The cursed blessing of tabulature

In DADGAD, the first chord would be 000200 - the A note is doubled.
The second chord has an F note in addition to the doubled A, so that's 003203 (high F is three frets above open D). The third chord drops the fourth string back to D and puts E in the bass and on the first string, so it's 200202; the fourth chord has E on the fourth and first strings for 002202.

Chord names are:

F-A-D-A-A-D = Dm
F-A-F-A-A-F = F major 3rd interval
E-A-D-A-A-E = Esus
D-A-E-A-A-E = Esus (different voicing)

Never thought about DADGAD, I ended up getting this:

D|-0---3-3-2---2-2---|
A|-0---0-0-0---0-0---|
A|-0---0-0-0---0-0---|
D|-0---3-3-2---0-0---|
A|-0---0-0-0---0-0---|
D|-0---0-0-0---2-2---|


Wow, I'm kinda impressed that I got that close. :shock:

Thanks Noteboat, for straightening me out.

I musta been in a hurry, because I screwed up the last two chord names - they're both Asus (A-D-E) rather than Esus (E-A-B). :oops:

The second thing is, if I go through that process, exactly how am I ahead?

Because you actually can determine what it is you are playing. This allows you to communicate with other musicians precisely and accurately. This means that you can get more accomplished sooner when working with other musicians.
For me, looking at a tab and looking at standard notation is the same thing. If I see a 3 on the 4th string, I think it's F.

Except that it can also be an E# or a Gbb. When looking at a tab you don't know what you're playing. The best you can do is make a guess at what you're playing.

Further, the less you know about music theory and reading notation, the less educated that guess will be.

Maybe you'll get it right, maybe you won't. But it will certainly make working with others pretty darn difficult since you can't even know for sure what notes you're playing . . .

I know I'm probably going to get flamed for saying this but learning to sight read music does not help you learn to play guitar. Practicing sight reading helps you sight read. Also reading tab is the same as sightreading notes but people view it as cheating or something. What is standard notation? It's symbols representing tones on paper. That's what tab is. Some tabs don't have the rhythm and some do. In the ones that don't ,you can still sight read the tab but you have to look up at the standard notation to tell if you are playing a quarter note, or what. I can sight read tab and standard notation but I'm better at tab because it is more accessible via web, magazines, etc. So when I see the tab, I actually here the tones in my head. Comes with practice. But if you use tab the way most do, which is look at the tab and use the cd to get the rhythm, you techincally aren't sight reading. But who cares anyway. The best way to get better at playing is to learn songs by ear. Only use the tab to clean up what you can't get by ear.

I know I'm probably going to get flamed for saying this .....
First things first, flamng is not allowed on GN, so hae no fear.
....learning to sight read music does not help you learn to play guitar.
Learning to read any kind of music will help you learn to play guitar.
.....reading tab is the same as sightreading notes
Nowhere near. Tab does not show duration, for example. Standard notation shows the flow of pitches - you see the rise and fall, by the position of the note. I realise that there are variations, which attempt to show the duration, but 99% of text tab doesn't. The vast majority of the remainder is tab for GuitarPro or Powertab - both of which give you the standard notation, to get the duration.
By being able to sight read a piece of standard notation, you can closely reproduce the music, as the composer intended it to be - without actually ever having heard the piece. Tab cannot offer you that - you must know the music or have access to a recording of it.
What is standard notation? It's symbols representing tones on paper. That's what tab is.
Wrong. Tab shows you the fingering, on the guitar fretboard. This is not directly attributable to a pitch. Why? If the guitar is tuned to open G, you can not use the tab, that is laid out in standard tuning.
In standard notation, tuning doesn't matter - you are given a pitch and it's up to the musician to relate that to the fretboard.
So when I see the tab, I actually here the tones in my head.
Until you change the guitar's tuning.
But if you use tab the way most do, which is look at the tab and use the cd to get the rhythm, you techincally aren't sight reading.
Not "technically", you aren't. Sight reading is like reading a book- you see the word and convert it, mentally, into a meaning and context. Tab, on the other hand, is like having a book in front of you and needing an audio-book to help you understand the words, on the page.
Only use the tab to clean up what you can't get by ear.
I'd rather have the "dots", for one good reason. The majority of tab is wrong. Don't forget, tab is a person's interpretation of a piece of music.

