Wes Montgomery - Road Song Transcription with Tabs?

[voxo]

anyone know where i can get a tablature of this Wes solo on Road Song..im an average notation reader but tabs would be faster to learn.here it is. avoid the octaves...too much for me

[AllanAllen]

Only one way to get better at reading notation.... The time is going to pass whether you practice the skill or not, so you might as well practice it.

It'll slowly come together, 5 notes counting lines today, recognizing G as the middle line, F and E as the top and bottom spaces next week. A is the first added line the week after that.

Get a sheet of music in C and read the notes while you are on the toilet. You have the time for this somewhere.

[Aiq]

+1 on reading.

I’m elderly and started working on it seriously a couple years back. I can read two sharps/flats pretty well, as in I can go say four measures at a steady pace without stopping.

The truth is when reading with tab present I usually change the fingering from what the tab shows. Mine is better ( for me that is).

So much is revealed.

Do it, small bites and just keep going.

[voxo]

yes tabs are fine..nice to shape the sounds with choices...Wes was the man ..love the way he works the bottom frets ....worked on Nicas Dream...can play exactly where Wes was on the frets..what a player..no boxes for him

[Christian Miller]

Yeah tabs are usually pretty hit and miss if you expect them to be true to how Wes actually played stuff. If not, bear in mind they aren’t gospel.

Tbh tabs are kind of problematic for jazz. The reason is tab came into vogue again in the 80s (after a couple of hundred years of not being used) to help people learn specific fingerings for things like EVH solos. So it’s great for stuff that guitarists need specific fingering information. Either you put your fingers in the right place or you can’t play that stuff.

Problem is a lot of jazz stuff isn’t like that. Even for guitar stuff like Wes, I think many guitarists aren’t interested in emulating Wes’s technique (I am, but I am strange) they just want to play his music.

For my own YouTube stuff people complain that they can’t play my fingerings, and that’s because my technique is different to theirs.

OTOH a lot of jazz stuff isn’t guitar music. So there’s no correct TAB in the way there is for the Beat It solo, say.

So as long as those things are born in mind - I’d encourage you to try different fingerings for a phrase if one doesn’t work out for you.


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[Christian Miller]

Here’s a project I did recently on how Wes did in fact finger stuff

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[John A.]

Yeah tabs are usually pretty hit and miss if you expect them to be true to how Wes actually played stuff. If not, bear in mind they aren’t gospel.

Tbh tabs are kind of problematic for jazz. The reason is tab came into vogue again in the 80s (after a couple of hundred years of not being used) to help people learn specific fingerings for things like EVH solos. So it’s great for stuff that guitarists need specific fingering information. Either you put your fingers in the right place or you can’t play that stuff.

Problem is a lot of jazz stuff isn’t like that. Even for guitar stuff like Wes, I think many guitarists aren’t interested in emulating Wes’s technique (I am, but I am strange) they just want to play his music.

For my own YouTube stuff people complain that they can’t play my fingerings, and that’s because my technique is different to theirs.

OTOH a lot of jazz stuff isn’t guitar music. So there’s no correct TAB in the way there is for the Beat It solo, say.

So as long as those things are born in mind - I’d encourage you to try different fingerings for a phrase if one doesn’t work out for you.


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I'd quibble a little with you saying that tab came into vogue in the 80s with EVH -- it was common 50s-70s with acoustic/fingerstyle music and the surge in guitar playing and instruction that came with the folk and blues booms. E.g., the folk magazines, Guitar Player magazine, and authors like Stefan Grossman had tab. I think it's more accurate to say that EVH and other tap/shredder players sparked an increase in rock guitar instruction that necessitated detailed fingering information.

Otherwise, yeah, tab is much less useful and relevant for jazz. In addition to what you say about non-guitar music, it also lacks the information that standard notation conveys about intervals, rhythm, and line direction/shape. Even a lousy reader like me can look at a standard-notation transcription and see what the line does. And if I do the subscription myself, standard notation enables thinking about the compostitional/theory aspects in a way that tab does not. Plus, it's shareable with non-guitarists.

[MoMan]

Hi Voxo,

I think this is what you are looking for:

This book by Wolf Marshall has a very accurate transcription including tab of Road Song/ODG and is useful and insightful:
Amazon.co.uk

Suggest learning notation and exploring Wes' unique fingering choices as longer term goals as others have advised but in the interim hopefully the above gets you playing this tune and staying motivated.
It is a wonderful song and very cool harmonic moves.