Most TABS are terrible, is it me??

[Bern]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

BTW, I have seen paid tabs (tab books) that leave much to be desired.

Yeah, I've seen those as well.
Aside from that, though, can tab really represent all the nuances of a piece of music ? I've found tab in conjunction with a video to be much more useful.

[Md01]

I agree...as a relative beginner, progressing slowly but surely, I find the internet both an amazing resource and at the same time, very frustrating with the plethora of inaccurate tab and even lyrics.

I look for the highly rated tabs, read the comments to id errors and also compare different versions, ending up with my own edited version in onsong. I also listen to and watch the originals on youtube, slowing them down and repeating them to find my way, rhythm inparticular.

I also lean towards trusted sites like Justinguitar.com for consistency. This 'blended' approach works for me.

md

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Bern

Yeah, I've seen those as well.
Aside from that, though, can tab really represent all the nuances of a piece of music ? I've found tab in conjunction with a video to be much more useful.

Hi Bern...

Of course it cannot, nor can notation. Video recorded by a competent player gets closest to expressing nuances in ways that are discernible.

I think that TAB in conjunction with a decent score could provide some fingerings, and timing, and suggested dynamics.

I teach without any of that, because a lot of the songs we use are not Scored, nor TABbed, and ear training and eye training (YouTube is wonderful) are great skills which come into play with advanced styling anyway.

I listen to interviews with 'old timers' (professionals) and they speak of the days of sitting by the turntable and dropping the needle back to hear it again-n-again-n-again with a guitar in hand to play along.

TAB is not a curse, but it is often not much help.

[dawhealer]

Originally Posted by fazool

And the problem with tabs is that there is no "peer review" or editorial check for accuracy. Anyone can publish a tab. 30 years ago, I took a music theory class in college and would transcribe sheet music to my own tabs. I wasn't good at it so it was slow and painstaking.

30 years ago, traditional sheet music was all that was avaialable. Tabs became the "norm" for guitar music over the past decade(s).

But, like I said, anyone can write anything.

FWIW, the norm for guitar music originally WAS tab. Earliest written music for lute, vihuela, and guitar was tablature, not sheet music. Sheet music came a little later.

When I first started playing guitar in 1959 my parents insisted that I learn to read music. Mel Bay had just introduced his guitar method a couple of years earlier and besides his method (which was learning to read standard notation) traditional sheet music was all there was. I still have that first Mel Bay book. I saw my first guitar tab in 1966 when my nephew decided he wanted to learn to play. It was just re-emerging then.

My parents weren't very musical themselves, but they sometimes had good instincts. Thanks to them I learned to read music from the beginning and later learned to read tab. I'm equally comfortable with both.

What goes around comes around.

[s2y]

I remember th early days of the interw3b machine that Al Gore invented. Some of the tabs in the text format were simply awful. Sometimes they were a decent starting point, but tended to be a waste of paper. The poorer ones forced me to work on my ear instead.

[MICHAEL MYERS]

I only ever look up tabs if I need a second opinion or am totally stumped. Working stuff out is the best thing to improve the ear. Skipping that step and automatically looking up a tab without trying is the road to nowhere.

On another note, when trying to improve your ear I think that tab is superior to notation in that it doesn't give you all the answers. You have to listen.

[Riverwolf]

Originally Posted by mc1

i try and dedicate one hour per day to creating and distributing very inaccurate tabs in the hopes of slowing down the competition. i'm always a little bit moved when i hear one of my versions being played in guitar center. i recognize them because of the hand crafted cringe-worthy notes that i delicately place in selected spots.

i also do midis - they're truly awful!

Now that is funny!
I think you must have made most of the Calif Dreamin' intro tabs that I have been cussing at lately!

[clintj]

I'll pick a song, pull up the tabs and play each version one at a time. "Nope, nope, close, a little better, nope, etc." When I find a couple of pretty close ones, I print them out and start writing in corrections as I go. The good ones can be useful for songs with unusual chords or common chords in unusual voicing or odd inversions. The bad ones make good ear training exercises.

[Bern]

Originally Posted by MICHAEL MYERS

Working stuff out is the best thing to improve the ear. Skipping that step and automatically looking up a tab without trying is the road to nowhere.

Automatically a road to nowhere? It depends on your ability and the complexity of the music. You could waste a lot of time thinking that.
I think intermediate and advanced fingerstyle players have the ability to recognize if it is advantages to get 'stuff' of recordings or not.

[MICHAEL MYERS]

Originally Posted by Bern

Automatically a road to nowhere? It depends on your ability and the complexity of the music. You could waste a lot of time thinking that.
I think intermediate and advanced fingerstyle players have the ability to recognize if it is advantages to get 'stuff' of recordings or not.

I imagine most people looking up internet tabs are not advanced fingerstyle players. If they are, they should probably get their butt's in gear and cease relying on kids/amateurs to figure "stuff" out for them.

[Bern]

Fair enough...

[fazool]

Originally Posted by mc1

i try and dedicate one hour per day to creating and distributing very inaccurate tabs in the hopes of slowing down the competition. i'm always a little bit moved when i hear one of my versions being played in guitar center. i recognize them because of the hand crafted cringe-worthy notes that i delicately place in selected spots.

i also do midis - they're truly awful!

best post +!

[fazool]

Originally Posted by dawhealer

FWIW, the norm for guitar music originally WAS tab. Earliest written music for lute, vihuela, and guitar was tablature, not sheet music. Sheet music came a little later.

When I f...I'm equally comfortable with both.

What goes around comes around.

I never knew that. I always thought sheet music for piano was the norm and I guess I assumed everything copied that. Very informative.

I can't play sheet music on sight but I can just about play tabs on sight.

[fazool]

Originally Posted by fazool

And the problem with tabs is that there is no "peer review" or editorial check for accuracy. Anyone can publish a tab. 30 years ago, I took a music theory class in college and would transcribe sheet music to my own tabs. I wasn't good at it so it was slow and painstaking.

30 years ago, traditional sheet music was all that was avaialable. Tabs became the "norm" for guitar music over the past decade(s).

But, like I said, anyone can write anything.

Perfect example (literally happened immediately before writing this)

One of my favorite instrumental pieces is Petite Etude by Rik Emmett off Triumph's Allied Forces album. I transcribed it from sheet music 25 years ago and started learning it. I went back to pick it up today, sitting for my first day on the patio of the year.

I took the most common tab and worked on it. I stumbled because apparently I didn't remember it the same way.

Then I found another transcribed from the actual sheet music. The second one reminded me how it starts and that the most common tab (which I just used for the past hour) was wrong! Arg, now I have to convince myself I havent practiced that song and un-learn the last hour of finger exercises.

Prime and timely example of this whole thread.

[Roselynne]

The guitar world has two written languages (with varying dialects): tab and notation. I want to be proficient in both.

Notation is, of course, far more reliable, and provides better -- and more standardized -- guides for timing, volume, etc. But good sheet music can be hard to find. Fellow guitarists who read it can also be scarce on the ground.

Tab puts my focus on training aging fingers. And it's a great feeling when I can correct a wrongo tab. I believe bad tabs (when fixed) help me refine my ear.

My biggest frustration as a trainee fingerstylist is misnamed "tabs" that are nothing but chord/lyric charts, complete with wrongo chords in wronger places.