Not a flame, blutic, but a different view...

I think learning to sight read does help you become a better guitarist, but the process takes a lot longer - so the real benefit of reading isn't as visible as learning by other methods.

There are a couple of key requirements to becoming a good musician: you need to develop technique, and you need to develop your ears.

Both technique and listening skills come from practice, and if you practice one thing sufficiently, you'll be good at it. If you work at a specific fingering shift, or focus on hearing V-I cadences, you get better at that skill.

But it's not just hearing a chord change in a single setting, or practicing the shift required by a single solo that gives you skills - skill comes from being able to do it in context, from being able to relate what you did or heard in tune x to the challenges of tune y. Learn the 7#5 chord in a Hendrix tune and you can essentially do a trick; learn ten tunes that use the same chord in different changes and you've acquired skill in using the chord.

That's where standard notation really helps.

If I take ten random new tunes and play through them, it will probably take me at 1-1/2 hours if I do it by ear - that's 1 listening to grab the basic changes, and another one or two to refine it. With tab - specifically internet tab - it'll take me an hour... that's one listening for the rhythm, plus one time playing through it. With standard notation, it'll take me 30 minutes - I see it, I play it.

The net result is that I can practice skills in twice as many contexts with reading as I can with tab, and three times as many with reading as I can with ear alone.

But the problem with reading standard notation, the thing that stops many guitarists from really doing it well, is the time required before you can use reading to develop your technique and your ears. Starting from scratch, you can read tab reasonably well in one day, and you can pick out basic changes by ear in a few months... reading music at the same level will take you a couple of years of daily practice (because you'll need to able to read in all keys to equal what you can get from tab or ear).

And yes, during those two years practicing sight reading only gets you better at sight reading. You're building a foundation.

So two years to reach the starting gate. After that, it takes about two more years to become good enough at reading that you can assimilate your reading and hearing skills - to be able to hear it off the page and be aware of what you're doing and how it fits the music. During those two years, practicing sight reading helps you read better - but it also helps you hear better and think better musically.

At this point, your peers who focus on just ear or tab for learning will be far, far ahead of you in skill, because they've invested their time in areas that you haven't. They've spent their four years using other tools to develop their ears and musical thinking, and those tools are definately shortcuts to immediate reward.

But after you've invested the time required to read well, you'll be able to process musical experiences at 2-3 times the rate of a non-reading guitarist... after about 7-8 years you'll be on the same level, and every year after that you'll pull farther and farther ahead.

It's a large investment for a distant payoff, which is why so many people shy away from it. But for those who make the investment, the return eventually becomes obvious.

At the level of 'good' guitarists you'll find lots and lots who don't read. They've gotten to be 'good' through skill practice. But at the level of 'great' guitarists you'll find very, very few who don't read - and it's the reading that helped them climb the mountain, to put skill practice through so many different contexts that they can play anything.

NoteBoat

That was a fantastic post, now I really wish I had taken lessons and learned to sight read when I started out. Now it would be a little difficult for me to change.

I wrote before that I studied piano for about one year. I became very good at reading music in that year, and the thing I appreciated most about sight reading is that I could play a song that I had never heard before and was completely unfamiliar with. That was awesome. So that alone makes it worthwhile.

I do not completely agree with you about very few great musicans being non readers. Now, I am talking Rock, but most of your really famous great and most influencial Rock players do not read. Hendrix didn't read, neither did Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, or even Jimmy Page at first. And I think the same is true of Country and Blues as well. Now Jazz, or Classical, that's a whole 'nother story.

