No, it doesn't confuse me, I've never used tab, not on bass, not on guitar. I read standard notation, know my instrument(s), and have a good ear. Served me well since 1967.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Who else here is confused by tab (in multiple ways)?
- Thread starter vindibona1
- Start date
If you need a new way to read tab, I would suggest finding a Fretlight.
If the tap is done in tab pro you can run it through the software and the fret board will light up where you need to put your fingers. This is one method that I use when I need to learn a song and don't have a lot of time to do it.
If the tap is done in tab pro you can run it through the software and the fret board will light up where you need to put your fingers. This is one method that I use when I need to learn a song and don't have a lot of time to do it.
Fretlight seems horrible to me. Tab dependency is already an obstruction to just leaning the neck.
Now lets insert batteries, LEDS and software in between the student and actual understanding!
The goal is to learn the neck , right? Just memorize and drill.
Simplicity plus effort beats complexity plus ease, in all things.
Now lets insert batteries, LEDS and software in between the student and actual understanding!
The goal is to learn the neck , right? Just memorize and drill.
Simplicity plus effort beats complexity plus ease, in all things.
Source? Links? Having studied music history in school, I'm not sure to what you're referring.
It depends on how you use it. I agree that it's a bad idea to use tabs as a substitute for learning the neck, but that's not the only way to make good use of tabs. I know my neck well, and a fair amount of theory, so when I look at tab I don't just see fret numbers -- I see note names and intervals. Frequently -- perhaps more often than not -- I wind up working out a different fingering anyway once I've learned the part. So, I'm essentially using tabs in much the same way as others use standard notation. Used this way, I find tabs helpful for quickly working out details that I can't easily figure out by ear.
The history of music is littered with successful-but-limited, failed and abandoned approaches to sharing and documenting music. What we are calling “Standard Music Notation” wasn’t dropped on us in its present, mature form. It hasn’t “always been there.” It was developed over a long time and it is evolving still. Change is driven by many things, especially changes in instruments and playing techniques.
Likewise, the tabulature we use for modern guitar and bass (and ukulele and mandolin and ...) didn't leap out ready for general use. If tab is genuinely useful in the long run it will persist. It’ll change as needed but it’ll persist. If its shortcomings outweigh its advantages or if something “better” comes along it will fade from use or perhaps be used only in special situations.
That's really cool. I'm no music-theory dummy but that's something I would really struggle with, myself. You are living proof that TAB has legitimate uses.
Another legitimate use for TAB that I don't think anyone has mentioned yet, is that it can help a working musician make more money. Think about the authors of instructional books and articles, like Ed Friedland and Dave Overthrow. Being able to write high-quality TAB helps them land more writing/instructional gigs. They are going to get royalty checks for those books for the rest of their lives, in part because they are fluent in TAB.
When I first started playing at 15 years old I was confused by it, for different reasons. I did not have a teacher and I'm left handed. I would look at tablature and think it was upside down. Wasn't until I met someone else that plays in school that explained which line was which string lol.
Now, I do prefer notation. Being able to play a piece without ever hearing it before is really helpful. Otherwise, you have to keep listening to a song over and over and learn it bit by bit.
Now, I do prefer notation. Being able to play a piece without ever hearing it before is really helpful. Otherwise, you have to keep listening to a song over and over and learn it bit by bit.
That’s an interesting distinction.
I’d have said that intervals are clearer in tab, in a certain way. Three numbers higher on the same line is always a minor third in tab, but two notes up in SN might be a minor third or a major third depending on the starting note and key signature. SN forces/helps you to understand what key you’re in, which is better in the long run but has a higher barrier to entry.
This "higher barrier to entry" is one of the reasons kids today are turning to video games rather than musical instruments. And most of those who do take up musical instruments, particularly brass and winds, no longer have the patience to practice.
Yeah, we have it easy here in stringed instrument land, with consistent fingering in every key. I recently took up the sax and every key is like learning a whole new instrument. No wonder horn players want to do everything in Bb.
