Stub Mandrel

It has never been superseded for the lute, it carries right through from renaissance era to modern guitar.

Doesn't double bass fingering generally assume you use the ring and little fingers together? It's not so much about knowing scales in different positions and chord inversions - it's that much tab appears to show no respect for such things, which would make it much easier to play and follow!

Of course tab does have a history as long as classical notation:

Two problems with that, I simply can't read standard notation, it's not for want of trying or even lessons. I simply can't relate a dot on a stave to a note in my head, I do know where G and A are on the treble clef without thinking about it, but despite years of trying anything else I have to work out. I then have a letter in my head I have to 'translate' into a pitch. It's completely beyond me to look at notes and 'hear' a tune or even a chord or arpeggio. As for playing by ear, the problem is two-fold - clearly hearing what the bass is doing in busy parts and understanding the structure of the song. I use tab chiefly to get the bits I can't catch by ear. I know tab is far from perfect, but all notation is an abstract that can't capture all every subtlety of a piece*, and it does help an awful lot of people to access music that they otherwise couldn't. I just wonder if there are ways it can be made better. *If it did, every classical performance would sound pretty much the same.

Missed smiley alert! Just a jest because the staves could be argued to be one line per string on a piano 🙂

Another thread got diverted by a discussion of tab. As someone who really can't read music despite much trying - I simply can't relate position on the stave to a note in my head or on the instrument without 'thinking it out' - so I can get the right starting place and just about pick a simple piano line in C major or a key with maybe one or two sharps... but useless for a fretted instrument. Finding myself learning a lot of songs from tab I find it much easier but also very frustrating at times. I thought it might be interesting too discuss the good and bad of tab and what makes a good one, although I don't mean how accurate it is but how it can be used to show more than just the basic sequence of notes to play.. Better tabs have bar lines and position the numbers to reflect the timing. Some people overdo this and use bracketed numbers (slurs) to make up the timing for things like off-beat and dotted notes which really confuses me. I find tabs that set out the whole song as one linear thing overwhelming. At the other extreme those that reduce a song to a set of riffs usually over simplify and lose all the transitions. There are ways of showing repeats like "X2" which is easy to follow and "D.S. al coda" which gets terribly confusing with multiple destinations poorly marked. I would find tab easier to work with if it always included a key and chord symbols as well. The biggest issue I have is poor fingering choices. I mix one-finger-per-fret with some three-finger playing so I realise they are very personal to the player. But look at this lifted straight from a "popular tab site" - can you see the deliberate mistakes? Ironically this is a good example of how to show timings (note - tabbers often struggle with triplets and anything above fret 9 causes issues): I don't know how it could be done but some sort of graphical interface for generating tab - where you click on an image of the fretboard and it automatically generates the tab - would help avoid boo-boos like that by keeping the tabber aware of where they are on the instrument. Finally a 'special font' for tabbing - equispaced like the ubiquitous courier but with single symbol numbers for 10, 11.... (perhaps we should have used A,B,C etc.....) Any other ideas?

Not as ironic as someone who feels upset enough to post that 'the only people getting upset about the issue seem to be those posting how they "don't understand why people get so upset about the issue". ' I could have opened to door to infinite recursion here 😈

Surely classical notation is piano tab 🙂

Get that old 'dodgy kebab' alibi in first 😈

Saturday Night's All Right for Fighting Update! Both tabs on UG seem simplified (but still 'interesting')... but then I looked at the tab for the Nickelback version. All root notes eight to the bar, except one chromatic run. Tells you everything you need to know about Nickelback 🙂

The more I see Geddy lee, the more I realise that over the last twenty five years he and a friend of mine have grown almost identical as they aged!

That's cheating. It actually looks like a real old guitar rather than a fake! Perhaps that's the sort we really ought to worry about?

Move from anti-gua to pro-gua? I must admit I always thought that finish was just a bad sunburst. I am now traumatised by seeing it applied around f-holes. It's a sort of 'dirty sanchez' for guitars...

Sadly, some of us can't read the dots, even after over forty years of trying (I think I have musical dyslexia). Good tab can show as much as written music if it is done well, but it isn't as elegant, only possible to sight read at low tempos, and unfortunately much tab is really badly done. What tab does well is give fingering information. an advantage lost because most tab writers appear to have twelve fingers on their left hands.

