How frowned upon is using guitar tablature?

[RLetson]

I hadn't thought of this earlier, but my first sale to Acoustic Guitar magazine was a guitar arrangement of three Northumbrian pipe tunes. Standard print format then (as now) was tab and standard notation, and my submission consisted of explanatory/background copy for the article, a reference cassette of my playing the tune (this is 1992), and my tab. The magazine employed a transcriber who rendered my handwritten tab into standard notation, and the final presentation looked like any of the well-produced fingerstyle instruction books. (That is, better than the idiosyncratic tab that Stefan Grossman used in his early books.)*

Over the next dozen years, I wrote a half-dozen profile-plus-how-to pieces for the magazine, based on artist-supplied charts. Sometimes it was just tab, though some players could provide standard notation as well. (I recall that Guy Van Duser could generate the whole package himself--but he was also composing for TV shows and had a current whizbang scoring program.)

For folk-based fingerstyle players, tabbed-out arrangements were a primary transmission channel, especially for those who didn't have face-to-face in-the-tradition teachers or picking pals with whom to swap tunes and figure out licks. Without tab books (starting with those of Keola Beamer and Leonard Kwan), slack key guitar would have remained a mystery to mainlanders.

* A few years later, I came across a CD of Celtic-based solo guitar material, and one of the tracks was my arrangement, note for note, and thus certainly transmitted via the magazine, since I never played it in public. No credit--but, to be fair, played better than I had managed to.

[blackcat]

Sorry, what was the leap?

Forgive me if I misread you but you seemed to drawa parallel between tab usuers and those who could not name all the notes of the fretboard?

[Tal_175]

Forgive me if I misread you but you seemed to drawa parallel between tab usuers and those who could not name all the notes of the fretboard?

What I meant in the post is that most guitar players who rely on tabs don't know the notes on the fretboard very fluently. Do you think that statement is a leap?

That was just the part of a boarder distinction I was making.

[pauln]

Sorry, what was the leap?

The biggest leap in guitar playing is leaping over the observation
each 'string-fret' coordinate has one of three names depending
on key if no double accidentals. The finger board can't have any
intrinsic note before a key context is present. They have pitches
with multiple pitch class names depending the key's assignment.

E E# Fb F F# Gb G G# Ab A A# Bb B B# Cb C C# Db D D# Eb E
B B# Cb C C# Db D D# Eb E E# Fb F F# Gb G G# Ab A A# Bb B Cb
G G# Ab A A# Bb B B# Cb C C# Db D D# Eb E E# Fb F F# Gb G
D D# Eb E E# Fb F F# Gb G G# Ab A A# Bb B B# Cb C C# Db D
A A# Bb B B# Cb C C# Db D D# Eb E E# Fb F F# Gb G G# Ab A
E E# Fb F F# Gb G G# Ab A A# Bb B B# Cb C C# Db D D# Eb E Fb

[blackcat]

What I meant in the post is that most guitar players who rely on tabs don't know the notes on the fretboard very fluently. Do you think that statement is a leap?

That was just the part of a boarder distinction I was making.

True for many perhaps, but by no means all.

[KingKong]

I think it’s not so much whether or not tab is frowned on so much as it any use in general
playing life?

Rletson is right imo tab is for lessons and so on. It’s not much used as a resource for learning music by anyone beyond the early levels.

Some working jazz guitar players I know don’t read great if at all and learn tunes by ears - usually but not always standards.

Some are serious reading types and mostly do that. Often they don’t know many tunes.

I think most working players fall between these two stools they can read a bit but they aren’t necessarily infallible at it. But they have a repertoire appropriate to the gigs they do.

I've used tab over notation for decades, rock stuff for ages then also for jazz. You can find a tab for the tune of any standard, since getting into jazz I've not felt any need to move to using notation whatsoever.
You tube is now full of transcription videos of Montgomery Kessel etc, that have tab which seems to be accurate.
It's annoying for me when you get books that only have notation. E.g. 'the cellular approach' contains good material but I have to puzzle over it.

I have an approach where, for anything I learn, I do my best to conceptualise it, e.g. 'its a Cminor7th chord fragment', not simply x435xx, so not just playing by numbers as a lot do.

Something that also seems to be the case is that I can spot theory in the tab, probably from reading it for so long. E.g. if you see a solo that is all around the 8th, 9th and 10th frets, it's obvious that it's using e.g. Cminor pentatonic.

