Standard notation vs tab

[AlanN]

Gee!

[El Greco]

Standard is a means to understanding nuances you wouldn't be able to "get" with just tab. Ear training is a different animal. Sight and Hearing work in tandem with standard notation. Tab is mostly sight. And then you get used to waiting for the next 1, 2, 3, 4, mark to know where to place your fingers.

I've revisited standard notation (thank you to Debora Chen by the way) after 18 years of just playing by ear and using tab. Truth is when I was around 9 years old, I hated metronomes and standard notation, so I "rebelled" by gradually ignoring standard notation and favoring ear training. But now, I realize I need to know the DNA of each piece I'm trying to play. And standard notation helps me do that.

[jmcgann]

So, John. When are you going to walk the talk and discontinue the tab that appears in almost every single publication you've authored?

Ah, Ella Fitzgerald, er, ...mentary, My Dear Watson. You'll note two facts:

a) The standard notation is above the tab.
b) Mel Bay won't publish me WITHOUT tab.

Like Apk says, tab is great for beginners. Trouble is, beginners want to eventually stop being beginners, and tab will only get them so far.

The other trouble is that explaining to really hard core died-in-the-wool tab-only folks why tab is limited is like trying to explain a new color- you have to have the vocabulary (read basic music theory) to understand the gains you get from notation.


Tab is GREAT for crosspicking (see McReynolds book by Statman) where the notes ain't where you think they are gonna be; also great for banjo and pedal steel, for the same reason of whacky layout.

On the mandolin, there really aren't such "excuses".

Plus,EVERYTHING that tab does in terms of showing you where to play a note on a string can be done with the simple indication of a circled number, i.e. a circled 3 would indicate "play on the D string". There is ONLY ONE location to play any given note on any string. There are only A DOZEN notes.

Again, the gains you get from learning this system FAR outweigh the effort put into learning it. And, once you know it, you KNOW it, as long as you continue to use it.

PS- Jeff Berlin (great bassist) is another guy who thinks the metronome is jive. Funny about Tony Rice; I heard the DGQ practiced with a metronome quite a bit... Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver too.

I wish I was born with a great sense of time, but the metronome continues to help me sharpen what I have. Some banjo player named Tony Trishcka suggest I do this in 1979. I'm really glad I listened to him. Now, when we play gigs together, i see him backstage warming up with his (set slowly, just doing simple rolls).

'Ja think there might be something to it?


PS- Aren't there already enough Tony Rice Clones™ for Pete's sake?

[AlanN]

Well said. The Rice comments may have been made at the time of his dawg 'distancing'. I don't know, but I do know that the timing of that first DGQ band was metronomic when it had to be.

[Scott Tichenor]

So, John. When are you going to walk the talk and discontinue the tab that appears in almost every single publication you've authored?

Ah, Ella Fitzgerald, er, ...mentary, My Dear Watson. You'll note two facts:

a) The standard notation is above the tab.
b) Mel Bay won't publish me WITHOUT tab.

That's a lot of answers for questions not asked, at least by me . Never said I didn't agree with your statements, and I have no beef with standard, or tab for that matter, or you're insistence on addressing the differences. If Mel Bay allowed it, would you then choose to publish without tab?

[jmcgann]

No problemo, Captain T! I didn't address the general post to you, just the bit you quoted above. I know we are on the same page. The metronome thing was mentioned in some earlier posts...

If Mel Bay allowed it AND I thought it wouldn't hurt sales, then yes, in my own little mind I would think it best to publish standard notation only, with those circled string indicators for the tricky parts. Since every other instrument on the planet (including those with difficult fingering patterns) use standard notation, why not us? Fiddle players don't need it...

In the real world, though, tablature has created a culture of players who have never learned notation (and don't know what they are missing). Their money is, of course, just as green, and rather than alienate them, and deprive Mel Bay* of their 90% slice of the pie (Yes, this is the Glory and Wonder of "The Book Deal" ) I suspect I would provide the tab with the music.

I don't want anyone to think I'm a snob

* God Bless 'em, if I were to be sole distributor I'd probably not make my lunch money!

[ApK]

Since every other instrument on the planet (including those with difficult fingering patterns) use standard notation, why not us?

Well, the instruments from the western hemisphere, at any rate...

Fiddle players don't need it

This guy:
http://www.fiddleguru.com/
seems to think we do.

But I must say, I looked at those fiddle tabs and for myself learning fiddle, I much prefer standard notation with numbers to aid in fingering, like in Brian Wicklund's American Fiddle Method, Vol 1.
That's the same thing you said you use for mando, right?

ApK

[Jeroen]

1) Is it because of the standard notation "snobs" who claim that TAB is not written music, but written instrument operation (am I quoting you correct there John? I can't find the thread), that otherwise copyrighted "material" can circulate freely on the internet?

2) I think Tony Rice often practiced with rock-solid backup musicians and can play ahead of a metronome at will. Not sure though.

3) Standard notation has its limits too: Why would we need conductors in the classical world?

4) If you can't read tab you can't read for example Niles's great little transcription booklets.