Not actually a 'board' yet. I need to convert it and the DOD delay to work off a standard connector (I'm worried that using a 3.5mm jack creates the risk of a short when it's not plugged in). I had to do a simple (reversible) mod to the HM2 to run off 9V supply. TheHM2 is as good as its reputation. The BEQ7 seems happy despite technically wanting the old BOSS 12V ACA, I used to use it for quick changes of sound rather than on all the time. The Ibanez chorus works really well with bass, possibly the best of all the effects. The Toyo flanger is a good budget one but sounds ckanky and makes extra noises when dialled. The DOD delay works well but needs great care in setting up. I discovered that if I play staccato single notes I can get a convincing 'gated' effect for Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Very dated but has a good, long 4-second max delay which made it very expensive back when I bought it! I like the compressor too, it's a fairly budget one but very robust. It's just a sort of 'better knob' - it makes the sound richer and evens out my playing on quick passages. The Wah is cheap plastic crap, but it's the same basic Cry-Baby circuit as found in every wah ever made... (I once did a component for component comparison of my old (cheap but quality and much missed) wah with a Cry Baby and all the values were the same and with one difference - the cheap one had an extra resistor). I might fit it into a good quality s/h volume pedal. The tuner replaces my awful analogue (yes with a meter in it!) Vox one that was really, really tricky to use. I hate most clip ons because they are so slow to react, the Boss tuner even reacts to how a note changes pitch from attack to sustain. Not shown I also have a one-knob Melos Mini-Fazer (the various brands it sold under are legendary for their sound) but I can't find it and it needs converting to external power.

To be fair, will the event costs be covered by the door?

I've got one of those, didn't think of trying it. It's not very good but it works and I can give it a go. I charted the chords based on the bass tab I've got - and they didn't fit with what I got from jamming along - all the Fs were missing. Just looked up the chords and I should have trusted my ear! I'll shout if I can't fix up something!

Me showing my age again. Back in the 80s/90s pub gigs meant backline for all the instruments and a vocal PA and maybe miked up snare and bass drum on the rare occasions we played a small club. I get the feeling that many bands now use smaller backline and have much more go through the PA (helped no doubt by mics and PA getting ridiculously cheap?) It appears the line between big practice amp and small stage amp is blurring away, with about 30W being seen as enough for guitar and 50W combo for bass for less rowdy musical styles?

One of my brother's band is playing at my other brother's wife's 60th this autumn. It involves a ~700 mile round trip and an overnight so it's been sorted so the rest of the band gets paid, and they are happy to sleep on floors etc. Much better to have everything agreed in advance. Looks like I will be playing some semi-acoustic stuff with my bro' and his wife - probably some bass and some mandolin (I've never played mandolin for people, ever - eek!) and probably some other guys playing as well, I predict chaos, random jamming and a ridiculously good time had by all!

Frustration for me is that I can't get a cd written on my PC to play in the car; some of these songs I want to hear over and again. First rehearsal is on Tuesday and I can now play all but two of my twelve right through, with just polishing left to do 🙂 Very pleased with how Balckberry way and Crazy Little Thing Called Love have started to 'embed' in my brain! Last two? Sunny Afternoon - which is one of those where no two tabs or videos are the same, just a few bars of the bridge to unpick from a video which seems to be the most accurate source. Saturday Night's All Right for Fighting - a simple structure but the bass seems to be so raucous and varied I've decided to use this one as my opportunity to improvise and throw in whatever fills and runs I feel like, there's just one distinctive chromatic run I want to get right - the tab doesn't sound quite right, but it might be my lack of familiarity with the song.

Nothing against relicing, but we should accept it's just shabby chic for boys... Is this any different?

Me too... but Amazon reckon I can still buy it... for £55! Worth going to local Consumer Rights?

Crazy Little Thing called Love is on my list of 12 (not 140, thank goodness). Not at all technical but great fun to play, in his lines the spaces mean as much as the notes. My weak point is remembering the way that good players vary their runs at the end of sections

Curious! I have two of that style strap and they both have 'Fender' so that they are the right way up if the buckle is at the back. My other fender strap has the logo running along the length. Perhaps the straps are randomly oriented? My other two 'orientable' straps are the same (though the Ace Peace and Dove has to be used upside down to match Neil Young's 🙂 )

Try finding mature elm trees...