Why Is Tablature Bad?

[whatizitman]

Kids are tricky. My daughter is the same way. Though she can listen to a tune on the radio and play it pretty closely by ear, she is starting to see the benefit of reading, though she still fights it.

I'm really hoping she can at least get to the point of playing by ear before she loses interest altogether.

I do have to remind myself that I had a very different music experience than my kids, and that's ok. I was involved in vocal performance, theory, and ear training from a young age, years before I even picked up a guitar or bass. I went very quickly from learning a few chords to playing common chord progressions in any key. My kids are not at that level, and may never be. I hope they do, but we can only do so much.

Like I mentioned earlier, tabs are very limiting. But if they help someone pick up a guitar or bass and learn some songs, maybe they will get inspired to go to the next level. Nothing wrong with that, AFAIC.

 

[bassinplace]

Tabs don't give time values. If you don't care about that, they can work for you. They're a means of communication, but a limited one. I personally don't use tabs or notation, just my ears. I really want to learn to sight read, though. I just found an online sight reading course thanks to a thread here on tb that looks really good. I'm going to check it out.

 

[Mushroo]

Considering the number of professional musicians that don't use standard notation...

Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles... I might be forgetting one or two.

 

[carl h.]

Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles... I might be forgetting one or two.

Actually, Ray handed out printed sheet music to his hired guns, even though he didn't partake.

 

[Mushroo]

Actually, Ray handed out printed sheet music to his hired guns, even though he didn't partake.

I wonder if he ever put the sheet music upside down on the stand for them, I could totally see him pulling a prank like that!

 

[Humbled]

Ask John Neiman.

 

[fdeck]

Agreed - but it's an industry standard that - oh gasp - isn't easy to master. There are those in the rock world who insist on everything be EASY. Sorry - music does not work that way.

Elitist.

 

[fdeck]

I'm really hoping she can at least get to the point of playing by ear before she loses interest altogether.

I do have to remind myself that I had a very different music experience than my kids, and that's ok. I was involved in vocal performance, theory, and ear training from a young age, years before I even picked up a guitar or bass. I went very quickly from learning a few chords to playing common chord progressions in any key. My kids are not at that level, and may never be. I hope they do, but we can only do so much.

Like I mentioned earlier, tabs are very limiting. But if they help someone pick up a guitar or bass and learn some songs, maybe they will get inspired to go to the next level. Nothing wrong with that, AFAIC.

Much as I favor standard notation over tab, giving someone a chance to enjoy music is simply a higher priority than any specific list of formal skills.

 

[socialleper]

And how are your elitist opinions relevant to everyone else who isn't you? I guess lack of know how makes things better?

A lot of strange things have been said in the course of this conversation, but that is definitely one of the worst leaps in logic anyone has made .

OP: Why is tablature bad?
Me: Its not.
TB: Tabs keep you from learning real music.
Me: No it doesn't. You can be a perfectly functioning musician without learning notation.
TB: Then you must be too lazy to be a real musician.
Me: I am a real musician, I just do it differently from you.
TB: You're stuck up for not cowing to us!

I NEVER said "No one should ever learn standard notation." I said "It isn't bad, and as an example, I've done pretty well without being able to sight read or write out my music." If your idea of not liking being talked down to by people who ARE acting like elitists and ARE saying that if you don't learn to read music you aren't a real musician, then your head ain't screwed on right.

I'm glad the internet exists to remind me of exactly why I hate people.

 

[Humbled]

That's some funny stuff right there.

Lighten up. Your way is as good as you need it to be.

 

[socialleper]

To the OP that hasn't replied to any of this since December:

Tablature is the worse thing you can do. You should pluck out your eyes and break your fingers for even thinking about using them. Why? Because we said so, that's why. Because when you do a kitten gets cancer and the terrorists win, that's why. If you use them you should smash your face with your bass has hard as you can because you will never contribute anything to music ever, so it doesn't matter if you break your bass or give yourself brain damage.
And that bass better g*d D@mn well be a four string p bass with a tort pick guard and flat you cretin.
Nothing good has been written since 1979.
TB NERD RAGE!!!!!

 

[CGremlin]

But I think staccato may be mostly relevant to bowed instruments since a plucked instrument is generally staccato to a greater or lesser degree no matter what without resorting to electronics.

Even quarter notes played pizz on a decent upright will ring enough where if you want them deliberately shortened, they'll need to be marked as staccato. My experience has been that staccato notes are marked as such because it's easier writing/reading that as shorthand. I'd prefer to write/read this:

rather than this:

 

[RoadRanger]

Space hogs tab scores are. No argument there.

So is Standard Notation. I've yet to see either compress a whole song into one landscape iPad screen like all of my charts are.

