I have always been a big fan of Jeff Berlin and admired his approach to the four string, but I think this is just out of hand. This is from an interview I saw on bassically.net
"Tablature doesn't exist in music. It is written for musicians who don't know the language of music that has existed for hundreds of years in standard notation. If someone can sit there and look at the numbers 15, 16, and 17 which will give them more of an immediate gratification rather than learning G, G#, and A, which way do you think they will choose? They'll choose the more immediate gratification. It's the fault of a lot of the magazines that promote tablature because they know that most of their readers don't know anything about music. Most of the readers of guitar magazines are fans which is fine, and they want to learn how Steve Vai did it. I say if you want to learn how Steve Vai did it, then toss a record on, put headphones on, and listen. That is how he did it. Billy Sheehan, one of the greatest rock bass players of all-time, he listened and he imitated. Tablature doesn't exist. It is a falsehood. It is a lie. It is the end of the development of a musician. Like this or not, it is a fact.
A lot of people go after me on the internet, and I say watch out for these people because they don't know what they are talking about. They are opinionated and emotional about these things and don't have the skills or the musical knowledge to back up their statements. When you emotionally believe and emotionally attach yourself to a belief system without investigating it, it's going to mess up your musical progress, and you are going to pay a price for it later. Everyone is brave on the internet when posting to forums and message boards, and everyone is brave when writing a letter to a magazine criticizing me, but when it comes to a face-to-face confrontation, they are NEVER able to back up their beliefs.
Let me emphasize something. I will sound like I am going to brag, but in music I am just about never wrong about these things. Everything else in life, you can take with a grain of salt because I'm not an expert in anything else. In music, not only do I know, but it has been proven a thousand times with Players School students. There's no doubt. There's none. Zero. You can believe it or not. It's up to you, but I will save you years of investigation and problems if you adjust your approach to learning how to play the instrument."
Does that seem a little extreme to some of you? Is that just the way he is or might he have been having a bad day?
"Tablature doesn't exist in music. It is written for musicians who don't know the language of music that has existed for hundreds of years in standard notation. If someone can sit there and look at the numbers 15, 16, and 17 which will give them more of an immediate gratification rather than learning G, G#, and A, which way do you think they will choose? They'll choose the more immediate gratification. It's the fault of a lot of the magazines that promote tablature because they know that most of their readers don't know anything about music. Most of the readers of guitar magazines are fans which is fine, and they want to learn how Steve Vai did it. I say if you want to learn how Steve Vai did it, then toss a record on, put headphones on, and listen. That is how he did it. Billy Sheehan, one of the greatest rock bass players of all-time, he listened and he imitated. Tablature doesn't exist. It is a falsehood. It is a lie. It is the end of the development of a musician. Like this or not, it is a fact.
A lot of people go after me on the internet, and I say watch out for these people because they don't know what they are talking about. They are opinionated and emotional about these things and don't have the skills or the musical knowledge to back up their statements. When you emotionally believe and emotionally attach yourself to a belief system without investigating it, it's going to mess up your musical progress, and you are going to pay a price for it later. Everyone is brave on the internet when posting to forums and message boards, and everyone is brave when writing a letter to a magazine criticizing me, but when it comes to a face-to-face confrontation, they are NEVER able to back up their beliefs.
Let me emphasize something. I will sound like I am going to brag, but in music I am just about never wrong about these things. Everything else in life, you can take with a grain of salt because I'm not an expert in anything else. In music, not only do I know, but it has been proven a thousand times with Players School students. There's no doubt. There's none. Zero. You can believe it or not. It's up to you, but I will save you years of investigation and problems if you adjust your approach to learning how to play the instrument."
Does that seem a little extreme to some of you? Is that just the way he is or might he have been having a bad day?