5) A tab of this will help reading this and maybe even make it sound better.

Standard notation tends to give people the idea that everything they need to know in order to play the piece is right there in front of them. That is seldom true unless the person who created the standard notation was careful to get the rhythm exactly correct.

To me the perfect combination is standard notation on top, tab on the bottom and a CD to add those elements that just don't translate well to paper. If I have to choose one I'll take the CD. It has all the information I need, I just have to work a bit harder to get it.

[ApK]

To me the perfect combination is standard notation on top, tab on the bottom and a CD to add those elements that just don't translate well to paper.

To me, perfect combination is standard notation on top, tab on the bottom and an accomplished live teacher/performer in the room with me to teach me how it's really done.

[ApK]

1) Is it because of the standard notation "snobs" who claim that TAB is not written music, but written instrument operation (am I quoting you correct there John? I can't find the thread), that otherwise copyrighted "material" can circulate freely on the internet?

In the same way that a CD isn't recorded music, but instructions to a computer digital-to-analog converter, and a book isn't recorded text, it's instructions to your optic nerve and visual cortex....

[jmcgann]

I know the tab-only OLGA (Online Guitar Association of inaccurate tab compendium) has been shut down for copyright violations, so tab doesn't keep the lawyers at bay...

Yep, standard notation is VERY limited. Only so much stuff can be put on paper. Your mind is the computer. If you understand harmonic "data", it will compute more clearly with notes than with tab.

The Bach example is easier to read than it looks: the upstem notes are all open E string. Tab would be less cluttered there, but would it show you how he is implying E7 to A to Asus2 in bars 4-6? If you know what to look for, it's all laid out there plain as day, and shows why JS Bach was really the first jazz musician (in terms of harmonic content in melody lines- which is a HUGE part of understanding how to improvise coherently).

Well, if you know what to look for TAB would tell you the same thing.

[mandocrucian]

I think you under-estimate the "head space" of a woodwind compared to that of a stringed instrument.

Well, I picked up flute because I wanted to revisited the "mapping out" mental process, and I couldn't do it on a stringed instrument, because those were simply variations of what I was used to already (mandos). I had piano when I was a kid, so the keyboard was familiar.

You know what I use to map out the flute? #A whole lot of the same exercises/tunes that I developed for beginning mando players. On mando, I would proably start with G major - on flute, my basic route reference has be D major and D minor. And then expand from that. #I haven't gotten into the third octave yet because I'm still working on consistancy in the second octave.

Now I'm not a "notation Nazi" and I have stuck up for tab in many instances; it is not "evil" and is #quite useful or valid in many instances. (My tab always uses the rhythmic notation of stems and beams.) But tab could also be "oral" as well a written - a pitched mantra with a set of fretting instructions attached to the "tune". But I'm also pro-notation. I'm also pro-sol-feg, and, a lot of other things which may not initially seem like it has any relation to "the mandolin".

There's all this "stuff"....note names, knowing what notes are in a particular chord, or scale, sol-feg syllables, rhythmic counting, hand/foot tapping of rhythmic grooves or polyrhythms, mechanical hand exercises, vocalizing drills.... #What a whole of folks don't realize is that while this is not the "building", it is the "scaffolding" which allows you to put up the building. You don't think this stuff is really necessary?..fine - bang that nail into the board with your fists rather than taking some time out to build yourself a hammer. But which is going to be more efficient and be the big time-saver in the long run?

Callisthenics and/or various training exercises isn't karate or muay thai or aikido. So why bother...go straight to the fighting? #Because those exercises (begin to) get your body (and/or mind) into shape so you can actually get into the real thing or start to learn. No scaffolding....not much of a building to speak of.

Niles H

[Jeroen]

I did not know TAB on the net was being prosecuted. Good to hear for the composers involved, and, I guess, for transcription services too!

I think the only bad thing about TAB is that it discourages people to dig a little deeper and learn standard notation. But come on, there can be music in TAB that can be played and communicated and enjoyed. And it's a great little tool to illustrate fingerings and techniques.

Reading the Bach phrase (slow reader as I am) I am not so sure whether one should play it on mandolin like Mike Marshall does, with quarter note open E's, violin fingerings, string crossings and harmonic melody content in full glory(!) or emulate the violin for which it was composed and shorten the E's to the sixteenths as they are written out.

Playing this phrase on mandolin there is no open e notated (only short 16th E's). Two stem directions are not enough to notate the harmonic effect of several (proto jazz if you wish) melo-harmonic triads.

Old fashioned numbers-only tab (under the standard notation), and written references to Bach's harpsichord music and Mike Marshall's funky version of the preludio would help lots.

[jmcgann]

Playing this phrase on mandolin there is no open e notated (only short 16th E's).

That's how every violinist plays it (open E)...the second you remove the bow from the string, it stops ringing, unlike mando.

Well, if you know what to look for TAB would tell you the same thing.

Well, when I look at tab I don't see anything like chord/melody relationships at all. I have to translate the tab to pitches to see that. I see it instantly when I look at notes.

