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  #16  
Old 07-12-2019, 05:05 PM
Shuksan Shuksan is offline
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Silly Moustache - What you describe reminds me of a friend I play Irish and bluegrass music with. I bring a new song she hasn't heard to the group and three or four times of me playing through the A part, three or four times through the B part, and a few times through the whole song and she's got it down for most songs. Makes me so jealous. Working from written music would be a complete waste of her time.
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  #17  
Old 07-12-2019, 05:33 PM
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rick-slo rick-slo is offline
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I think it depends on the genre and the particular piece of music as to what things help. Most often I can listen to something and then play it pretty well right off. However I spent decades learning classical pieces from scores of music I may have heard on a recording or music I had never heard. It's quite useful to be able to do that in complicated, and/or fast paced, music where you can't quite figure out what is going on. Also it is handy to read the score when relearning something that I have not played for some time. Tab can be useful along the same lines.
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  #18  
Old 07-12-2019, 08:38 PM
Merak Merak is offline
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I am a beginner. I find musical notation better because I directly correlate the notes to the fretboard. Tabs are easier but I don’t learn the fretboard as well using it.
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  #19  
Old 07-12-2019, 08:42 PM
Pitar Pitar is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 6stringedRamble View Post
I've been trying to learn a song from tab. The tab doesn't match the instructional video that came with the book. Some people I have talked to said you can't learn to play from tab anyways, you can only learn from listening how to play a song. That's new to me. I mean I don't have enough musical skill to hear a song and then play it without any knowledge of what notes I should be playing.

I mean I understand the human element will make songs different from player to player, and that if you want to make your own style you will need to be able to hear a song and embellish it. But for just learning a song as an intermediate player is it really reasonable to assume can't learn from tab and can only listen to experts playing the song, and then know which notes to strum?

What takes do people on AGF have on this subject?
In the end, it's your ear commanding your motor skills. The tab is simply dots dropped in a pattern that invite the ear to connect them aurally, not visually.

I taught myself aurally by placing the turntable needle on an LP where I needed to hear a passage, repeatedly, until I got it and moved on. That simple method trained my ear to the extent that I could hear a piece of music while out and about, come home and find it's key and chord progression within a few minutes. I'd be playing it within a few hours thereafter. Polishing it might take longer because the challenge of learning it (the fun part) is passed and the work to make it fluid goes into the queue with other pieces learned in the same manner.

If you know your fret board by ear - forget about notes and theory for a second - if you aurally know your fret board you can do what I do now when learning new music, or writing it, or joining a jam session.

One of the things I never read on this or other forums is the aspect of examining chords by ear. Playing their notes in various orders, embellishing them, learning how each can lead and follow and color other chords is an ear exercise. It's a fundamental part of playing but its discussion is rare. That's because, for the most part, these forums are frequented by the visually curious with regard to the guitar itself (aesthetics) and playing music (tab). Misplaced passion, IMO, that should be redirected from the eyes to the ears.
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  #20  
Old 07-13-2019, 08:13 AM
6stringedRamble 6stringedRamble is offline
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Truthfully it's a bluegrass and old time banjo forum where I first posed this question.

I wanted an unbiased take and since I play guitar too and decided to ask here.

Basically the tab book art Rosenbaums old Time banjo book
Was very frustrating to me. I payed $40 for it and really wanted to learn the song.The tabs of lil Black train don't match what he plays in the instructional video.

It's a different tune.

After learning the tab I tried asking for help. Everyone said
Tabs are supposed to be wrong and I can only learn from listening. I said such answers were annoying. I have no idea what notes to hit just because I saw someone play it really fast. The whole forum got really angry at me .

Accusing of not wanting to learn and wasting their time etc etc.

I thought I was losing my mind. I've been a part of both on-line communities for several years. How can it make everyone angry at me because I want to learn to play a song and can't just from hearing it.
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  #21  
Old 07-13-2019, 09:33 AM
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ljguitar ljguitar is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 6stringedRamble View Post
I've been trying to learn a song from tab. The tab doesn't match the instructional video that came with the book. Some people I have talked to said you can't learn to play from tab anyways, you can only learn from listening how to play a song. That's new to me. I mean I don't have enough musical skill to hear a song and then play it without any knowledge of what notes I should be playing.

I mean I understand the human element will make songs different from player to player, and that if you want to make your own style you will need to be able to hear a song and embellish it. But for just learning a song as an intermediate player is it really reasonable to assume can't learn from tab and can only listen to experts playing the song, and then know which notes to strum?

What takes do people on AGF have on this subject?
Hi six-S-R

Well, TAB is often not as accurate as people would like.

Sometimes it's because the person doing the TAB didn't accurately reproduce the artist's notes from whatever recording (audio or video) they used as a reference.

Sometimes it's because artists sometimes don't play things the same every time they play songs.

And notation is often just as limited.

If I'm going to 'knock off' a song or arrangement, I listen to it a billion times, watch it on youtube (if it's there) and note key passages and fingerings. I'll tune up a guitar and play along.

Then once I've reached performance levels, I continue to shape it and mold it to my style. In other words, I don't treat any artist's arrangement sacred and unchangeable.


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  #22  
Old 07-13-2019, 09:49 AM
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raysachs raysachs is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Silly Moustache View Post
I think it is a matter of how your brain works.
Yeah, that's always the rub! How it works, or doesn't...

The overwhelmingly easiest way for me to learn something is software that I've seen in a few places. TrueFire uses is it in most if not all of their newer courses but I don't think did in a lot of their older catalog of lessons. And I've seen it popping up in other places as well, so it's not THEIR technology, just something they're putting to use. It's basically a video running at the top of the screen and the tab below that. So you can SEE how it's played (and obviously hear it) but the tab has a pointer that runs along the tab as the music plays. When it's done right, it's the easiest way I've ever found to break down parts that are tough for me to learn. And since i'm still fairly new to finger style, that's nearly everything these days.

And the REALLY cool part about it is you can highlight a section of the tab, as large or as small as you'd like, and then the video and the tab pointer will just loop that particular part over and over as much as you need it to. I can't tell you how valuable I find that. If there's a tricky measure, I just loop that part and play it over and over as I try to get that part of it down.

THAT is how my brain works. It's frankly better than a human instructor because I can take it at absolutely my own pace. Watch it as few or as many times as I need to. Oh, and you can slow it down too if you need to. I generally don't like to because I can't really hear what it's supposed to sound like that way, but if there's some move I'm having trouble seeing on the video at full speed, sometimes I'll put on half speed just to run through a few times to get how that sequence moves on the fretboard or with the picking fingers.

Of course, if the tab and the video aren't coordinated, the whole thing breaks down. To me, tab is useless without being able to hear the music as I look at the tab and being able to both hear and SEE it is that much better. And obviously having tab and music and/or video that are not coordinated is worse than having no music or video at all... IMHO.

-Ray
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