Get off my LAWN! "Grumpy Old Farts"

[beans-on-toast]

Maybe spending samolians would be less painful than trading in clams.

 

[GwenOnBass]

I always go for spacebucks when the exchange rate is good!

 

[GonePlaid]

My inbox fills this morning with amazing deals for all manner of temptations. There was one Black Friday deal I could not resist. Indeed, even looking forward to it. First thing today, even before the coffee is made, is purchase Jeff Berlin's Walking Bass lesson package. It runs 25 clams on it's release day (coincidentally, Black Friday). Since I eated eight clams on Thanksgiving that means the balance sheet

is only in my favour if I use the thing.

Looked at lesson 1. It's four bars of walking Maj7 quarter notes (repeat 3x) in every key. No tabs, no fingering suggestions, just plain old written sheet music. People really used to do that!

For someone(me)who 'growed up' with sheet music, tabs make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Fingerings on a woodwind and fingerings on a bass are two different deals. Seems to me my best choice of fingering depends on where I'm going.

 

[beans-on-toast]

For someone(me)who 'growed up' with sheet music, tabs make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

An old dog can learn new tricks. A lot of music is only available in tab format. Like notation, there’s good and bad tab. Tuning, capo, rests, slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs, bends (partial and full) and releases, vibrato, harmonics, plucking up or down stroke, tapping, where the note is played on the neck and with what finger, are all represented in tab.


Guitar Tab Explained: How to Read Guitar Tab Notation and Chord Diagrams


[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[GonePlaid]

Fingerings on a woodwind and fingerings on a bass are two different deals. Seems to me my best choice of fingering depends on where I'm going.

True. Fingering the saxes(for example 3 fingers on each hand = D)doesn't translate to bass necks.

 

[GonePlaid]

An old dog can learn new tricks. A lot of music is only available in tab format. Like notation, there’s good and bad tab. Tuning, capo, rests, slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs, bends (partial and full) and releases, vibrato, harmonics, plucking up or down stroke, tapping, where the note is played on the neck and with what finger, are all represented in tab.


Guitar Tab Explained: How to Read Guitar Tab Notation and Chord Diagrams


[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

I get that I could(maybe)learn it, but any situation that I would be involved in(concert band, big band, or our quartet), everything is standard notation or lead sheets w/ chord symbols. Both guitarists read. IDK if either does tabs-it's never been mentioned.

 

[Al Kraft]

For someone(me)who 'growed up' with sheet music, tabs make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I often have the same issue and it took me a while to read tabs. It's a little like going back and forth between say English and German where many words look similar but there are little nuances like how sentences are constructed and a grammatical gender associated with nouns.

IME you literally have to think in the new model and not try to translate between the one you know best/learned first...a task much easier said than done.

 

[GonePlaid]

I often have the same issue and it took me a while to read tabs. It's a little like going back and forth between say English and German where many words look similar but there are little nuances like how sentences are constructed and a grammatical gender associated with nouns.

IME you literally have to think in the new model and not try to translate between the one you know best/learned first...a task much easier said than done.

And the older I get, the less likely I am to change. That also includes words and phrases that have entirely different meanings than originally intended.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Somewhere in my own deep past lives treble clef reading skills. Bass clef came later, if I'm to exclude piano lessons long, long ago. Piano is to me an instrument I always seem to need to know on some level, and really want as little to do with as possible.

 

[Al Kraft]

That also includes words and phrases that have entirely different meanings than originally intended.

Which I find especially problematic in an era where we tend to email and text more than hold face to face discussions. IME knowing the experience/age of the individual you're addressing as well as recognizing nonverbal communication cues can often make the difference between clear understanding and unintended messages.

 

[GonePlaid]

Somewhere in my own deep past lives treble clef reading skills. Bass clef came later, if I'm to exclude piano lessons long, long ago. Piano is to me an instrument I always seem to need to know on some level, and really want as little to do with as possible.

I always tell people who've asked my advice on their kids learning to play music to start them on piano(keys). You can buy a decent sounding electronic keyboard for ~$200[Williams Legato]. No need to invest in a Steinway. And the basics one learns on the keyboard can be applied to music in general.
The band instruments(clarinets and the saxes)are in treble but since I already new what the notes were, it was just a matter of figuring out what fingers equaled those notes. And being familiar with bass clef made it possible for me to "sight transpose" bassoon parts(bass clef)to bass clarinet. Then, many mango seasons later, reading string bass parts in big band and concert band situations.

 

[Al Kraft]

A piano/keyboard IMO is probably one the best ways to learn music given the ability to literally see notes, scales, octaves, etc. right in front of you.

 

[GonePlaid]

Which I find especially problematic in an era where we tend to email and text more than hold face to face discussions. IME knowing the experience/age of the individual you're addressing as well as recognizing nonverbal communication cues can often make the difference between clear understanding and unintended messages.

Yes! Add to that the fact that texted messages, whatever format, do not include inflection which may indicate the sincerity-or lack thereof-of any given statement.

 

[StereoPlayer]

And the older I get, the less likely I am to change. That also includes words and phrases that have entirely different meanings than originally intended.

Ya, I my day thongs had a whole different definition.

 

[StereoPlayer]

Yes! Add to that the fact that texted messages, whatever format, do not include inflection which may indicate the sincerity-or lack thereof-of any given statement.

Emojis...

 

[Charlie Tango]

I often have the same issue and it took me a while to read tabs. It's a little like going back and forth between say English and German where many words look similar but there are little nuances like how sentences are constructed and a grammatical gender associated with nouns.

IME you literally have to think in the new model and not try to translate between the one you know best/learned first...a task much easier said than done.

I learned to read music first and came to tab much later. I'm not as good reading music for playing bass as I am at reading tab for it. I generally fault my own laziness and that of publishers for that. (If I would buckle down and actually finish Ari Cap's theory course I'd straighten all of that out.) Can't really blame the publishers, though; they're just trying to sell books, and too many players can't read.

Very interestingly to me, Soulfinger, the book about Duck Dunn's music has all the transcriptions printed in a combination of music and tab on one line, i.e. it's a four-line staff, with all the proper notation for timing and rhythm, but numbers (frets) where the note heads would be.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Seeing scale patterns on a bass is a great deal easier for me than seeing them on a piano. Don't even want to think about scale patterns on a valve instrument

 

[Charlie Tango]

With most wind instruments you cannot see your fingers as you play, so all the fingerings and scales are memorized anyway. You have to know all the actual notes of the scales beforehand. Really, it's the same on piano -- yes, you can see the keys, but in practice you generally don't look at your hands as you play. So there, too, you have memorized the scales, and all the fingerings therefor, through much repetitive practice.

 

[GwenOnBass]

I learned to read music first and came to tab much later. I'm not as good reading music for playing bass as I am at reading tab for it. I generally fault my own laziness and that of publishers for that. (If I would buckle down and actually finish Ari Cap's theory course I'd straighten all of that out.) Can't really blame the publishers, though; they're just trying to sell books, and too many players can't read.

Very interestingly to me, Soulfinger, the book about Duck Dunn's music has all the transcriptions printed in a combination of music and tab on one line, i.e. it's a four-line staff, with all the proper notation for timing and rhythm, but numbers (frets) where the note heads would be.

I've no idea what the state of children's formal music education is today. What I recall is the near-fear and loathing of a piece with four sharps or something.

There's a great deal of formal music education I'd sooner dispense with, too.

Playing an instrument tuned to B flat sucks unless you really are keen on both sight reading and transposition.