Reading music and elitism

[JaamE]

Agree totally. Learning to read is not rocket science, it's just requires a bit of work. In fact it's a hell of a lot easier than learning a foreign language. TAB is BS.

Not BS, just a different way to understand it.

For me, when I started learning, TAB was the only part that made sense, it was a math graph for me.

I'm since slowly learning to read notation because i want to conquer it and I can see its uses too.

TAB is just a different learning tool.

 

[LuckyPants]

frankly i've always felt people who can read music are slightly condescending about tab which I've never understood. Surely you learn how you want to learn? People shouldn't be looked down on because they prefer tab to reading music. In a lot of cases it isn't laziness either but this thread is full of people saying it is.

 

[BassyBill]

No one system is better than the other. The earliest guitar literature involved tab. It's not some red-headed stepchild. Personal preference is fine. Either way.

I'm never deliberately condescending about people using tab and I agree that it can be helpful to musicians in some circumstances. But to see it as some sort of equivalent alternative to notation is incorrect.

What I mean is, as an arranger, I don't sit down to write a chart and think to myself "Shall I do this one in tab for a change?" It just wouldn't be possible for me to communicate what I wanted playing to the guys in the band using tab.

frankly i've always felt people who can read music are slightly condescending about tab which I've never understood. Surely you learn how you want to learn? People shouldn't be looked down on because they prefer tab to reading music. In a lot of cases it isn't laziness either but this thread is full of people saying it is.

I can understand why some people prefer tab in some circumstances. It's almost certainly easier to learn how to use, for example, and choosing the easy way to do something doesn't automatically make someone lazy. But I don't think you'll find that too many people who can read well will then say that they still prefer tab, which is only generally preferred by non-readers or very weak readers, for valid reasons, as I said (and there's no shame in that - we were all there with our reading skills once). Again, it just isn't true that this is a choice between two very similar options. The differences are many and significant.

I guess what I'm saying is that when one of us reading guys posts to talk about these differences and asserts that notation (once learned) has some big advantages over tab, that doesn't mean we're necessarily being condescending or elitist. We're just stating what we see as the benefits of something we've put a lot of effort into learning and found incredibly useful to us musically as a result.

That's why I still believe that any musician who learnd to read would feel that they've worked on something worthwhile and I would, in a very positive way, encourage anyone who hasn't learned yet to go for it.

 

[Fergie Fulton]

frankly i've always felt people who can read music are slightly condescending about tab which I've never understood. Surely you learn how you want to learn? People shouldn't be looked down on because they prefer tab to reading music. In a lot of cases it isn't laziness either but this thread is full of people saying it is.

It is a sort of laziness, but it is based in genetic make up of what is believed to be a gene that determines risk, reward, and effort. So we may have no real control learning because we can justify the out come we want.

If interested ( see what I have done here) search " Lazy Gene Theory"

 

[Arthur Strand]

I find that too many people make sweeping statements that amount to very little concerning this topic. Middle-class families sent their kids to piano or violin lessons which probably cost a family several meals a week - beyond a Worky household budget. I was lucky. Local bandmaster was a Normandy Veteran and got me started on B flat cornet aged 9 - no cost. I managed to learn a number of tunes before dropping music to take German, eventually becoming a full-time bassist in Germany (U.S. Army in Viet Nam era).
As a bassist, I found the job did not really entail sight-reading since the drummer, singer and guitarists had no literacy in this skill. Several keyboard players were literate.
I believe that there is no excuse for the better off middle-class musician to be musically illiterate. In the Folk tradition, players passed down the songs and music from one generation to the next from learning by heart but there again, some folk musicians are good sight-readers. Many Jazz musicians cannot sight-read. Blues was developed because the slaves had no income and used what they could to entertain themselves. Buying notation was out of the question. Monks in Italy initiated notation in medieval times and it all progressed from there. I belong to the Lute Society - Renaissance Lute music is quality. The only way to learn to play is by reading the Tablature. French Tab, Italian Tab & German Tab are 3 major lines to follow. Guitar Tab today is a derivative. So no denigrating Tab!!! If you can teach yourselves to read, there are going to be times when it is useful. Sometimes reading may not be required. To jump in like a delinquent saying about one of the key elements of the World of music without substantial reasoning behind such statements is totally ignorant.

 

[LuckyPants]

It is a sort of laziness, but it is based in genetic make up of what is believed to be a gene that determines risk, reward, and effort. So we may have no real control learning because we can justify the out come we want.

If interested ( see what I have done here) search " Lazy Gene Theory"

actually this is just straight up nonsense. You've entirely backed up my condescending point.

 

[Downunderwonder]

Anyone can teach themselves to read the flypoopie without lessons. If you can play it you can read it.

