How to hide tabs in books

[progrmr]

I'm learning to read music and I have many blues books that have both musical notation and tabs. The tabs are a distraction and a crutch that I want to cover up, but I don't want to ruin the book either.

I was thinking about cutting some strips of white paper to size of the tab staff and tape them over the tabs.

What are some good ideas for covering up the tabs?

[FunkMetalBass]

That's exactly what I do - blue painter's tape over the tabs.

Or you can make photocopies of the notation, cut out the sheet music, and glue them together on a new sheet.

[UncleFluffy]

Do you have access to a scanner / computer / printer? That way you could scan the pages, remove the tabs, and pack two pages down into one to save space.

[togglehead]

Originally Posted by UncleFluffy

Do you have access to a scanner / computer / printer? That way you could scan the pages, remove the tabs, and pack two pages down into one to save space.

+1

How do you keep a book open on your music stand anyway!?!? =P

[progrmr]

Originally Posted by FunkMetalBass

That's exactly what I do - blue painter's tape over the tabs....

I like this idea - scanning/reprinting is too much of a PITA, but blue painters tape should work fine and be fast.


I just bend my book binding until it's flat for the page I'm working on A lot of the time I'm sitting on my couch and just reading the music off the coffee table while playing through my tiny ibanez amp that doesn't piss the neighbors off lol!

[natw42]

Kind of a crazy idea.... copy the notation by hand. It'll help you familiarize yourself with notation and writing it.

Reading and writing go together right?

Just a suggestion....painter's tape will work wonders too

[progrmr]

Originally Posted by natw42

Kind of a crazy idea.... copy the notation by hand. It'll help you familiarize yourself with notation and writing it.

Reading and writing go together right?

Just a suggestion....painter's tape will work wonders too

yea, that would be a good idea too. I will probably do that as time permits (gotta be ready for my bass instructor's "hot seat" by lesson time )

[JTE]

I was going to suggest white-out tape, but now I really like natw42's idea a lot better!

[mambo4]

Definitely hand copy.
especially if you sing each bar or phrase as you go.

[leadfingers]

I like the idea of using blue painter's tape over the tab, I'll have to try that one.

I'm learning to read slowly at 44. (With a full load of college classes, family obligations, band song work, and helping the guys down at the gym who like to beat on the old man - it seems progress is at a stop sometimes, but it is getting there.)

I downloaded one of the free tab software programs and work with it on songs. I take the music notation that I'm working on and convert it to tab. I think this helps me to internalize the music better. I can determine the fingering that I want to use based upon the notes and key, and use the tab as a "backup" when I'm practicing in order to refresh my slow mind on "Where that weird note on the staff, that I thought I knew, could be fingered".

I used the hand written method for a short while in the beginning, but I have so much paper floating around here already that it seemed to get lost in the mess. What I like with the software option is that I can download it to a flash drive and have it all there when I get a chance to work on it again. I can also go into the score and change the placement of a fingering or group of fingering without having to much hassle.

Of course - YMMV and IMHO. But it seems to help my slow mind and such, heh.

[SpamBot]

Originally Posted by natw42

Kind of a crazy idea.... copy the notation by hand. It'll help you familiarize yourself with notation and writing it.

Reading and writing go together right?

Just a suggestion....painter's tape will work wonders too

Even crazier..... find a recording of the song you want to learn, transcribe it, and then use your book to check your work.

[singlemalt]

I find the tab really distracting as well. Half the time there is a better way to play the line anyway. Once in a while its easier than reading a bunch of ledger lines. I get the pattern and can concentrate on the note values and rest.

I won't buy anything with tab.

Every music stand needs clothes pins, don't leave home without them. There's always 4 or 5 clipped on my music stand. Save your ass on a breezy day when you have to do an outdoors gig. A sheet of 1/8 plexi works great for holding down lots of sheets on a bigger stand. A couple fridge magnets can be handy for sticking a sheet of music or lyrics to a mike stand.

[varunkapahi]

sometimes tab help you find the right position to play something and not do it the hard way! but besides that instead of messing up my pages i just put my book on a table and put another paper or something over the line of tab i want to hide

[Billnc]

Originally Posted by singlemalt

Every music stand needs clothes pins, don't leave home without them. There's always 4 or 5 clipped on my music stand. Save your ass on a breezy day when you have to do an outdoors gig. A sheet of 1/8 plexi works great for holding down lots of sheets on a bigger stand. A couple fridge magnets can be handy for sticking a sheet of music or lyrics to a mike stand.

+1

[funkybass]

I use post it notes, that way if I need to see the tab for some reason I can.

[hrodbert696]

When I saw the title for this thread, I thought you wanted a way to hide pages of tabs inside a book of notation to make it look like you could read music...

My bad.

[Jim Campbell]

Originally Posted by progrmr

I'm learning to read music and I have many blues books that have both musical notation and tabs. The tabs are a distraction and a crutch that I want to cover up, but I don't want to ruin the book either.

I was thinking about cutting some strips of white paper to size of the tab staff and tape them over the tabs.

What are some good ideas for covering up the tabs?

seems like an awful lot of work....better to get used to reading as it comes.....if you get any read gigs later on there will be no time to re-format them......and they will likely be crude hand drawn stuff,not the crisp clean stuff from books

[varunkapahi]

i got so mad at these tabs that i made a little template!! will work this book atleast

[jp58]

I did it with masking tape a while back, when I was trying to force myself to read music, but I gave up on it way to quickly

[m_bisson]

white out! It should be permanent!