Last edited:
i'm fairly "confused" by tab because it's the slow-boat-to-china for me, whereas standard notation is obvious and instructive for me. i came up on piano, then woodwinds, yada, so it's strictly a matter of what i've been used to...
but i'm all in favor of putting it on Mushroo 's tab!
--- his posted example looks like the best of both worlds. i've seen that style of presentation before and appreciated it as a possible way to learn standard notation, more or less passively, while using the tab as the principle guide. don't know...just another deep thought! 
but i'm all in favor of putting it on Mushroo 's tab!
--- his posted example looks like the best of both worlds. i've seen that style of presentation before and appreciated it as a possible way to learn standard notation, more or less passively, while using the tab as the principle guide. don't know...just another deep thought!
Or Eb or Ab or F. It’s nothing ”like learning a whole new instrument“, it’s simply learning the whole instrument instead of just part of it. Why deliberately limit your repertoire and opportunities?
Sax, clarinet, flute- different for sure. Unlike bass or guitar where you change keys but the finger patterns remain constant, it takes time for your brain to acclimate to get used to the different fingerings rather than positions- although each note typically only has one fingering (with exceptions). So if you consider that you have to learn fingerings on sax but different positions and fingerings on bass, all else is equal if you want to become a good player. What's different with wind instruments (and orchestral strings) is that there is the element of developing a good tone and coordinating air and embouchure as well as fingering. And because most wind instruments are trained in a "band" environment, they are used to playing in flat keys, while moving to an orchestra will present more sharp keys (when I played trumpet in musicals I'd often be in the keys of B, E, A, sometimes D). And if you think sax it tough try trumpet. Simple with only three buttons, but you have to learn to make the pitches with your face and air. Only 7 combinations to make all those notes.
As I understand it, tablature was historically used to write down music for lutes and similar instruments.
The system that evolved into standard notation was developed to allow monks to sing liturgical music in choir. Later this was adapted also for harmonium like instruments to accompany the choir and spread from there.
Of course, in medieval times, there wasn’t much “standard” anything, in either case. For example, number of strings, courses, scale, tuning etc. for lutes.
Similarly, in religious communities, how many lines on a staff, how key was indicated, how musical lines were notated etc. There were common ideas but a lot of flexibility and, I believe, interpretation subject to house rules.
So these systems developed in parallel for a while. But the system of staff, clef, pitch notation seems to be more generally applicable across instruments and wound up developing into modern “standard notation.”
My understanding/memory. May not be 100% but I’ll vouch for 90+.
The system that evolved into standard notation was developed to allow monks to sing liturgical music in choir. Later this was adapted also for harmonium like instruments to accompany the choir and spread from there.
Of course, in medieval times, there wasn’t much “standard” anything, in either case. For example, number of strings, courses, scale, tuning etc. for lutes.
Similarly, in religious communities, how many lines on a staff, how key was indicated, how musical lines were notated etc. There were common ideas but a lot of flexibility and, I believe, interpretation subject to house rules.
So these systems developed in parallel for a while. But the system of staff, clef, pitch notation seems to be more generally applicable across instruments and wound up developing into modern “standard notation.”
My understanding/memory. May not be 100% but I’ll vouch for 90+.
The need of “standard” anything wasn’t felt until people began traveling widely and routinely. When your entire life was lived in a ten or twenty mile radius of your birthplace, as was the case for most people until quite recent times, you dealt almost exclusively with people who lived similarly and your knowledge was in common. “Standard” if you like. The few who went farther afield and shared their local knowledge were those who inadvertently drove the need for ”standard” or at least common means of communicating musical ideas between people of difference. Spoken communication was around a lo-o-o-ong time before writing came into use. Sounds are easy to disseminate and disperse, symbols and combinations of symbols, not so much.
I’d love to see what written music notation looks like in two hundred years. We’d probably struggle to figure it out if we were dropped off there and then. My bet is that there will still be more than one system of written notation and that there’ll be an analogue of TB where it’ll be discussed and debated.