If you can read it you may not be able to play it but it's a good start.

 

[Fergie Fulton]

actually this is just straight up nonsense. You've entirely backed up my condescending point.

Not really backing up anything, information can be presented in many formats to justify any point. The fact you dismiss it, shows the extent you have in understanding it....you are not qualified to call it nonsense.
If fact if I look at the time I posted and the time of your reply you have not even put in 1% of the time! never mind the reading, to understand the point. So in fact your own quickness to dismiss it is indeed a form of laziness. The fact you offer no counter to it is a form of laziness.....you sort of prove the point by your own actions and the amount of effort you justified to use..

Now while you may feel or even believe that people should learn what they want to learn, the fact remains that this is the very problem that many players seek to address in later life.
A real student does not get to choose what they need to learn, because they are not qualified to know what they need to learn, indeed they have no real idea on the full benefit of what they learn until it has a practical use. This is the trust we put in a good teacher and a good teacher always knows better than their student what a student need to learn.

 

[MartinG1957]

^What Fergie said- well put sir.
I find the argument that basically goes- something which I don't know about and haven't learned or am in a position to judge the true value or benefit of to something I do, is of no value to me at all, no matter how many experienced people tell me of its potential value- is of as much value as the ridiculous attitude that ticked Jimmy M off in the first place and opened this quite astonishing - to me anyway- can of worms.
To me the majority of this thread has reinforced Jimmy M's original complaint as it has been more about attitudes than the value or otherwise of a particular skill.

 

[miltslackford]

It is a sort of laziness, but it is based in genetic make up of what is believed to be a gene that determines risk, reward, and effort. So we may have no real control learning because we can justify the out come we want.

If interested ( see what I have done here) search " Lazy Gene Theory"

Oh dear

 

[JimmyM]

Would love to comment in depth but my comp is in bad shape and I have to back everything up and reinstall Windows. I'll just say that if tab helped you learn to read music, then awesome. But tab is definitely not the equal of notation, nor is it accepted anywhere outside of guitar and bass playing circles, so if you're under the illusion that it is, hate to break it to you but it just isn't.

 

[ugly_bassplayer]

wow, 26 pages of this. Someone could have learned to read standard notation in this much time. Instead of pleading the "virtues" of TAB.

 

[Russell L]

Would love to comment in depth but my comp is in bad shape and I have to back everything up and reinstall Windows. I'll just say that if tab helped you learn to read music, then awesome. But tab is definitely not the equal of notation, nor is it accepted anywhere outside of guitar and bass playing circles, so if you're under the illusion that it is, hate to break it to you but it just isn't.

Yep. That's the way it is.

TAB can be helpful, but it was never intended to replace standard notation, and it can't.

 

[carl h.]

Anyone bother to read the part I linked while listening to the version I linked?

 

[mbeall]

Bugs in drag was always bad ass. Mel Blanc is the bomb.

 

[Roy Vogt]

Anyone bother to read the part I linked while listening to the version I linked?

Just did-hysterical! Now we need some Wagner linked with "Kill The Wabbit"...

 

[BassyBill]

Anyone bother to read the part I linked while listening to the version I linked?

What's that notation all about at bars 124-131? And again at 210-220? I get how it's supposed to be played, but why aren't all those notes just ordinary quarter notes/crotchets?

 

[cnltb]

I saw a comment in the new BP today that just angered the living crap out of me. They asked a poll question: "Should we do away with TAB in our transcriptions?" To which one halfwit replied:

"Losing the TAB would make the magazine way too elitist."

Another joker replied:

"Not all of us had mommies and daddies who could pay for music classes."

Really? You really think it's about money and elitism? Yeah, you're right...I learned out of a book that cost $5 in addition to joining the middle school band. My wife, who had no previous musical skills, wanted to learn the piano a few years ago. I bought her a piano for Christmas and a $15 piano method book. She worked through the book herself and taught herself how to read. Real big money there, eh?

So stop with this nonsense about reading music being elitist. I'm sick of it, and it's just a lame excuse for not wanting to put in the work. You never see anyone who can read music talking about how much it costs or how elite they are, do you? Nope, only the whiners who resent people for working for it.

That's what it boils down to...not wanting to put in the work. It ain't brain surgery, folks.

A big +1

 

[bass_study]

wow, 26 pages of this. Someone could have learned to read standard notation in this much time. Instead of pleading the "virtues" of TAB.

Agreed. Even if there are virtue of using TAB, there is always good to learn a new thing like reading.

 

[carl h.]

What's that notation all about at bars 124-131? And again at 210-220? I get how it's supposed to be played, but why aren't all those notes just ordinary quarter notes/crotchets?

It's a shorthand. It saves space on the page and saves on fatigue for the eyes.