Stub Mandrel

Indeed, but while I see how the stave allows you to build chords, for example, because each adjacent pair of lines or spaces is a third apart my brain insists this is merely a convention that creates a meaningless inconsistency where you can't tell what type of chord it actually is. Actually, to me, the fact that the stave is inherently diatonic and suited to penny whistles and perhaps even pianos, it seems illogical to force it on a totally chromatic instrument like a bass.

I understand that, and I'm sure that's one reason why all the mnemonics in the world make no differnence. Perhaps its that I find tab more logical. I can't relate to the fact the difference between two lines on a stave might be one or two semitones; it makes some sense for a piano, but none for anything else - to me at least!

Which I have no difficulty finding my way around, athough I prefer to think in terms of intervals than specific notes. Ask me to play a common scale in a common key and I might think for a second first but I won't struggle. I'm B***d if I can learn those 9 positions on the treble clef though. Rhythm is not so hard for me, which is why I think I have a built in block stopping me learning the notes.

Anyone with a leopoard-skin double bass who claims that is probably telling the truth...

But then I can only play John Major Scales.

Brilliant name! I recently thought up 'The Mauve' and 'Green Dayglo'.

In my defense I say my ear is good - I reckon there errors in a lot of, if not most, tabs but they certainly speed things up and make great mnemonics when learning. I'd also say just because people don't read notation it doesn't mean they can't understand musical theory at least to a level appropriate to what they play. There's a lick I'm struggling with and I know it's because its in a harmonic minor scale and my brain just changes it unless I really concentrate - so at least I know why I'm getting it wrong 😜

Got p'd off on tuesday when the lid fell off my 'really useful box' covering the studio floor in pedals I now have a huge pedalboard case - spotted on the 'bay, and only 5 minutes from the practice studios so bought within an hour yesterday evening! Now off to screwfix for velcro... Hmm. Looks like there might be some spaces to fill...

Never thought of that! I'll have to keep my trousers up with gaffa tape.

Naturally a lot will have been said off camera - it's a totally artificial situation, these guys obviously only bring in their gear for the program - who has a snap-on cabinet full of tools out under a lean-too roof? I hope the refret was needed; I showed my precious 40-year old acoustic to a luthier and asked about a refret and he said it just needs a fret dress. I bet the guy was told, these are just to complete the look, you can take them off to play it and keep them safe. I wonder how he will get on with the instrument.

I eread teh first post and thought hmm... Morrisons always seem to play music that has wide appeal...

Ukelele maintenance instructions: Remove strings Throw leftovers in bin Catch fish using string My brother loves the things, but as far as I am concerned anything with the strings in the wrong order is junk...

Tiny little 8-note fill at the start of The Letter. Easy as pie, but it seems to be based on a harmonic minor so it's got a bit of a stretch and it doesn't fit any of my instinctive movements. I'm just playing it over and over again because if I go into it could I play the wrong scale.

Agreed on both counts. The neck profile is so important, and it's a jazz so the neck is already slender. A shame they didn't actually say what type of bass it was. Now I'm sitting here playing dum do-wap do-dee dum "I believe in miracles..."

They had some really good S/H deals when I got my Custom V in there. Look in the back part of the shop.

Ultimate solution...

I've only recently discovered this world. I've found that if you get a good, accurate 'cover' video taht's filmed well you can slow it down to 50% and learn tricky bits. The fingerings are often more practical and accurate than tab (because people actually have to play and listen to them!) I found transcribing a bass cover of Sunny Afternoon from one of these was a great way to learn it - especially as I still had to play it along as some bits it wasn't clear which finger was doing what! On the other hand there are ones that range from the dire to excuses to show off virtuosity with a busy line that would have overwhelmed the original recording.