I do think that there might be a bit of Jazz snobbery going on in some of the posts..... 'tab is for rockers and cowboy chords'.

[John A.]

But if you were in a group that played standards and had a day or 2 to prepare for meet ups, I don't see the need for being able to read notation. Isn't that how the majority of jazz outfits work?

I'm not sure what you mean by meet-ups or jazz outfits, but in my experience, playing jazz with other people falls into one of these scenarios


Blowing session, could be a one-off with some combination of players you do and do not know, could be something more regular with a consistent cast of characters -- It's unusual to decide which tunes to play in advance in order to prep for the get-together (I don't think I've experienced that, TBH). Typically, you figure out what to play at the session, via some combination of mutual agreement to play tunes that all know, consulting fakebooks and/or iReal, and players bringing charts (e.g, for originals they want to try out).

Open jam at a venue where people sign up to play, and anyone up on the stand can call a tune -- If you're up, someone calls a tune, and you know the tune, you play it. Otherwise, your options are look at iReal or a fakebook, talk through the tune quickly with other players beforehand and fake it (if you're a more experienced player who can do this), or sit out the tune.

Rehearsal for a gig/performance -- really depends, e.g., sometimes you discuss in advance what's going to be played, sometimes not.

Gig/performance -- lots of variants on this ranging from a specific set list of well rehearsed arrangements, to just showing up and figuring out what to play as you go, possibly with fakebooks or charts, possibly not.

I don't see tab as being helpful for any of these, and I do see at least some ability to read standard notation as important. Jazz is ensemble music involving people playing different instrument and making decisions in the moment about key, arrangement, and form. A lead sheet with a melody line in standard notation and chord symbols is a better tool for that than a tab sheet. It conveys all the necessary information compactly in a way that all players understand.

[pauln]

...playing jazz with other people falls into one of these scenarios

Blowing session... consulting fakebooks and/or iReal, and players bringing charts (e.g, for originals they want to try out).

Open jam at a venue...look at iReal or a fakebook, talk through the tune quickly with other players beforehand and fake it (if you're a more experienced player who can do this), or sit out the tune.

Rehearsal for a gig/performance...discuss in advance what's going to be played, sometimes not.

Gig/performance...set list of well rehearsed arrangements, to just showing up and figuring out what to play as you go, possibly with fakebooks or charts, possibly not.

I know you are speaking to your own experiences but
you left out the studio recording session scenario, left
out we who play by ear in all those possible scenarios.

[Christian Miller]

I've used tab over notation for decades, rock stuff for ages then also for jazz. You can find a tab for the tune of any standard, since getting into jazz I've not felt any need to move to using notation whatsoever.
You tube is now full of transcription videos of Montgomery Kessel etc, that have tab which seems to be accurate.
It's annoying for me when you get books that only have notation. E.g. 'the cellular approach' contains good material but I have to puzzle over it.

I have an approach where, for anything I learn, I do my best to conceptualise it, e.g. 'its a Cminor7th chord fragment', not simply x435xx, so not just playing by numbers as a lot do.

Something that also seems to be the case is that I can spot theory in the tab, probably from reading it for so long. E.g. if you see a solo that is all around the 8th, 9th and 10th frets, it's obvious that it's using e.g. Cminor pentatonic.

I do think that there might be a bit of Jazz snobbery going on in some of the posts..... 'tab is for rockers and cowboy chords'.

learn to read you lazy hippy lol

Snobbery? Sure for some.

personally I think that’s a waste of energy. I don’t use tab much outside of teaching. make of that what you will.

i do think if you don’t have good ears and can read a bit you will struggle as an actual working jazz player, beyond that I lack the experience to say. I think the most important thing for jazz is to use your lugholes, and do things what probably seems the hard way because it builds your music muscles. So no tabs, just the records. Or you are cheating yourself in the long run (that said learning other people’s solos is less important than people make out, tunes are more important.)

Reading is an important skill in big bands, originals projects run by non guitarists, arranged small bands and so on, but I know plenty of guitar players with sketchy reading who do just fine for quartet and trio gigs playing standards.

I think reading is good for sessions too? But a lot of pop/rock stuff is just learned by ear tbh. Valuable for theatre work though.

I like to teach students notation/reading at first so at least it’s not alien to them. It seems to work.