Because tab notation is really not practical to sight read

I actually had one guitarist that could sight-read tabbed leads cold - he was damned good!

 

[RoadRanger]

Hey - just a minor detour. I could certainly learn to sight-read Standard Notation in "C" in a week or so. What intimidates me is the key signatures that you have to modify the written notes by. That's just too messed up IMO for me to spend a huge amount of time on learning to sight-read. Is just learning to sight-read non-key-signatures stuff of any value?

And to tell you the truth, if I ever get back into keyboard I'd probably cheat and play everything in "C" and use the transpose knob - unless I can afford a Janko someday :
Jankó keyboard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I blame the "standard" keyboard for our present day wonky "Standard Notation" .

 

[40Hz]

So is Standard Notation. I've yet to see either compress a whole song into one landscape iPad screen like all of my charts are.I actually had one guitarist that could sight-read tabbed leads cold - he was damned good!

Definitely has better eyes than I do! If I ever meet him I'll buy you both a beer.

 

[40Hz]

Even quarter notes played pizz on a decent upright will ring enough where if you want them deliberately shortened, they'll need to be marked as staccato. My experience has been that staccato notes are marked as such because it's easier writing/reading that as shorthand. I'd prefer to write/read this:

rather than this:

Being a former upright player, I'll agree. But an upright introduces a whole pile of it's own specifics. I was primarily speaking about guitar and bass guitar in this context. Which is why tabulature is usually specific to a particular instrument - and is its key advantage and disadvantage. Staff notation is a "one size sorta fits all" approach. It ignores a lot of the specifics of each instrument in exchange for a common notation scheme. Which is why it gets stretched so much to fit. Tab is far more narrowly focused. But what you see is what you get.

It always struck me as funny that even though tabulature is far more detailed a form of notation, there's so many people that feel standard notation - with all it's simplifications and omissions - is somehow more sophisticated than tab. Truth is, there's been a lot of academic discussion on the shortcomings of our current notation system. Entire books have been written on proposed alternatives. But so far, the perfect all inclusive one size music notational system remains elusive. And I'm thinking it probably always will for the simple reason that every instrument itself is different. So there probably never will be a perfect universal notation scheme for every instrument. Or so it looks to me having read many of those discussions.

Note: Anybody interested in some of the research and proposals that have been suggested for different notation schemes so far can look here. Googling "alternative music notation" will spot you a few thousand more sites to check out.

If you want to have some real fun with notation software, check out LillyPond. You notate music using text. That text document goes through the LillyPond compiler and gets turned into rather professional looking sheet music. The language it uses isn't hard to learn. I've gotten so used to it that I'll sometimes write music using it's text format when I don't have staff paper or a laptop handy. Free for the download. Find it here.

 

[stringtapper]

Is just learning to sight-read non-key-signatures stuff of any value?

Not much beyond the basics of the natural notes on the staff and how to read rhythms. Most written music that a bassist is going to encounter will not be only in C major.

I blame the "standard" keyboard for our present day wonky "Standard Notation" .

Nah, most of the "ancestral" notation that led to our modern western notation system was for vocal music. It ain't perfect, but like George Carlin said about politicians, this is the best we can do people. In other words it's a nice ideal to think that there could be a better notation system, but the reality is that hundreds of years of development got us what we have. If it could have gone differently it probably would have.

Like with learning a language, it's ultimately more productive to work within the limitations and just get on with it rather than letting the ego hold you back by thinking "but if it only worked this way…"

 

[40Hz]

Agreed - but it's an industry standard that - oh gasp - isn't easy to master. There are those in the rock world who insist on everything be EASY. Sorry - music does not work that way.

By the same token, there are those in the classical and jazz world who insist, nay demand, everything needs to be DIFFICULT. Sorry - music doesn't work that way either.

Lori Anderson poked fun at that hipster mindset with her intro to the "Difficult Listening Hour" segment in her concert Home of the Brave. Ever listen to some jazz or classical music aficionado "explain" or offer "some pointers" on how and what to listen for before a show to their non-jazz/classical friends who came along? It's not too far removed from Lori's opening spiel most times.

 

[CGremlin]

If you want to have some real fun with notation software, check out LillyPond. You notate music using text.

Those quoted snippets were done with LilyPond. ;-) I actually find writing stuff to be much quicker with it than using a point-n-click visual interface, and you can do all kinds of non-standard or otherwise difficult notation easily once you get the hang of the syntax.

 

[RustyAxe]

And to tell you the truth, if I ever get back into keyboard I'd probably cheat and play everything in "C" and use the transpose knob

I just got a Kurzweil PC3 synth ... trying to get my keyboard chops back. This made me laugh, it's what I did the first day I got it, just to fool around. There was a time (and will be again) when I could sight read almost anything in any key. But right now ... I'm still a cripple.