Tabs or music

[EADG mx]

I can't speak for anyone else but I do favour tab over notation, usually when jotting down ideas because it's faster (for me) and can help me remember the fingerings I used

I do know some musicians who prefer it over notation, or sometimes use it out of necessity. I don't think you're going to get called to a pit gig and be handed a tab, but people do use it as a form of communication.

So do you need to know it? Debatable, but if it doesn't take long to learn (as is the consensus here) then why not?

 

[mkrtu9]

Why not just learn both? I use tabs, but its because that is what I sat down and learned myself. I've never had a lesson in music, and was never in school band so I just taught myself tabs and not notation. I should learn notation though.....ok, new goal...I'm gonna start today

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

I think you missed the "expected" and "with other musicians" parts. I'm not talking about sitting at home with Internet tabs.

This is still in the context of what a bassist might "need" to know. Is tab a skill that you need to know or you won't be able to do what you need to do? No, not AFAICS. Is it something you (generic you, not you personally) might want to do so you can play stuff in the back of a gear magazine? Yeah, maybe. But a skill you'll need in even a semi-serious situation out there in the musical world? Not so much.

Yes the thing is that the more you know, the more you realise there is out there that you need to know !!

So - when you start out you might think "well why not...?" - but when you are serious about music, you realise there is so much to learn, that knowing what is not worth learning is a BIG help!

 

[greenboy]

Be interesting to see someone sightreading a broadway show from TAB ; }

 

[onlyclave]

Be interesting to see someone sightreading a broadway show from TAB ; }

That would allow for some interesting rhythmic interpretation.

There isn't any rationale for tabs other than it's a lazy way to learn to play songs you hear on the radio. And if you've never heard the song before, well I guess you can make something up.

 

[Dmanlamius]

What's sad about so many tabs up on the net: as limited as tab is in communicating detailed musical info, even the bit that tab can handle is so often wwwwraaaaaoooong. i mean, BAD! So evidently tab attracts a lot who haven't really been doing music too long yet.!

Yea, I agree with Greenboy here. "Back in the day", you used to buy bass magazines where the tab had been tested thoroughly. With the advent of the internet, anyone can now post it. That's why most are wrong...

Tab is a good tool when it's used properly...

But if you want to be professional, and raise your game then definatly learn how to read notation.

 

[wilsonn]

I hate tabs...much prefer standard annotation. And they're often wrong.
Neal

 

[EADG mx]

Once again, I think a lot of the hatred towards tabs is actually directed at those who write and distribute them. You can notate most if not all nuances of standard notation within tablature if it is done properly (yes, including rhythms).

Of course I'm not going to deny that notation is the vastly superior and practical method, but give a little credit where it's due.

 

[HaVIC5]

That would allow for some interesting rhythmic interpretation.

There isn't any rationale for tabs other than it's a lazy way to learn to play songs you hear on the radio. And if you've never heard the song before, well I guess you can make something up.

Fingering patterns are a lot easier to display in tab. That's a rationale. Rhythm, articulations and other nuances of standard notation are easily adapted into tab as well.

 

[Richard Lindsey]

Fingering patterns are a lot easier to display in tab.

Yes and no. Fret locations, yes (subject to the often undesirable constraints already mentioned); LH fingering and positioning, no. The larger point, as I know you know, is the argument that fret location is not the primary piece of information that notation should convey.

Rhythm, articulations and other nuances of standard notation are easily adapted into tab as well.

Not so easily IMO, but it's certainly not impossible.

 

[lowstrung5]

Once again, I think a lot of the hatred towards tabs is actually directed at those who write and distribute them. You can notate most if not all nuances of standard notation within tablature if it is done properly (yes, including rhythms).

Of course I'm not going to deny that notation is the vastly superior and practical method, but give a little credit where it's due.

Ok......here's the little credit. As long as we agree notation is vastly superior and practical. Nuff said.

