Tabs

[winston]

Am I alone in having difficulty learning a song from tabs posted on the net, I wonder?

Generally I find them to be very frustrating since there is no sense of timing and the are often wrong.

Just curious. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I am just never going to figure out how to efficiently read tabs.

[alanz]

No, you're right. Tablature is a pretty ****** way to communicate musical-ishessness. There's no time signature, no melodic notation and the topper for me are tabs written for songs with capos where they say "Capo the third fret and then play a 'C'" except what they mean is a "C" chord shape.

So, yeah, to sum up: tablature sucks.

[sowhat]

Well, they can be very helpful if one already knows the song well (has heard it many times before and can reproduce the tune) & maybe also can play the chords which are more or less close to the original. Just to find out some subtleties which one might have missed while figuring out for themselves what the chords/riffs are. If that's a new song, not so well known, let alone never heard, reading the tabs & figuring out how to play may be a hard task. IMHO.

[admin]

I have a somewhat different view of guitar tabulature. I concur that it is difficult to identify the timing, but a quick listen to the recording will make short order of that problem.

Tabs are only as good as the author, but a nicely written tab can put you in the right ballpark in a hurry especially when it comes to more complicated riffs that are not always easily interpreted by ear.

A good argument that tabs work can be made if one considers the program Guitar Pro, which very nicely allows for timing and you can see the notes being played from the tab on the computer screen. I highly recommend having a look or even using the trial period to evaluated this program. I think that it will change your mind with regard to the effectiveness of tabulature.

[winston]

Technology to the rescue eh Peter? I'll check it out.

Thanks.

[admin]

You may be quite surprised Brian. I find that the software works very well.

[prog_rockin_metal_man]

I love guitar pro! it's awesome...powertab is also a good tab program...it's not as polished as guitar pro but it get's the job done plus it's free. you can get it here
http://www.power-tab.net/

the only thing that irks me about tabs is when I find one that is so wrong you wonder if the person that did it was even listening to the same song you are. the ****** internet tabs are especialy bad for this but guitar pro and powertab tabs are usually right on or at least in the ballpark...I'm never going to go back to internet tabs they just don't compare.

[stubby]

I like tabs too especially for their role as Peter explains..i.e getting you in the ballpark. Although I read music a bit, I primarily play by ear and tabs are a great "guide." Also, I use my fingers (right hand) a lot so tabs for picking patterns are handy to, again, get you in the ballpark. I agree though that you can lose the forest for the trees in tab. If you try to play a tabbed piece note for note, at least when you first start working with it, it can be frustrating. If, on the other hand, you use the tab at the start to lift some of the main patterns, riffs, phrases, they can be helpful. I usually try this approach first, go off and tinker with the song some more, and then revisit the tab later to fill in some of the missing subtleties and nuances. Approached in this way, timing deficiencies inherent in tab notation aren't an issue.

[winston]

Here's part of my frustration. When I first decided to get off my duff and look at tabs to see if I was missing out on something worthwhile knowing, I looked up a song that I know off by heart. I figured I needed a reference point. So I start with the lead intro looking for a familiar landmark.

Nothing doing. The writer decided to write all of the chords in tablature. I thought OK, so the writer's probably a rhythm player. The next tab (Sultan's of Swing) I looked at should have had a very prominent lead part running through it. It was there but it was unplayable as it was laid out. I play both songs I looked at so needless to say I was very disappointed at the result. I had this feeling that perhaps I had missed out on some fundamental knowledge of tabs, so I decided to look up a document that was purportedly going to make the mystery of reading tabs dead easy.

That's when I realised that standards in writing tab vary from one writer to another. That is frustrating.

I am going to give Peter's suggestion a try to see if that works any better for me.

Again I wonder if it's just my stubborn mind that refuses to grasp this modern innovative methodology of communicating musical notation?

I am truly at a "crossroads" with tabs at this point.

[stubby]

They do certainly vary in quality, just like anything else you find on the internet.

[telebob]

Indeed they do vary. Still, once I spend a couple minutes working one, I adjust to the guy's style and I find them very helpful when I'm in a rush and just don't have the time to pick it off the CD.

[admin]

When I reflect upon tabulature, it seems to me that the idea is quite ingenious. Notwithstanding the poor tabs out there, when accurately done it enables us to share what we have learned about music with others. It really enables others to learn guitar passages without the need of reading or understanding conventional music.

Tabbing is a language in itself and like any language requires a vocabulary and an understanding of syntax. When seemingly difficult passages begin to become automatic it is a great tool. It makes use of a mathematical formula and afterall music is math.

After a while, you can hear the tab from sight just as if you were sight reading a passage from conventional piano notation. As with any language, there is a learning curve.

[beatlefreak]

I use tabs as more of a guide, to get me "in the ballpark". Then, just listening to the recording and working out the nuances.

[admin]

I'm with you on this Kris. There are certainly nuances of playing that cannot be conveyed through tabs. So much tone is in the fingers and this comes from your own stylistic approach to playing. The exact same notes can be played in so many different ways.

[webhead]

I agree... I use tabs when I want to see if I'm in the right ballpark too.