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A possible path for musical growth for intermediate rock/blues players is to explore harmony at a deeper level on guitar. That is studying voice leading and horizontal chord voice movements, passing chords and more harmonically informed improvisation. You can hear these elements in the language of many good players in any style. Yet, for some reason these elements don't seem to be part of the standard learning path outside of jazz.
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03-13-2023 12:57 PM
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That's because not enough people listen to the Grateful Dead.
Originally Posted by Tal_175
Whether you like the Dead or not, I'm telling ya-- any rock player who spent a few months learning Dead tunes, Garcia solos, collective improv, Bobby's rhythm guitar-- they'd emerge a better player.
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I'm listening to American Beauty now. Good call. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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I fight bears for a living and yet I MAKE TIME Originally Posted by KingKong
Get your hair cut, peacenik! And get a guitar with holes in while you’re at it.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 you’re 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.
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My parents ran a record shop/store back in the (60s and) 70s and I got to hear a lot of music. In my teen quest for something beyond Deep Purple I obviously checked out Grateful Dead but found that the Dutch group Focus and prog in general gave me what I was looking for in terms of broadening my musical horizons. Strokes and folks and all that, I suppose.
With regard to using tab, I guess the main problem is the lack of information it provides.
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There is nothing beyond
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One disadvantage of tab that I don't recall seeing mentioned is this.
In a case where a specific fingering isn't required, the tab-maker makes up a fingering and tabs it out.
It's an extra step to convert that into a different octave or different part of the neck. I'd have a much easier time doing that with standard notation. Maybe if somebody got super fluent with tab it would amount to the same thing, but why bother? It would be as much, if not more, work than learning standard notation.
At the risk of belaboring the point, if the fingering does matter and isn't obvious I'd rather see the tab than standard notation with string and finger numbers. The lick on This Could Be The Last Time (Stones) is a good example.
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The other half of it is this: tablature is woefully incomplete. So much information is missing from it, information that is inherent in staff music. With tab, if you’ve not already heard a particular arrangement of the music then it’s pretty useless. Whereas with a lead sheet you don’t have to have ever heard the tune before in your life in order to play it in presentable fashion. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Tab is only a help-mate for the string player who must deal with a fretboard or fingerboard and the inherent duplication of unison notes available between 4 to 7 adjacent strings. There are many ways and places upon which to play the same phrase or chord stack. Tablature is a quick tool for indicating how something is meant to be played.
Tab does not communicate music well, especially rhythm, voice leading, or inversion. Tab could never replace musical notation which is, of course, superior in all these respects. But it has a place.
Those who use tab gainfully, have probably heard the music numerous times beforehand and now just wish to know the fingering or pattern that they can use to execute the piece. Very helpful. Any bassist or guitarist needing to learn 40 songs in a new band can avail themselves to published tablature and be ready in quick order. Tab can also be useful when a busy bass solo is written in Tenor Clef or eating up bars of leger lines...
Tab was never meant to be a substitute for reading music, but it's great as an auxiliary means of clarifying fingerboard/fretboard patterns. At one time tab was used extensively in the Baroque and Renaissance eras for lute music, and even piano! It's a useful short-hand for guitarists and the likes. Not great for trombonists, though...
I use both. However, the sensational yet divisive debate is just one more thing for guitards to argue about - like naming some obtuse chameleon chord or reliving the great Bob Dylan electric vs. folk debacle. Or some hyperventilated concern over the future of our children for using tab... Any movement against Tablature has probably not considered all angles and may be dismissed as either foolish or snobbish to a fault.
::Last edited by StringNavigator; 03-17-2023 at 01:09 AM.
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Found this last bit interesting - otherwise find it hard to believe that this debate still goes on! Originally Posted by StringNavigator
Tab is only a help-mate for the string player who must deal with a fretboard or fingerboard and the inherent duplication of unison notes available between 4 to 7 adjacent strings. There are many ways and places upon which to play the same phrase or chord stack. Tablature is a quick tool for indicating how something is meant to be played.
Tab does not communicate music well, especially rhythm, voice leading, or inversion. Tab could never replace musical notation which is, of course, superior in all these respects. But it has a place.