 

[Jake of Bass]

Just for the record, it's actually quite easy to write rhythm into a sheet of TAB. There are differing methods that work well. I've managed to play many songs I've not heard simply off the rhythm markings on the TAB and then later get the music to find it is all correct.

 

[Ric5]

My most important skill is a good ear. Then reading music and last tabs.

I learn by ear first. When I can't get it that way then I go to music. Then when I can't find music I will try a tab. I find the less I read the better I play.

 

[EADG mx]

Yes and no. Fret locations, yes (subject to the often undesirable constraints already mentioned); LH fingering and positioning, no. The larger point, as I know you know, is the argument that fret location is not the primary piece of information that notation should convey.



Not so easily IMO, but it's certainly not impossible.

I don't find it difficult to visually extract the positioning from the tablature, and from there devise a practical fingering.

And I don't think it's particularly difficult to convey rhythms, articulations, directions, etc in tablature. The system used by Powertab Editor in ASCII format is great, and the system used by Guitar World/Bass Guitar magazine certainly does the trick as well.

 

[Richard Lindsey]

I don't find it difficult to visually extract the positioning from the tablature, and from there devise a practical fingering.

Well, I wasn't saying you would. I was saying it would certainly not necessarily be easier to do so with tab than with standard notation.

And I don't think it's particularly difficult to convey rhythms, articulations, directions, etc in tablature. The system used by Powertab Editor in ASCII format is great, and the system used by Guitar World/Bass Guitar magazine certainly does the trick as well.

Sure, it can be done. As I said above, it's certainly possible to do tab better than it's usually done. On one level, anything that helps you learn anything is ipso facto good in some manner. Knowing tab and using it for your own purposes (or not using it at all) isn't going to give you cancer or anything. My argument is solely with the idea that it's a thing that bassists "need" to learn in the real world. That gives the impression that it's something that ought to occupy some space in whatever limited time and opportunity one has to play and practice, because it's something you'll have to be able to do when you get out there and play. Something that requires a place in one's own curriculum, IOW. But IME and IMO it really isn't.

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Yup - we have so little time and there is so much to learn - we can't afford to waste it on un-necessary things and instead of using Tab you could have been doing more sight reading practice...!!

 

[oldscarrow]

Thanks to everyone that replied to my original question......I'm convinced, I am going to learn to read music. It is what I originally intended to do, but thought I would get a second opinion, and I got about 50 of em......so thanks.

 

[caeman]

I am not a good bass player. I just picked one up in August of 2008 to begin learning. I have been a drummer all my life. I never learned the letter notes. A and B's were a foreign concept to me. So, I have begun my learning with tab and it has worked for me. It isn't useless, it is a learning aid for we who want to play.

Did you learn to read before you learned to speak? Tab allows you to speak with the guitar.

By being able to sit down and PLAY, it keeps me inspired to continue learning. I find the tab useful for helping to learn simpler songs like church hymns, kids songs (my little boy likes my guitar) and such. I have progressed far enough that I have begun attending my synagogue's band practices with my bass to begin learning the music that I have only played drum set with to this point. All of the music is chord marked, no other notation.

I am not dismissing musical notation, but I would ask those that already knew musical notation to not denigrate tab to terribly much. It is a learning aid that some of us needed to get started. Now, if you never advance beyond tab, you probably really haven't learned anything.

Tab has been useful in helping me to learn harmonica, as well, but that is a subject for another forum.

 

[Bassorama57]

Reading standard notation is the only way to go. If I can read it, I can play it.

Nothing against tabs though - if it's a professionally done tab, it's useful to see how the original artist fingered it ("Oh, he's up on the E string for that Bm run...no wonder that sounds so dark!") Being able to read regular notion means you can look over the keyboard player's shoulder and read the left hand runs, etc., in addition of course to being able to play note-for-note anything, whether it's a bass violin, tuba, or piano part.

 

[kenlacam]

as a player for over 20 years, I have not learned to read music OR tabs, play strictly by ear/feel.