Thanks, John and Ginny!
Ginny Aitchison wrote: ... " "a great musician once said- there are no mistakes only new parts " - Neil Peart."
Cool! I like that.
John Kelly wrote: ..."TAB is something I do not use much at all, and only if someone asks for it specifically, as was the case here. ... Because I play regularly with other musicians I find it is more convenient to stick with standard notation that we can all use, whether fiddlers, accordionists or whatever else."
Understood.
I've discovered an unexpected newfound use for tab when writing my own arrangements of stuff, particularly for oddly-tuned instruments where the notes are not where they're supposed to be. For instance, when I'm trying to write simple bass lines for that bizarrely-retuned guitar I've been using as a bass this year, my tuning is based more on what the instrument can physically withstand (not supposed to put bass strings on a guitar but I did it anyway and it turns out there are major limitations with intonation, bridge saddle curvatures, string-post fit etc), rather than on what would be an actual optimal tuning for the notes I want to play. Anyway I look at the tab (custom adjusted to my strange tuning) while learning to play the arrangement. If I keep using a particular tuning long enough, eventually I'll have the note locations memorized, but I'm not there yet and that tuning may be changed to something different in future anyway (which would throw all the notes off again). Actually I'd rather have a real bass, but that will have to wait another year or two, I have other financial obligations to attend to that preclude buying any additional instruments for now. (Patience eh.)
Similar tab usage for mandolin cross-tunings ADAE and AEAE etc, where some of the notes end up in different locations on the fretboard compared to standard tuning. Not quite as necessary there, but can be occasionally convenient.
And of course oldtime banjo, there are *so* many different tunings that can be used for that, tab is the easiest choice when trying to convey to someone else how a particular tune might be played.
But yeah I agree with you about standard notation being the most overall useful (and takes up the least amount of pages) way of communicating notes for the widest range of instruments.
Standard notation has one other cool and hugely useful feature - it's essentially just like a graph in math class (my fav, back in the day, that and physics), so one can 'see' a note's approximate sound just by observing whether it's positioned higher or lower (relative to adjacent notes on the staff). Y-axis (the standard notation staff lines) approximately representing frequency of string vibration (the pitch of the note). Pretty handy systems.
So, now, I wanna hear more people play this tune!