Those who use tab gainfully, have probably heard the music numerous times beforehand and now just wish to know the fingering or pattern that they can use to execute the piece. Very helpful. Any bassist or guitarist needing to learn 40 songs in a new band can avail themselves to published tablature and be ready in quick order. Tab can also be useful when a busy bass solo is written in Tenor Clef or eating up bars of leger lines...
Tab was never meant to be a substitute for reading music, but it's great as an auxiliary means of clarifying fingerboard/fretboard patterns. At one time tab was used extensively in the Baroque and Renaissance eras for lute music, and even piano! It's a useful short-hand for guitarists and the likes. Not great for trombonists, though...
I use both. However, the sensational yet divisive debate is just one more thing for guitards to argue about - like naming some obtuse chameleon chord or reliving the great Bob Dylan electric vs. folk debacle. Or some hyperventilated concern over the future of our children for using tab... Any movement against Tablature has probably not considered all angles and may be dismissed as either foolish or snobbish to a fault.
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Lutenists were invariably ne’er do wells though. Louche bunch. That Henry VIII… Originally Posted by StringNavigator
Tab is only a help-mate for the string player who must deal with a fretboard or fingerboard and the inherent duplication of unison notes available between 4 to 7 adjacent strings. There are many ways and places upon which to play the same phrase or chord stack. Tablature is a quick tool for indicating how something is meant to be played.
Tab does not communicate music well, especially rhythm, voice leading, or inversion. Tab could never replace musical notation which is, of course, superior in all these respects. But it has a place.
Those who use tab gainfully, have probably heard the music numerous times beforehand and now just wish to know the fingering or pattern that they can use to execute the piece. Very helpful. Any bassist or guitarist needing to learn 40 songs in a new band can avail themselves to published tablature and be ready in quick order. Tab can also be useful when a busy bass solo is written in Tenor Clef or eating up bars of leger lines...
Tab was never meant to be a substitute for reading music, but it's great as an auxiliary means of clarifying fingerboard/fretboard patterns. At one time tab was used extensively in the Baroque and Renaissance eras for lute music, and even piano! It's a useful short-hand for guitarists and the likes. Not great for trombonists, though...
I use both. However, the sensational yet divisive debate is just one more thing for guitards to argue about - like naming some obtuse chameleon chord or reliving the great Bob Dylan electric vs. folk debacle. Or some hyperventilated concern over the future of our children for using tab... Any movement against Tablature has probably not considered all angles and may be dismissed as either foolish or snobbish to a fault.
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90% of guitarists just rely on tabs because they can't read. 8% of guitarist only read sheet music and stay away from tabs all together. The debate is really within the remaining 2% who can sort of read sheet music but at a much slower rate than they can read tabs, so they stick with tabs. Of course the more they stick to tabs the less they practice reading standard notation and the more they get comfortable with tabs. It's a self perpetuating cycle. Which is fine, no one has to justify how they read music.
I also don't get the argument that reading tabs is good because you "use your ears". Reading tabs is the opposite using your ears. Yes, it's easier to read if you already know the music but that's true with reading the standard notation as well. Just because you can't read tabs at all if don't know the music doesn't mean tabs are intrinsically develop your ears more than the standard notation.Last edited by Tal_175; 03-19-2023 at 02:48 PM.
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I’m going to stick my neck out and feel free to correct me, but I’m 99% no guitarist has ever secured a paying gig on their ability to read tabs.
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What did Wes use Christian ( and many others like him )? Clearly not Tab as we know it, but did he/they use anything? Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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I don't think tab was widely used for the modern guitar before the 80s from what I hear. Its primary function at this point may have been to allow people to record exact fingerings for shred guitar at which it was obviously well suited. (I may be wrong) Originally Posted by blackcat
I have some older books but they all seem to use picture chords if they aren't in notation. Maybe others have some counter examples.
Wes had great ears and (contrary to seem popular accounts) could read chord symbols. Here he is discussing music with his band at about 15m, basically teaching them a tune, which gives an amazing insight into how he communicated with other musicians.