I enjoyed that 🙂

Went to a practice studio last night for our first rehearsal session. One of these 'enter a code' ones. Guitarists had 100W marshal heads and 5x10 cabs supplied but no speaker leads (jack-jack). Took twenty minutes before 'support' could confirm there was nothing they could do about it. The 'spares' cupboard only had jack to speakon, so they had to go through the PA. I found myself with a Ashdown ABM500 into a 15% ashdown cab, luckily its speakon cable hadn't been 'borrowed'. Can't say we really had the time or the inclination to be fussy about the tone. At practice volume I saw the VU meter needle twitch slightly of the bottom stop 🙂

I'm a bit disappointed here. I was introduced to reading music in junior school and I'm 56 now; so that's nearly a half-century of experience, on and off, of trying to read music and failing. What I was hoping would be that other people who use tab might chip in with ideas around how it could be better or even suggest things like software I could use to rework some tabs to better suit my playing style. Re-tabbing something really helps me learn it. Instead everyone seems determined to tell me that I should be reading notation instead and the only reason I can't is because I won't put the effort in/get a good teacher. All this has done is convince me that my 'dyslexia' analogy is probably more accurate than I realised. It seems there is a condition identified in 2000 called 'dysmusia' that relates to the inability to develop the skill to read music. Unfortunately all the interesting stuff seems to be hidden behind pay walls.

That's exactly the point. That's the one simple barrier I can't overcome. The rhythm bit is easy, I can do that. But that limits me to basic percussion, like the triangle...

Well my view is coloured by my complete inability to grasp notation. I don't deny its superiority at all. I just can't do it and no amount of telling me I can will change that. There are plenty of things I never thought I could do, that I persevered with and got the hang of. Then there are a few things I have tried really hard at and failed completely, like reading notation and ice skating.

But only one person has to come up with a decent standard for tab, that could help millions of people. I have to disagree with you both! I have had plenty of music lessons, I have been through the agonies of notating my own compositions, I have carefully worked out music from scores. It's agony. It was along time before I realised that I wasn't tone deaf nor was it a lack of dexterity and rhythm that was stopping me making progress - once started to have some confidence and rely on my ear, I made progress. Just like reading? No, I know a dyslexics who is way beyond me at maths and chess but who has to ask for help with spelling. To take your analogy, I can't get past the letters. I know 'every good boy deserves favour' I can only tell G, A and B by looking at a stave. I can work out the others but an hour or two later they will be forgotten again. I am sure I have some form of musical dyslexia. I think my problem is that I simply can't relate the vertical position on the stave to pitch in the same way I can relate pitch to a fret. Funnily enough although I am not brilliant at keyboards I find it easy to construct chords or scales on one because I understand the theory. I even know how chords are notated, I just can't see them as anything other than cryptic blobs that need to be carefully decoded. I can look at a piece of music all day. Intellectually I can see how it relates to the music but I can't develop any fluency. I've being trying to read music since the 70s, at one point after intense effort I was able to haltingly follow a simple single-line melody in C, but after a week off the skill had gone. I've only been trying with tab for about six years, and seriously for a lot less than that, before it was virtually all chord charts and by ear, or very slowly working out the notation. I have a pile of music books a foot thick, virtually all of it I have only ever used the chord symbols. I really am a hopeless case, I'm afraid.

For a start, you need to understand keys and scales to understand notation. It surprising how many people start guitar without having a clue about either. I have Led Zeppelin Complete. Believe me, it isn't easy, even if its possible. Once you have added text notes then any advantage of using classical notation is lost. For a keyboard player, most chord voicings are obvious and easily recognised, but guitar chord voicings often cover well over an octave and may include open strings and strings well up the neck that even an experienced reader will have to put in effort to 'work out'. Many apparently 'intricate' or 'obscure' chord sequences are actually chosen to make use of easy fingerings and open notes on a guitar; that might not be obvious from notation - take Fotheringay or even Wurm as examples.

Cross purposes here, perhaps. I have no issue that standard notation can express more information, more succinctly, than tab. But tab is accessible for beginners as it needs no knowledge of musical theory. The point about it being dropped 1000 years ago is wholly incorrect; it was still preferred for the lute alongside classical notation well into the modern period as the fingerings used were seen to be important. This is still true for guitar for example where some parts can be effectively impossible to play correctly and easily without seeing the voicing in tab (the intro to Stairway to Heaven being an obvious example).