I’d love to see what written music notation looks like in two hundred years. We’d probably struggle to figure it out if we were dropped off there and then. My bet is that there will still be more than one system of written notation and that there’ll be an analogue of TB where it’ll be discussed and debated.
Hi Vindibona (great username btw)
As a beginner I don't suppose I'm going to add anything helpful to this, as you're clearly a competent musician of many years experience. But Tab is certainly helping me learn.
I could read music as a kid, played piano, sang in a choir, and all those obviously use sheet. Back then I could read the bass clef easy enough - now, the song would have finished before I worked out which note I was starting on!
I'm nearly 54 myself so I've left it very late starting - the tabs have been a great help in learning, but as stated by others there are problems. The ones I've found are someone's interpretation of it, and while it's very good of anyone to have a go, some are better at it than others. To drag out one example from the Big Bass site I visit, there's at least 20 tabs for Smoke on the Water and least two thirds of those have the bass playing the iconic du du duuu, du du du duuu intro.
I just have a go with a song I know and like, and work my familiarity with the song into the tab so that I learn the rhythm as well. But obviously that's not practical for a song I don't know, so the crochets, quavers etc of sheet can't be beaten there. When I found someone who'd done Smoke in its full, trying to figure the rhythm and read the notes together, it left me behind almost immediately, so I just break it down into 3-4 bar chunks and try and learn them playing that section over and over.
Hope you find a way round it and get the songs under your belt. I'm sure you will.
As a beginner I don't suppose I'm going to add anything helpful to this, as you're clearly a competent musician of many years experience. But Tab is certainly helping me learn.
I could read music as a kid, played piano, sang in a choir, and all those obviously use sheet. Back then I could read the bass clef easy enough - now, the song would have finished before I worked out which note I was starting on!
I'm nearly 54 myself so I've left it very late starting - the tabs have been a great help in learning, but as stated by others there are problems. The ones I've found are someone's interpretation of it, and while it's very good of anyone to have a go, some are better at it than others. To drag out one example from the Big Bass site I visit, there's at least 20 tabs for Smoke on the Water and least two thirds of those have the bass playing the iconic du du duuu, du du du duuu intro.
I just have a go with a song I know and like, and work my familiarity with the song into the tab so that I learn the rhythm as well. But obviously that's not practical for a song I don't know, so the crochets, quavers etc of sheet can't be beaten there. When I found someone who'd done Smoke in its full, trying to figure the rhythm and read the notes together, it left me behind almost immediately, so I just break it down into 3-4 bar chunks and try and learn them playing that section over and over.
Hope you find a way round it and get the songs under your belt. I'm sure you will.
I use fake chord --- Deep Purple - Smoke On The Water (Chords)
the R5 is a basic power chord for the guitars you can go root only or R on the first beat and the 5 on the 3rd beat. The 5th is up a string, from the root, and over two frets, or right below the root on the next string down. Which ever one is easier.
On R4 the 4 is found up a string same fret.
Might give fake chord a look see. It's what most bands in my neck of the woods hand out.
Normally one beat per lyric word syllable.
Have fun.
Good luck.
the R5 is a basic power chord for the guitars you can go root only or R on the first beat and the 5 on the 3rd beat. The 5th is up a string, from the root, and over two frets, or right below the root on the next string down. Which ever one is easier.
On R4 the 4 is found up a string same fret.
Might give fake chord a look see. It's what most bands in my neck of the woods hand out.
Normally one beat per lyric word syllable.
Have fun.
Good luck.
Tab is very easy. The easiest notation system there is but you always have to have the recording of the music to go along.
Problem with most internet (word) tabs is that they don't notate any rhythm. That sucks. Sometimes they write the standard rhythm notation in the tab. That's much better.
Problem with most internet (word) tabs is that they don't notate any rhythm. That sucks. Sometimes they write the standard rhythm notation in the tab. That's much better.
