From Tablature to Standard Music notation OH My

[Keith Johnston]

Well after several years of nothing but Tab I finally bought a fiddle and had
no choice but to start to learn to read music. Since taking my fiddle lesson and starting
to understand all the symbols and lines and all things musical, the light finally started
to shine and WOW the possibilities have opened up and in the end will make me a better
musician and Im better off for it.....

Keith

[rickbella]

Excellent. Congrats for being flexible, open-minded and brave.

[Chris Fannin]

I've tinkered with reading bass and treble on and off for years. I just got The Complete Mandolinist and had a spiral put in it so I can really dig in to reading.

[Sheila Lagrand]

Great job, Keith! Once one sees the system to it, or the logic behind it, I think it really clicks. My first instrument was violin and once I started goofing around with fretted strings it occurred to me that learning to read music would have been a lot easier with the frets there to relate to the notes.

PS: Looks like we're neighbors for half the year!

[JiminRussia]

I am also trying to add standard notation to my bag of tricks, mainly because there is virtually no information on timing in the tab. It is a struggle for me though. I still forget those sharps and flats that you are supposed to account for and notes above and below the staff still make me stop and count, but I am making progress slowly. So far I have only addressed the treble cleft. And only on guitar, not mandolin as of yet.

[JeffD]

Well after several years of nothing but Tab I finally bought a fiddle and had
no choice but to start to learn to read music. Since taking my fiddle lesson and starting
to understand all the symbols and lines and all things musical, the light finally started
to shine and WOW the possibilities have opened up and in the end will make me a better
musician and Im better off for it.....

Nobody who ever learned to read standard notation ever said, "well that was a waste of time."

They may have said, "you mean I have to learn other things too, like how to play by ear, how to memorize a tune, how to determine the alpha fiddler at a jam, how to pack my car with everything I need, how to play sitting on a beer cooler..."

So from that point of view, the learning never ends.

[Dave Hicks]

I started with lessons (on cassettes sent through the mail ) from Lou Martin - maybe some of you remember him - and I'm glad he made me learn to read notation. I'm not great at it, but I can read fiddle tunes pretty readily and other stuff with some work.

D.H.

[Bob Gnann]

I learned to read music years ago when I went off on a tangent and decided to learn piano. I rarely play piano because, as always happens, I was lured back into playing bluegrass music. But knowing how to read the treble clef has been a real necessity as I now find myself playing fiddle as much as my main instrument, mandolin.

The analogy I use is you now have the ability to not only speak the language but to read it as well. Imagine all the great works of literature we are exposed to not so much by the spoken word but by means of our ability to read. The same can be said of reading music.

I am by no means an accomplished sight reader. My understanding of music notation just scratches the surface. But I can work my way through most fiddle tunes. That alone has opened up so many possibilities. Some of my favorite fiddle tunes to play I learned from a book and had never heard before.

Hey, maybe not for everyone, but I encourage you to give it a try. Can be a very rewarding experience.

[foldedpath]

Yep, moving from strictly guitar to mandolin and less guitar was what motivated me to learn standard notation. I was trained in it as a kid with piano lessons but none of that stuck with me. It was definitely starting from scratch.

I'm still not a very good reader. I have to puzzle out the notes at slow tempo. My fiddler S.O. is much better at it, sight-reading a tune she's never seen before at full tempo, or close to it. That's amazing, and I'm not sure I'll ever get there because I don't work at it as a separate skill. Once I have the notes memorized and under my fingers, I move away from the sheet music as fast as I can. For me, that's where the real work on the tune begins, building speed and then finding expression.

I do keep scads of sheet music in binders for tunes I've learned, so I can go back and remind myself "how it goes" when I've forgotten it. That's another huge benefit compared to Tab, I think. The dots scan faster as the flow of the tune, compared to puzzling out finger positions if you just need a quick reminder.

FWIW, I do think Tab has a bit more value for guitar players, because in the 4ths tuning there are more places to play the same note compared to mandolin. It can help with the more complicated arrangements, at least for intermediate-level guitar players.

[Randi Gormley]

Congrats on taking the plunge! I came at music from the opposite tack -- learned standard notation and then had to learn by ear. I admit i still don't get ABC so i know how frustrating being locked out of a 'language' can be! The more you know, the better off you are, I figure.

[Keith Johnston]

One of the biggest benefits for me is being forced to learn the fretboard/neck for a long time if someone asked where a note was on the neck I couldn't tell them
like I said the world opens up quite wide once you do. I am having a ball even with my short but inciteful beginning's.

[Drew Egerton]

Congrats Keith! My story is much the same.
I was a tab dependent player for years until I developed my ear further. I have only been working on reading notation for a couple of years when I became interested in learning some Bach and choro pieces (thanks Mike Marshall). When I picked up Mike's choro book and realized there was notation only, I decided it would be a great challenge to tackle this instead of running away from it. It also proved helpful in learning some jazz tunes from the 'fake book' charts.

I am still a bit slow with it and struggle to read some of the more complex rhythms, but it has certainly opened up a world of music.

[Mandophyte]

For those who want to know about ABC, see my signature below.

[John Soper]

I started on violin, forgot all about sight reading musical score, and was only a tab-reader for many years on guitar, but had to learn the treble clef when I got interested in reading chord/melody music for swing tunes on the mandolin. You won't regret learning to connect the dots!