TBH I'm not sure how the need for tab would arise except to write specific fingerings down for other guitarists.
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I had a Led Zep songbook in the early 80s, but it looks like it was published in the early 70s. Most solos were omitted, but a couple were transcribed in music notation. I may be mis-remembering, but I believe the solo for Since I've Been Loving you was actually tabbed out.
I think you're right about shred. In the 80s, Steve Via was selling tab transcription to guitar magazines (I remember particularly the Mr Crowley solo). I got a Van Halen 1 songbook with tabs, etc etc. Tab became quite a rich method for notating bends, whammy bar dives, pinched and tapped harmonics, and so on.
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I guess chord symbols deal with specifics and are not quite analagous to tab in that sense. So many great musicians who do not read notation must work with their own personalized shorthand but is this better or worse than tab? Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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who knows? I personally don’t tend to make notes of things any more in that way. I may write things down in musical terms in notation, intervals and so on, but I rarely feel the need to note down a chord box or a tab of something unless I need to note something done for a student. Originally Posted by blackcat
Part of this is, say I have a chord that has the intervals 5 R 2 7 or G C D B there’s a few ways I can finger that on different string groups. So which tab do I write down? I’d rather develop a better intervallic or pitch understanding of the neck and get that more automatic then use another form of notation. (Not that I’m an amazing reader.)
when it comes to playing lines by ear, again there’s different options. I don’t want to be locked into one specific fingering, on the other hand I want to have a better link with my ears and notation always, so tab feels like a middleman that should ideally be eliminated from things. For me.
Just speaking for myself, I just don’t find much need otw. Don’t know about anyone else.
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Eh? Tab, as pointed out upthread, is unambiguous to an extent staff notation generally isn't. Originally Posted by blackcat
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Staff notation is unambiguous. Most written music isn't guitar specific. Most written guitar music doesn't work with only one fingering. It is very rare that a specific fingering is implied which is useful mostly to beginners. Most musicians who are experienced in the style can figure out the fingering. But in these cases string numbers are marked on the staff anyway (which makes it a specific fingering). The staff notation gives you the music, you instantiate it on your instrument. Knowing all different ways of instantiating musical ideas on your instrument is good for musicianship. Originally Posted by James W
This is also true with chords. I actually prefer reading them in the standard notation. It makes the chords' construction more clear. If you're familiar with jazz chord voicings it's pretty straightforward how you finger them. Of course you can voice them in different string groups. That is the advantage of the staff notation, not it's disadvantage. Just because tabs give you specific places to put your fingers on doesn't mean these specific grips are the only way to play the tune. You get specific grips because tabs can't communicate the general construction.
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You contradict yourself. If there are multiple ways of instantiating musical ideas then it isn't unambiguous is it? Originally Posted by Tal_175
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I didn't. It's not ambiguous if the specifics isn't the point of the music that is written. You gotta know how to play your instrument. When you read a tune from a chart, it doesn't spoon feed you where you put your fingers. That doesn't make it ambiguous just because it is not making that choice for you. Originally Posted by James W
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^^ That's precisely the way in which it is ambiguous. Staff notation leaves generally - not always - the decision to the guitarist. Not a criticism really, just an observation, but there might be some contexts in which you might want to be unambiguous, and it is true that you can add more info like Arabic and Roman numerals to staff notation to make it such, but I think tab has its place - I do personally prefer to read music, but I value tab when dealing with something where it matters where a string change is - but that's just me having shreddy proclivities, maybe. Originally Posted by Tal_175
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This is shaping up to have the makings of a full blown thesis. Who ever would have thunk it
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To establish with any degree of accuracy the extent to which guitar tablature is frowned upon, we needs must establish who the frowners are, who the sinful tabbers are and their relative numbers as identifiable populations. Then, and only then will it be possible to conduct a thorough-going survey with carefully constructed control groups and relevant external monitoring +/- peer reviews. Recommendations will no doubt then be made as to the adoption of a 'to tab or not to tab' regime in and out of jazz guitar circles. Jazz police will be designated tab minders.
Just think what I could have done with the last five minutes..............................
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