Rock, Blues, and Country is very simple, basic music. Even if you read it, there is not a whole lot to it. The secret to being great in these styles is expression especially. And in this area I think those who play by ear have a big edge. In Blues for instance, reading might actually be a disadvantage. Readers tend to be a little stiff and expressionless. Now that is a general statement, but I believe it is generally true.

But styles like Jazz or Classical, reading is absolutely a tremendous advantage.

Wes, I agree with you about 99% of what you said. There are several great musician's that don't sight read. Hwever classical & jazz music all requier that same emotion as well...just like rock, blues, & country. The big difference is that Rock, Blues, & Country music were all the "poor man's music" at one time and Classical & Jazz were mostly geres of the rich. Go back several decades even centuries, sheet music was expensive to purchase...paper & printing got high premiums. The poor couldn't afford those prices and adapted...blues & country (folk) music were formed...as you said fairly simple to play and a LOT of emotion. But if you look at the great compossers they too put emotion into their playing/music.

Mike

I agree completely. Reading does not mean you do not express emotion.

Now what I am going to say will probably make many mad. But if you take the super great Rock players who do read like Malmsteen, Satriani, Vai.... these guys can play circles around Clapton, or even Hendrix, and especially a simple player like John Fogerty.

But these guys sell very few records. Yeah, they have fans who go to seem them shred and demonstrate the mastery of the instrument. But they don't sell a lot of music compared to the likes of Hendrix or Fogerty. This is because the non-readers rely on emotion and expression, not technique or musical knowledge. They connect with the average person. The average person does not care about blazing fast arpeggios up the neck. This is just show-off stuff. No, the vast majority of people enjoy simple music that touches them personally. And in this area, the non-readers win easy.

Noteboat - think you nailed it well. And you illustrate the problem I attempted to adress: Using tabs for playing can be a dangerous shortcut: You can play almost anything straight away with no idea of what you are playing. It sounds good immediatley giving few incentives therefore to think about whats and whys. This is where I found myself stranded.

However, investing time in thinking about what notes are played - so that a 9 on the 2nd string eventually means G# could be one remedy. (Off course, a 9 on the 2nd is not *really* a G# because it depends on the tuning - but that is somewhat parallel to the fact that a dot on the top line in standard notation is not a F either becasue it depdens on the ... clef ( is that the word?)) I see a lot of you have developed that skill. good. Still I'm pretty sure that tabs often for the lazy among us, lead into "pattern thinking" - that can be very convienient, pick the right pentatonic pattern and it sounds good. Reading standard notation gives so much more information: the bs or #s in the begining give you the key - when accidentals start appearing it is an indication that a change in key is under way, a F note in G major is not a deviation from a pattern (forcing you to switch to a mixolydian pattern) but rather a note in the melody etc.

I think - and as I said I might well be wrong - that tabs *could* easily become a trap. Playing only by ear is one escape, and you don't even have to know a single notename in order to do it. Playing notes instead of fret numbers is another possibility. For me, forcing myself into reading standard notation for guitar seems to be a good point of departure

Anyway - thanks for the interest folks
*off to play some more Bach* - on Telecaster :D

Now what I am going to say will probably make many mad. But if you take the super great Rock players who do read like Malmsteen, Satriani, Vai.... these guys can play circles around Clapton, or even Hendrix, and especially a simple player like John Fogerty.

I totally agree...Malmsteen & Co. can shed better than ANY other guitarist. They are technically "flawless".
But these guys sell very few records. Yeah, they have fans who go to seem them shred and demonstrate the mastery of the instrument. But they don't sell a lot of music compared to the likes of Hendrix or Fogerty. This is because the non-readers rely on emotion and expression, not technique or musical knowledge. They connect with the average person. The average person does not care about blazing fast arpeggios up the neck. This is just show-off stuff. No, the vast majority of people enjoy simple music that touches them personally. And in this area, the non-readers win easy.