[Christian Miller]

Anyway reading isn’t especially smart or intellectual. Even classical musicians can do it. You just need to do it A LOT.

[Tal_175]

Just because a typical rock player reaches their musical maturity after 6 months of playing doesn't mean they don't have fragile egos. So I'm opposed to any sort of snobbery. It's not nice.

[GuyBoden]

My slow notation reading ability has embarrassed and let me down in various Jazz group settings over the years. I said, I did read music at college, honest.



The Real Book is available in guitar tab, but not much use to me as I have tuned in fourths for over 12 years.

[Christian Miller]

I’d like to reframe this as well. The idea that if you don’t read dots you’ll be judged by snotty jazz gatekeepers is so profoundly negative. The human impulse - certainly my impulse- is to say ‘forget those guys!’

I would like to suggest instead bearing in mind the great thing one can get out of reading - the way you can access the widest possible resources of western music from the past few hundred years as well as musical resources aimed at other instruments.

If you stick with reading long enough that it gets fun (which can be a while tbf), you won’t need much encouragement to do it because you’ll enjoy it too much even if you aren’t that amazing at it. I find this even with some young students who’ve been playing a couple of years.

Also it may help you get a gig, but tbh that’s never been a convincing argument to get me to do anything haha. Otherwise I’d have some gigs rn lol.

[GuyBoden]

I’d like to reframe this as well. The idea that if you don’t read dots you’ll be judged by snotty jazz gatekeepers is so profoundly negative. The human impulse - certainly my impulse- is to say ‘forget those guys!’

I would like to suggest instead bearing in mind the great thing one can get out of reading - the way you can access the widest possible resources of western music from the past few hundred years as well as musical resources aimed at other instruments.

If you stick with reading long enough that it gets fun (which can be a while tbf), you won’t need much encouragement to do it because you’ll enjoy it too much even if you aren’t that amazing at it. I find this even with some young students who’ve been playing a couple of years.

Also it may help you get a gig, but tbh that’s never been a convincing argument to get me to do anything haha. Otherwise I’d have some gigs rn lol.

In my day, guitar players had a reputation for being bad music readers. This has probably all changed since you have been teaching guitar, as the standard of the average music college student has generally improved.

[RLetson]

I was introduced to standard notation in seventh grade music class (thus 1956 or so)--the most basic basics, such as the names of the notes on the lines and spaces, the notion of a measure, note durations, time signatures. But absent specific application on an instrument (ideally a piano), that's as far as I got. In college, a classmate explained some guitar-useful matters (keys and chord spelling), and while I could in principle have proceded to apply those scattered bits of knowledge to decoding a score and deriving a melody, that was not necessary for strumming folk songs--which I learned by ear.

When I got ambitious enough to attempt fingerstyle arrangements, there were the Oak Publications books with tabbed-out versions of, say, Doc Watson's "Deep River Blues" or Dave Van Ronk's "St. Louis Tickle"--which, to my mind to this day are so guitaristic as to make tab a more effective way of depicting them in print. (I have since those early days sought out videos of Doc to see exactly what he does with his hands, and I've spent decades learning tunes by direct eyeball and ear.)

Reading notation has always been an in-principle possibility for me, but it would also always be an offline decoding process: painfully turn the spots into sounds on the guitar and then remember the sounds, since the spots don't produce the kind of instant recognition that letters on a page do when I read words. And it's not just music--I also lack "number sense," which means that mathematical expressions need to be turned into something else for me to grasp them. (I'm OK with mid-level algebraic material, but I hit the wall with calculus.)

Now, these are my particular limitations, and I do not doubt that with sufficient effort I could improve my performance with any of these systems of representation. (I got through high school physics and some college-level programming courses in one piece.) And, to be fair, once I've heard it through one chorus, I can follow the contours of, say, an unfamiliar bop tune in a Real Book chart well enough to keep up with the phrasing and the chords--but that's not reading but following cues that coordinate with my reasonably decent ears.

Just a side observation: A friend of mine loves to play piano and invites me to play along on guitar. He will open a folio and play whatever is on the page. But when I suggest a different, more guitar-friendly key for a tune, he can't do it, nor can he comp along outside what is written in the score. His piano playing, he explains, is strictly "see a spot, hit a key." He doesn't have a sense of chord construction and never improvises. He enjoys making music, but his mode of music-making is quite different from mine. This is an extreme version of what I've observed in classes and workshops where well-schooled players are encouraged to "get off the page" and become comfortable with improvisation.

