Thinking in tabs; yay or nay?

[Roy Vogt]

I concur. I have a young student who brought in TABs for his Church's P&W Team. We learned (1) what keys the tunes were in (2) The diatonic chord progressions (3) where there was variance in these-not often in contemporary Praise and Worship stuff (4) and how to use Roots, 5ths, 3rds, 7ths, scale tones, and chromatic tones to create bass lines. So far it's worked, and he's weaning himself off the TAB.
Here's the puzzler-I've had him for a while, and he knows all of this (reading,theory,etc), so why the TAB?

 

[Billnc]

Another rule: no tabs with SN! I will not use any book with tabs in it. Total immersion in a non tab world. Anything being worked out in a lesson is not to be looked up on line for tabs. I don't care what anyone looks up as far as information, or tabs on anything they want, but lesson materials no. If the two are used side by side the student relies on the crutch until the day someone says NO tabs!

I've had a couple dyslexic students, reading music in their cases was not a problem. Learning disabilities are too broad to address.

 

[Jefenator]

Well, simply put, i'm a mostly self-taught (I learned a few lessons in scales from a guy at my church but that was roughly it) bassist who's looking to get an alt metal band off the ground this summer (think A Perfect Circle), and here's a problem i'm beginning to run into - I can play Bass but I actually know jack about it.

I've learned to play a lot of songs by tabs, and I know how to find the chords I need to play on my church worship teams, but now that i'm trying to sit down and put music to my lyrics i'm finding that I write it out in tabs, or just the chord I happen to be playing while i'm working on a riff. It's not in any real key, nor is it in a scale. Sure it sounds good and I can sing it just fine, but where I run into a problem is that when it comes time to do a demo and start auditioning guitarists, I can only hope that they'll know what i'm doing and what i'm playing and that they'll be able to play along.

Consider that i've been playing like this for 7 years now and I tend to think i'm thoroughly screwed. Can anybody offer any kind of advice to a guy locked into the tab mentality? I'm trying to make a proffesion out of my music and if I don't know/am going to have a VERY hard time learning theory (I can't even read sheet music), I might just be SOL.

Just keep at it, little by little, and remember you don't have to become an ace sight-reader or get your doctorate in theory before you reap some benefits.

Even with the most rudimentary basics, you'll be WAY better off than thinking only in fret numbers. IMHO.

 

[Fergie Fulton]

I concur. I have a young student who brought in TABs for his Church's P&W Team. We learned (1) what keys the tunes were in (2) The diatonic chord progressions (3) where there was variance in these-not often in contemporary Praise and Worship stuff (4) and how to use Roots, 5ths, 3rds, 7ths, scale tones, and chromatic tones to create bass lines. So far it's worked, and he's weaning himself off the TAB.
Here's the puzzler-I've had him for a while, and he knows all of this (reading,theory,etc), so why the TAB?

Hi Roy ask him and find out the root cause of why he does so. Most of the answers i get is because it is seems easier.
I believe it is because we are taught numbers and counting skills from early age so this makes it easy to un-code tab as it is based on numbers and visuals.
I tried it out on friends with no musical skills or knowledge with surprising results. When they read it and conved the finger positions to me and i played, it was quite amazing how fast they caught on with just that one task to do. It was up to me to play what they read out and i also quickly adapted to my part in all this.
My side i can understand because when he said A5 i knew that was D and and D10 was C etc. So it was quite simple to show them that in notation i see a note and then play it in a stave is the same process to me as the tab they have just read out.
But when i gave them notation it was different, so much harder to get them to give me the notes. They all agree that they had to read the note, then reference it, before they could say it out for me to play. This got complicated when sharps and flats were intoduced in the keys because they had to learn the reference before they could tell me. With tab we know the reference because we were taught counting in school.

I have an idea that it may be the reason why some learn maths easy in school, a left/right brain thing. I have no real proof of this but it is a reasonable leap of faith to see relationships in the two between maths and music as counting is involved.

 

[Michael Campbel]

If musicians can do it anyone can.

*chuckle*