Niles' post above is wonderful. I, too, am not anti-tab, I am anti-dismissing standard as "too hard" or "not worth it", or especially "tab tells you the same thing as notation". It doesn't.

There is nothing modern TAB cannot communicate that standard notation can.

The real difference is that in order to fully understand TAB one must be fluent in the instrument the TAB is written for. Any musician can read a mandolin arrangement in standard notation.

[jmcgann]

The real difference is that in order to fully understand TAB one must be fluent in the instrument the TAB is written for. Any musician can read a mandolin arrangement in standard notation.

If I write 25 (string 4) 25 (string 3) 25 (string 2) in tab, do you see that it is a sequence of notes that ascend on the lines of the staff, indicating chord structure? Granted, you have to know what to look for in notation, but it's WAY more visible in notation than in tab.

If I take a Bach piece in notation and want to write in chord symbols above it (which is a really fun thing to do, again proving ol' JS was the Charlie Parker of the 18th century), I can do so in my easy chair without an instrument. I cannot do this in tab unless I translate the tab positions to pitches first- an extra (and unnecessary) step.


Most tab readers (in my teaching experience, not necessarily you, dear reader) don't even realize that same chord tones can be extracted, juggled and revoiced, other than "I know the D chord- sure, 2002 or 745 or 14 12 9 10). It's not easy to make the leap that D, F# and A in various combinations can suggest this chord other than memorizing a bunch of tab positions. When you know the notes, you figure out where they are and get at them NOT thinking of fret numbers, but of pitches, It's a different way of addressing the instrument AND music, and it's more the way improvisers throughout the instrument world think; not instrument-specific tab, but in the universal language of notes as they relate to the chord of the moment.


When you look at DF#A on the page you either see 3 notes all on spaces (string 4) or lines (string 2). When you have notes going up on consective lines or consecutive spaces, it indicates 3rds which are the primary chordal interval.

When you see 047 in tab it's not easy to see the relationship, because when you do the math, the distance from 0 to 4 is wider than 4 to 7, which obscures this fact.

It only matters to people who want to think this way. It's not a crime to not think this way. It is complicated to think this way. The easy way isn't always the best way

[Jeroen]

Guitar players must hate standard notation even more than we mandolin players do. They use bottle neck slides, whammy bars, bends, cross string melodies with melody notes accompanying each other. They also drop off the G clef staff on their low strings. Fingerpickers play their bass lines with the same hand as their melody and accompaniment voicings and will want to read it all on one staff.

Here is a link to a balanced discussion of SN/TAB from a guitarplayer's point of view. It deals with many of the opinions and observations in this thread.

[JeffD]

5) A tab of this will help reading this and maybe even make it sound better.

Yea but it would rob you of the fun of figuring out a way of playing it, and feeling that it was your own.

Truth is everyone is different, and as long as they get to the point of putting finger to fret and playing, I guess it really doesn't matter.

I should say, it really doesn't matter to me. That someone uses tab doesn't rob me in any way of my enjoyment of the instrument. And once that person has got the tune under control on the instrument, we can communicate through the music.

[JeffD]

I guess it kind of boils down to an arguement between the "no pain - no gain" folks and the "no pain - no pain" folks. And for the person who has a full time job dealing with air sucking idiot managers and whining self absorbed customers, the guy or gal who just comes home tired and discouraged, and wants to make pretty music for awhile, hey why not tab. Really.

If you take the music, be it tab or standard notation, numbers or dots, and you roll it up and stick it in your ear, it makes only a kind of whoooshing sound. No music in there. The real music is in the playing, and once your there, and we can play together, it becomes less important what path you took to get there.

[jmcgann]

Here is a link to a balanced discussion of SN/TAB from a guitarplayer's point of view. It deals with many of the opinions and observations in this thread.

I don't think this is unbalanced. I think tab and standard notation can peacefully coexist. I just think it's good to recognize that while tab is a good "quick start", for players who want to get "under the hood" beyond just fret positions, tab is weaker as a communication tool.

And yes-the real music is in the playing. If you are taking the path to creating melodic variations, improvisation, or what have you, beyond imitation of someone else's work, then your ears are more valuable than any paper...although your ears can be informed by stuff on paper.

[MandoSquirrel]

As a professional transcriber, I have often been asked to leave off "timing stems, because it just clutters up the page".

!!I'm always annoyed when I look at tab & am apparently expected to know the time of the tones, rhythms, etc . If you're not giving me notes, at least give me stems on the tab!!

If I have standard with no tab, I can work out how to play music I've never heard. Using tab WITH timing indicators(stems,etc.), I Might be able to get it, but if I have tab & No timing indicators, chances are I can't get it right unless I can hear it.

[jmcgann]

Quote (jmcgann @ Oct. 05 2007, 08:41)
As a professional transcriber, I have often been asked to leave off "timing stems, because it just clutters up the page".

!!I'm always annoyed when I look at tab & am apparently expected to know the time of the tones, rhythms, etc . If you're not giving me notes, at least give me stems on the tab!!

I only leave off timing stems if I get paid to leave them off

[MandoSquirrel]

I understood that, it's not you, it's the publisher i was ranting at , there.