TAB Question

[Skip Ellis]

Just curious. Are there TAB users out there who can sight read it like others do standard notation?

[Italuke]

Originally Posted by Skip Ellis

Just curious. Are there TAB users out there who can sight read it like others do standard notation?

Yes, like any skill, if you do it a lot, you start to get better, you learn and predict patterns. There was a point I played a lot of early music, e.g. lute, and got pretty good at it. Very rusty now. Have to keep doing it.

[rmp]

Originally Posted by Skip Ellis

Just curious. Are there TAB users out there who can sight read it like others do standard notation?

yes, but I have to be familiar with the song

wait,,

does that count??

anyway..
Tab is a little abstract because you don't get the timing notations...

[gr81dorn]

Originally Posted by rmp

Tab is a little abstract because you don't get the timing notations...

Yeah - that's a sorta major issue if you've never heard the song before. There's literally a billion songs with the same tabs, time signatures and tempos make all the difference ;-)

It is a fun excercise, however, to go to a tab website, choose a song you don't know, and then just play it. Record yourself doing so, then go to Spotify or YOutube or something and see how you did.

[mawmow]

When I used to play chord arpeggios I did not learn any of the
hundreds of songs I could play : I would always read chords by their names.

When I learned to play fingerstyle, I learned with tabs.
Now, I use flow sheets containing tabs AND staffs :
While tabs place the notes on the neck,
staffs place them properly according to time (rythm).

[Skip Ellis]

I learned to play Chet Atkins and Merle Travis stuff early on and it was, mostly, out of chord formations. Tunes that don't have that alternating bass become more like classical things and there are no chord forms, or, if there are, they're not shown on the TAB anywhere. Makes it very difficult (at least to me) to switch over. I can play about whatever 'Chet' song I know the melody to off the top of my head as long as I know the chords. Doesn't work with DADGAD and other open tunings as the the melody lines are not part of a defined chord.

[BrunoBlack]

Originally Posted by rmp

…..

anyway..
Tab is a little abstract because you don't get the timing notations...

Does something like this provide enough timing info for you? Still nice to have the rhythm in your head.

[Dru Edwards]

Originally Posted by rmp

yes, but I have to be familiar with the song

wait,,

does that count??

anyway..
Tab is a little abstract because you don't get the timing notations...

+1. TAB is very easy to read if you know the song or play the song while reading the TAB. It doesn't convey the timing well though so if you don't know the song you'll have no idea if the note is an eight, or sixteenth, etc.

[zmf]

Originally Posted by Haasome

Does something like this provide enough timing info for you? Still nice to have the rhythm in your head.

I've always felt that's enough information. And if both Tabs and standard are provided in parallel, it's certainly enough.

[Dogma]

I am relatively new to the process, but it seems like there are a lot of different graphic approaches to tab. I am currently playing a piece for which the tab utilizes all the conventions of standard music notation except that instead of the traditional staff, it uses the "6-string staff" with fret numbers in place of note heads. The piece is organized into measures and each note has a tail (as/if appropriate) and is depicted, by use of a flag or connection, as a quarter note or 16th (or whatever) as in standard notation. Rests are shown graphically as they are in standard, as are incidentals of technique, etc. When you look at this tab, aside from the fret numbers in place of the head of each note, and the strum directional markings below, it looks like a page of standard music.

I was never very good at sight reading back in the day and find this particular tab to be much easier. I have seen some tab that looks like a jumble of numbers that make no sense to me because it does not contain the other information that is critical to actually making music. Rather like a paragraph with no punctuation!

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Skip Ellis

Just curious. Are there TAB users out there who can sight read it like others do standard notation?

No. Not unless the tab has sufficient timing information.

For sight-reading tab to match sight-reading notation would mean you could play a piece accurately from tab that you had never heard before. (That's the USP of standard notation.)

The format Dogma describes should make that possible. It's not especially elegant, but ought to work.

[rick-slo]

Timing in tab is pretty usable with a lot of alternate thumbing and Travis stuff where it's basically quarter notes and eighth notes.
Always good to have a recording to listen to however.

[Dogma]

Photo attached.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Dogma

Photo attached.

Yes, that's playable without having to hear the original, as is the example Haasome posted before.

But there's still no guide to note duration - although I guess that's common sense in this kind of thing - and I just find it hard to look at. One advantage of standard notation which tab can never match is that it provides a visual analogue of the pitch dimension - the up-down shape of a melody.

That's another advantage of the note durations shown in standard notation, at least in fingerstyle where the stave has two voices - you can see clearly which is melody and which is bass, harmony and accompaniment.

Obviously tab's big advantage is showing finger positions clearly - which can be done on standard notation, but needs a mix of symbols which need to be understood in their own right. OTOH, standard notation can easily show fret finger numbers, which would clutter up tab confusingly.

So in one sense, sight-reading tab as quickly as standard notation is certainly possible. But "sight-understanding" is not so good. When I look at standard notation, I can see roughly how it will sound. I can't see that as clearly - as immediately - from tab.

Naturally, all this is somewhat academic, seeing as the vast majority of players using tab will have heard the tune before and have access to the audio anyway. I'm sure a lot of guitarists would be scratching their heads wondering why anyone would want to play a piece they'd never heard before...

[TBman]

I prefer tab as below. I read tab much faster than notation, tab is telling you the whole story at least when it comes to finger placement. I always have to hear the tune before learning. I can't get the music off the page without it (unless its very simple and then its a pot shot).

I'm not a musician by any means.