[Christian Miller]

In my day, guitar players had a reputation for being bad music readers. This has probably all changed since you have been teaching guitar, as the standard of the average music college student has generally improved.

I wouldn’t bank on it. Jazz players tend to be decent readers, but I feel this was always the case. So many players now learn off the internet and tabs.

Teaching undergrad guitarists to read can be like pulling teeth. So the level of reading may have gone up I still don’t think there’s a culture of reading among guitar players.

I remember chatting to a uni professor with the unenviable task of getting a bunch of non music literate pop/rock musicians and electronic music producers to somehow produce an orchestral score by the end of the semester (because that was demanded by the course assessment criteria which were unmoored from the actual intake of music majors). Composition majors may well be coming from a production or sound design background now….

Music literacy I would expect is in decline generally.

[AllanAllen]

Just get the Mel Bay book 1 and learn it the right way. You don’t learn to read starting with Moby Dick. There are no short cuts.

[KingKong]

learn to read you lazy hippy lol

Snobbery? Sure for some.

personally I think that’s a waste of energy. I don’t use tab much outside of teaching. make of that what you will.

i do think if you don’t have good ears and can read a bit you will struggle as an actual working jazz player, beyond that I lack the experience to say. I think the most important thing for jazz is to use your lugholes, and do things what probably seems the hard way because it builds your music muscles. So no tabs, just the records. Or you are cheating yourself in the long run (that said learning other people’s solos is less important than people make out, tunes are more important.)

Reading is an important skill in big bands, originals projects run by non guitarists, arranged small bands and so on, but I know plenty of guitar players with sketchy reading who do just fine for quartet and trio gigs playing standards.

I think reading is good for sessions too? But a lot of pop/rock stuff is just learned by ear tbh. Valuable for theatre work though.

I like to teach students notation/reading at first so at least it’s not alien to them. It seems to work.

Christian, I don't disagree with a word u say apart from. lazy?? me???! U don't know what I have to do each day lol!

Yes all benefits of reading notation are acknowledged completely. For me though I think my resistance is a time thing. I don't have a lot of spare time to practice and it feels like time spent working on notation reading would be more enjoyed working on the guitar itself.
That said, I've an app on my phone which helps you learn whilst your sat waiting for a bus or something. So actually, give me a score and I'll tell you the notes pretty easily, its translating them into fret numbers that is the brain block.

[chris32895]

I got accepted into college as a guitar player who couldn't read. Typical bedroom guitarist playing whatever without direction for a few years. Sometimes I wonder how I got accepted lol.

Anyways, my guitar teacher forced me to learn standards, classical, and emphasized reading every step of the way. By the end of college I was a regular guitarist for my college's musical group and even advised/played on a contemporary piece written by a pupil for guitar, cello, and violin.

When you're in your home and playing, sure, it seems TAB is just fine for learning just about anything. Even a lot of classical stuff is in TAB. But the real advantage of standard notation is communication between musicians. And that goes both ways, as well - just as you are able to play with people so can you learn the music of others, guitar music or not. I can't tell you how many wonderful pieces of music I discovered just from being able to read and being opened to western classical music.

A lot of the material I practice now is Bach violin sonatas and partitas I transcribe myself, all standard notation in the original keys (as it was written) with only the fingerings added for my sake. I actually can't think of what it would be like to not be able to read sheet music, it would be so limiting. And I'm not even a great reader, but slow and steady gets me there. Just my 2 cents

[John A.]

Just because a typical rock player reaches their musical maturity after 6 months of playing doesn't mean they don't have fragile egos. So I'm opposed to any sort of snobbery. It's not nice.

Right, because saying the typical player reaches musical maturity after six months of playing is definitely not snobbery. I mean that would not be nice.

[KingKong]

Right, because saying the typical player reaches musical maturity after six months of playing is definitely not snobbery. I mean that would not be nice.

I'm not sure how many jazz players start straight on jazz and don't ever play rock stuff and how many are rockers that get into jazz in older life. It would be interesting to know what the split is however I can tell that on this forum, a decent percentage of players are 'jazz only'.

For anyone who isn't familiar with my erratic posting history, I'm a rocker learning jazz, and making a reasonable go of it I think.

I'll give my opinions on this, please not intended to offend, see the humour!

Rock is extremely easy compared to Jazz. Mentally and technically.

