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WHy is so much tab wrong?

Possibly. Most guitar/bass players I know have used it at some point, but that is just people I know.

There you go.

...You are missing the point here. How would it be obvious it is off if they aren't looking at it? For them to judge it, they must have seen/attempted to use it.

You'll just have to take my word that those websites are chock full of chords/tab that are simplified, inaccurate, or just plain wrong.

...I guess this is what is happening, or maybe not helping at all.

I guess so.
 
Easy: play in a band or jam where someone in there learned via tabs. They stick out like a sore thumb.

Tabs are like paint-by-numbers kits...when the project is finished and suitable for framing, the painter still doesn't know how to paint.

I definitely see that being a common scenario, but that doesn't sound like the scenario this thread was created around.

With all this tab bashing, it makes me feel better about not using it anymore and trying to learn music. Although the GP I play with has been playing by ear for many years now, and I often wonder if what he's playing is correct, not that I care, I'm still learning a lot from him.
 
Good point about those lawyers, I think. But apart from that I do not see the difference between contributing to Wikipedia and contributing to a bass tab.

I can also track down a basstrack to an extent, but sometimes it it tedious work. The bass is sometimes in the background of the music, and then it takes some work to hear what is going on. To get a quick start on cover songs, I think chords or tabs can help, even if there are some mistakes in the transciption.
 
I'll sometimes look on ultimate guitar if I'm sitting around playing acoustic guitar, or if I get a request for a tune I don't know at a gig. Sometimes they're right, but most of them have huge errors, like Am instead of Em...

The people that rush to put that stuff up are often just learning themselves, and to their ear it sounds close enough.
 
Scientists only have journal representatives coming after them when they overshare. A musician who puts accurate tab up will have music industry lawyers tracking him down! Those guys are pure evil!

Hey, maybe error filled tab is a music industry conspiracy!
Skilled transcribers are POSING on the Internet as Ibanez geo playing 15-year-olds and INTENTIONALLY besmirching the good name and integrity of tab!
 
I use tabs mostly as a starting point, because I'm too lazy to sit down and figure it all. At least, with most tabs (after weeding out the crappy ones), you get an idea how the song is played and I can figure out the rest, or at least come up with something that fits. I would never pretend a tab I write is 100 % correct. Most tabs advertised as "100 % accurate" are a bit like women who say they're not complicated: not entirely true !

:D
 
OK, I am returning to bass playing after being away for 41 years. I have downloaded several tab versions of songs I used to play in the 1970's, that I had figured out by ear then, and still remember. ALL the tab versions I found for these songs were wrong: wrong notes, wrong fingering, wrong key. There is a LOT of bad stuff out there, but I keep hoping to find tab that is at least approximate: I have a lot of catching up to do, and any help is welcome!
 
tab are always not so great, I've seen some transcription book like some RHCP official transcription with TAB and it happens here and there that the TAB is wrong or they choose some frets that make the line harder than it is or they TAB a Chorus in a way then on he second chorus they TAB it somewhere else on the neck ...

Better to learn how to read standart notation
 
Yep, i used to look up songs i actusally knew how to play just to see how wrong the online tabs for it were. And they always were wrong, one way or another.


But if you ever see anything i tabbed, i guarantee you it's likely 98% accurate at least.:-p IF it wasn't. i wouldn't bother tabbing it.

Oh and about tab books being pretty accurate...not all of them. When i started i bought a Hal Leonard U2 bass tabs book (yeah i know, easy stuff that can easily be picked up by ear but was starting and didn't know any better). In particular i remember the bass tab for A Sort of Homecoming. I look in the book and i was like "whoa, this is ten times more complex than it sounds like!" Then i listened to the song again and could't figure out what they were hearing in the tabs. I let it be. When i got better about a year later i came back to it. The tab was full of ****. Whoever tabbed it decided to add like loads of notes that just aren't there. The original bass part is extremely simple. So it's pretty stupid. I believe there were a few more such examples in the tab book. It's like look, write what's there, if it's simple, great, easy money, but don't tab your crazy jams.
 
TAB was a great resource until I developed my ear enough to play without it.

It's always been much easier to tell when I was playing the song wrong than when I was playing it right. Often people who aren't even musicians can tell when you're off key or off time.
 
I totally agree about tab but also don't trust Sheet. Most transcribers don't play bass and many don't play guitar.

If you don't believe me try the sheet for most of the Eagles songs. The only correct things are the key and the sing title (usually). Both of those are often right on tab too but i usually have those figured out after listening to a few bars.
 

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