally Posted by Sailor

604Bourne...If you need some help just ask. We have lots of good ideas on reading that will save you YEARS!!

Sailor

a challenge but the general disscusion intent is the ear, a musician really judges others on ability to memorize from listening .Exclusively yet I think reading is okay because it works for me.As you mentioned it will save you time in learning.Realizing the time signature and keeping time with my foot helps alot I don't think anybody could add to that.