An intelligent and motivated person who picks up rock can be playing decent lead stuff and improvising in 2-3 years, as long as they put the time in to learn the blues. NOT 6 months!

Jazz musicians ARE more rigid and pretentious! I see a lot of local bands, jazz and rock each month and the jazz guys tend to look like they need to take a big dump when playing. The jazz guys who impress me are the ones who look relaxed and natural when they play, like they are not trying. 75% of jazz players look like they are REALLY trying hard and that looks weird.

Jazz musicians tend to be from a higher class in society...... middle - upper class where rockers are more of a mix. There is a big working class rock band scene were I live.

You CAN apply rock learning to Jazz guitar completely. The CAGED system is perfect for playing jazz licks, chords and arpeggios all over the board. Just add in the 2 extra notes to the pentatonics the rockers use and you are there. ( this idea seems not to be believed by the jazz only guitarists. )

So all of the things above are why I mention jazz snobbery. I fully admit to buying into it myself btw. Since learning jazz, rock playing seems basic and a bit passé. I love the intellectual and pretentious side of it all a great deal!

( this is a UK take btw where attitudes to jazz I think differ to the US.)

[Tal_175]

Right, because saying the typical player reaches musical maturity after six months of playing is definitely not snobbery. I mean that would not be nice.

I was deliberately being ironic.
I must be frustrated with watching gear reviews performed by rockers and bluesers on youtube. Some of them must have been playing for decades judging by the line up of gear they have collected and yet when they play all you get is the same old cowboy chord and power chord based riffs and pentatonic licks you learn when you are 14.

That is like 90% of them. There is a small percentage of them actually do have a more creative and diverse language, like Rhett Shull.

[AaronMColeman]

Christian, I don't disagree with a word u say apart from. lazy?? me???! U don't know what I have to do each day lol!

Yes all benefits of reading notation are acknowledged completely. For me though I think my resistance is a time thing. I don't have a lot of spare time to practice and it feels like time spent working on notation reading would be more enjoyed working on the guitar itself.
That said, I've an app on my phone which helps you learn whilst your sat waiting for a bus or something. So actually, give me a score and I'll tell you the notes pretty easily, its translating them into fret numbers that is the brain block.

This is so true. So much to learn, so little time, so much to do with family and job that pays the bills.

I've committed to notation only in 2023 and I'm already seeing a vast improvement in my reading. I know the notes on the fretboard, I know the notes on the staff. It's translating them between the two that is slow. And Jazz loves flats which I am coming to terms with (Eb, Ab and Db used to be terrifying)

[mr. beaumont]

If you stick with reading long enough that it gets fun (which can be a while tbf), you won’t need much encouragement to do it because you’ll enjoy it too much even if you aren’t that amazing at it.

I can completely agree with this--

I consider myself a poor reader, mostly because of my reading choices--lead sheets. So I can read a single line with chord symbols above pretty well, but get into multiple voices and watch me slow waaaaay down...because I simply haven't worked at at.

That said, I AM now at the point of where I can look at a lead sheet and "hear it" as I read it, and that is DEFINITELY fun.

[Tal_175]

An intelligent and motivated person who picks up rock can be playing decent lead stuff and improvising in 2-3 years, as long as they put the time in to learn the blues. NOT 6 months!

I was being facetious when I said 6 months (though my nephew is almost already there after 6 months, lol).

I don't think it's a jazz vs rock thing. There is no reason for the basic guitar education not to include a lot of the skills that are considered more or less standard for jazz education. The difference seem to be cultural.

As you say an average serious player can reach the cover-band level of blues/rock playing in 2-3 years. A jazz combo that plays standards is essentially a jazz cover band. Yet, you typically need to put in another 5 to 10 years of serious practice and study time typically to get to the jazz combo level.

The problem for a lot of the motivated rock/blues players is that they don't see a very clear path for further musical growth once they reach the level where they can play their favorite tunes. I know that's where I was at a couple of decades ago. They try to learn some theory but it doesn't make them a better player. They memorize modes, but they can't really find a satisfying application for them. Then they try to learn how to read but again it all seems a bit disconnected from their actual musical experiences.

In jazz, you don't have the same problem. The problem in jazz education is to find a pedagogically efficient path. Not only there are more things to learn in jazz but the learning speed is slower. That's because you're more likely to jump from one half-baked skill/concept to another before really digesting any of it.