Hi, I am trying to figure out the notation on the Travis Finger Picking lesson, I read the learning tab notation and searched to forum but could not find an explanation for the following notation, It is an upside down crescent tying two notes together on the tab, do I play the string twice when I see this notation? It shows up in example 2 of the Travis Finger Picking lesson. I have tried to copy example 2 so I can show what I am looking at, but I am unable to paste the graphic that shows example 2 onto this form.
This a great site, I have learned to play house of the rising sun and I am now ready to move on to another song. Any help in explaining this notation would be greatly appreciate, many song lessons on this site have this notation but I am unable to find any explanation of what it means anywheres on this site. But then there is so much here that I may not be looking in the correct place.
Thank you
George
Hi George and welcome to Guitar Noise.
I actually got this same question two weeks ago in an email. Seems like a few people are getting stuck on this.
The "crescents" in question are called "ties." And tying the two notes together, as you noted they do, is exactly what they are for - they indicate that a note should be a particular length in terms of beats, in this case one eighth note (or a half beat) is tied to another eighth note (another half-beat, making one whole beat in total). When writing this out in notation the software broke everything down in terms of beats within the measure and you don't really even want to know, do you? What you can do for now is to not even see them. In other words, ignore the "crescent" as well as the second note (or number) and just play the first one. So you play "thumb," 'index," "thumb," "middle."
To learn more about ties, see the lesson in the Beginners' Section on "Timing is Everything," which talks about notation and the timing value of notes.
I hope this helps. Please feel free to write again if I'm making even more of a muddle of it.
Welcome again.
Peace
Peace
David
Wow, thanks for the very quick reply to my question, as I read it, I hit the string once but it is a measure of timing and not about playing the string a second time, I would keep my finger on the string after hitting it for the time period before playing the next string noted in the tab. You have explained a great mystery for me. THANK YOU!
You're welcome and I'm glad I could be of help.
Looking forward to seeing you around the boards here at Guitar Noise.
Peace
I started working through the Travis picking lessons the other day, and the tie symbols in the example also threw me for a loop at first. It wasn't really until I listened to the MP3 that went with it that I was able to figure out what was really dgoing on there.
So, don't feel bad if it seems a bit confusing.
Regards,
Mike
"Growing Older But Not UP!"
HI,
Thanks for your advice, as a beginner it is nice to have someone give hints and help guide me through this new endeavor. I have learned so much from this one site, this is great! I am using the tabs, but eventually I want to learn how to play and read the scale.
Again, thanks for taking the time to help me out.
George