Don't forget you are only talking about one genre of music here. I think Tom was including musicians from all genres. Let's look at the population. I'll use US numbers but I'll bet they are similar in other post industrial countries as well...The rich make up about 5% of the population (probably less than that). The poor make up about 10%. The rest are of course middle class. Who primarily listens to classical music (I am stereotyping here but I am talking IN GENERAL)....the rich, which is the smallest part of the population...Hence, less sales. I'll go out on a limb and say that I DOUBT that any classical players use tab and rhey all sight read...Jazz probably includes more from the middle & poor class than classical...I'd say that about 98% of them sight read. Now if you only include the "instrument-based" music (I'm excluding hip-hop here because much of that is synthesized) rock & country have the highest sales...which relates to the population I mentioned.

Forgive me..I'm just babbling now! :oops: I'm just putting off practicing :oops:

I agree with you about phrasing, Wes - and yes, there are notable guitarists who don't read (like those you mentioned, Eddie Van Halen, Yngwie Malmsteen, etc.) I'm pretty sure that at least some of the folks who say they don't read actually do, but it makes better publicity copy to be a natural prodigy than a trained musician!

But there's one thing about the commonly named non-readers that gets overlooked a lot - they all wrote songs people want to listen to. If you create it, reading doesn't matter much. Neither does technique (Bob Dylan etc.) or ear skills (Johnny Ramone etc.). Write a good song, get notoriety; notoriety then gets people listening to the guitar parts.

But every genre has folks who don't write hit tunes... and every genre has folks can play anything, and perform with anyone and everyone. The Skunk Baxter etc. of rock. Country had Fred Carter. Blues? Hubert Sumlin (who didn't read until his boss - Howlin Wolf - learned to read. Wolf then insisted Sumlin attend a conservatory during the day!) These guys are the truly monster guitarists - and truly monster readers as well.

It's true that these session guys often don't need to read - they're going from chord charts or by ear. But I think in most cases it's reading that got them there. The only session guitarist/sideman I can think of who got a lot of work without being able to read at all was Jimmy Page - when a session required reading, he would hire another studio guitarist (usually Vic Flick) to read the part, play it for him... and then Page would go play it note-for-note in the studio.

I can't do that. So I have to read :)

Mike

I'm not putting down reading at all, I wish I could sight-read guitar if only for the ability to play any song instantly. And I truly wish I understood music better.

But still, the non-readers sell WAY more music. People relate to simple music more. I personally do not care to be a virtuoso on guitar if it lacks feeling. I want to play music that moves me and others. But that is me, everybody is different. I have no problem with people that wish to master their instrument, that is great. But I will probably never buy their record.

I guess I'm on a Neil Young theme today. Neil was one of my biggest influences when I started guitar. And all for the wrong reasons. He played super sloppy guitar and sings kinda bad too. But this gave me lots of hope. If he could make it with limited skills, so could I. So I related to him as a musician. Plus, he writes great songs. Can't learn that in a book.

But this is what Neil said about these fancy guitar players, and I gotta admit, I agree with Neil 100%

JO: What are your views on people going to college to learn guitar?

NY: Paints a pretty doomed picture of the future, doesn't it?[Laughs.] First of all, it doesn't matter if you can play a scale. It doesn't matter if your technique is good. If you have feelings that you want to get out through music, that's what matters. If you have the ability to express yourself and you feel good when you do it, then that's why you do it. The technical side of it is a completely boring drag, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, I can't play fast. I don't even know the scales. A lot of the notes that I go for are notes that I know aren't there. They're just not there, so you can hit any note. I'm just on another level as far as all that goes. I appreciate these guys who play great. I'm impressed by these metal bands with their scale guys. Like I go, "Gee, that's really something." I mean, Satriani and Eddie Van Halen are genious guitar players. They're unbelievable musicians of the highest caliber. But I can't relate to it. One note is enough.

I agree with Neil completely. One of my favorite classic Rock songs is Bang a Gong by T. Rex. There is one solo in this song where Marc Bolan plays one single note. That's it, just one! But you know what? That one note moved me more than anything I've ever heard from Yngwie or Steve Vai and that's the honest truth.

Neil knows exactly what he's talking about. That's why he sells records. Lots of them. :wink: