Why are tabs always wrong?

[Dad3353]

2 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

... Seems old Dad must be hearing drums before bass lines.

 

OK, I've worked it out, by entering it into Guitar Pro; yes, I've heard it before, but could only really recognise it once I'd completed the riff (it makes no sense to me, even now, when it's incomplete...). I wouldn't have known who played it, though. S'not that I'm deaf (although that's true  ...), it's that I have never had to play stuff of the sort, on any instrument; it's a bit too modern for my 'natural' repertoire, and I've a saint horror of 'disco-ish' stuff in general. The tab shown does, however, contain just about all the information that a 'normal' score would contain, including the rhythmic elements, so I don't see what 'dots' notation would bring to that particular party. Where tab falls down is when the sax player wants to share your sheet. As a drummer (no tab for us, thank you very much ...), I've not really been called upon to 'read' for keys or horns, but most musicians can swap sheet music between them (allowing for bass/treble staves...). That can't work for tab sheets.
As a drummer, a chord chart is of little use to me, except as a very rough guide as to what the song is doing. Drummers usually have to write it all out for themselves, so reading/writing is just part of the job in hand. Many drummers double as percussion, though, so scores for kettle drums or vibraphone are commonplace. No tab there, either, of course. 

[dclaassen]

On 01/03/2022 at 10:38, neepheid said:

 

I know what note is at which fret on which string already.  I've already made that decision based upon my style and how I play the bass.  I don't need to see the music behind the tab to make that call.

 

I feel really talked down to right now.  You NEED to do this, you NEED to do that.  Was that your intention?  You have no idea to what degree I suck at playing bass, and the degree to which I suck at playing bass has no bearing whatsoever on how utterly amazing you are so thanks for the pep talk, but I'm happy to wallow, roll around and generally indulge in the mud of my mediocrity and just have some fun.

There are always more than one way to play a part. The big boys don’t play it the same every time, and you should not feel you have to either. I have been trying to make the transition to 5 string, which means I have a lot more freedom to play lines on different areas on the neck. You do you, take the advice that resonates with you, and move on. Also, I wonder about the “play the part correctly “ crowd. I played the solo from “all right now” differently for years…didn’t stop the dance floor from filling up.

[Downunderwonder]

9 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

The tab shown does, however, contain just about all the information that a 'normal' score would contain, including the rhythmic elements, so I don't see what 'dots' notation would bring to that particular party

You've lost me there. I am sure we were looking at a short bit of notation.

[Downunderwonder]

On 01/03/2022 at 22:58, Rich said:

With the soul band, our MD does all the arrangements so we all get sheet music for our parts. He knows I'm not a reader, so bless 'im he puts all the note names along the stop, like this. I can follow a chart quite well now even if I can't tell what the actual notes are.

 

Name that tune  

Yep. That is not tab. I forgot it had the tempo on it.

 

I can play stuff in my head from notation only so well. Generally when sight reading my fingers lock in the key so the accidentals have to be read while the rest are sorta assumed, if you know what I mean.

 

When I leapt into reading I was very reliant on the chords for root note and played something akin to what was on the page well enough to get the job. I was a pretty handy treble clef reader from 30 years prior so I was keeping up with the charts. @RichI promise you could go from needing the note names to not needing the note names in a couple of weeks if the BL stopped doing that. All the information is there already!

 

Here the 1 bar rest and the rhythm had pretty much given the game away by the end of the 2nd bar.

[Nail Soup]

I don't really agree with the view that TAB makes you play the  finger position rather than the note.

The finger position in the TAB is just a suggestion  of where to play the note and most players, even me, know the alternative positions of each note. I mean it mainly involves being able to count to five.

I often re-position to my preferred way.

[Phil Starr]

It's a funny old world isn't it? Whenever this debate starts there are always two groups of people who dive in. Those who read proper music and demean those who can't and those who play by ear and look down upon anyone who can't pick out a bass line, note perfect from just listening. The implication is always that people who rely upon tab and chord sheets aren't 'real' musicians and really shouldn't be trying.

 

Surely tab is just a shorthand way of writing something down so it can be widely shared. A way in which we can say 'I don't know how to play that bit' 'how do you play it? I think it's great that someone I've never met has laboriously listened to a song over and over, written down what they think it is and then wants to share it with me. I've even put up a few tabs myself and I'm kind of delighted that despite the mistakes in them over 300,000 people have used them. (I had no idea until I just checked).

 

So the question is Why are tabs always wrong?". Well are they? Always? Does that matter? What does wrong mean anyway? Is it wrong because there is a note missing, a root/fifth that is just written as a root? A bass line correctly transcribed from a live version because the recorded version is so heavily processed you can't really hear what the bassist does? How about when the bass is double tracked? Actually on that issue the sheet music if often 'wrong' even though it is written in conventional notation. It is frequently a simplification of something that has multiple tracks overlaid.

 

Actually I'm kind of sad that Ultimate Guitar is getting so good with the official tabs. I quite liked looking at four or five different ways of playing an approximation of a bass line. I pretty much learned to play with tab and looking to see what other people have done with a song is still a really helpful way of getting a working line quickly. I've always played in bands and someone always wants me to learn something yesterday. I've not got a great ear and for me a short cut is something I use when I can. The band aren't interested in how I get there and they don't notice when I cut corners so long as I hit a root on the one and keep the rhythm going. 

 

Tab is just a useful way of writing stuff down. It helps some of us, if you are lucky enough to have had lessons and can read that's great, I wish I was one of you but I'm not and nor are most of us.

[Dad3353]

1 hour ago, Downunderwonder said:

You've lost me there. I am sure we were looking at a short bit of notation.

 

Of course; I was confusing with another post I'd looked at. Put it down to dotage, a 'senior' moment. Sorry. 

[Geek99]

On 28/02/2022 at 22:36, TimR said:

Probably written by guitarists. 

Guitarists can’t write though,… or use cutlery 

[Geek99]

12 hours ago, Dankology said:

I quite like a sort of hybrid system I've seen on one of the free online bass lessons sites: four lines representing the strings but with note names rather than fret numbers.

 

I convince myself it encourages me to think more about what I'm doing rather than just mindlessly playing the fret numbers.

Tab plus

[Geek99]

@Downunderwonderis it Jackson 5 - I want you back? 

[tegs07]

8 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

The implication is always that people who rely upon tab and chord sheets aren't 'real' musicians and really shouldn't be trying.

If I had to pick out my 10 favourite albums of all time I would guess at least half of them would be classified as being written by people who weren’t “real” musicians. Totally agree with you. Whatever format helps someone get into music and learn how to write a song is fine. Not everyone can be Jaco or Yngwie Malmsteen. Thankfully. 

[dclaassen]

I am always confused with comments attempting to divide folks into camps based on what kind of system they use to evaluate and remember music. I use all of them, read pretty well, but don't really equate that with being a better musician. We are all enjoying doing what we do, and use the tools at our disposal to do so. One of the best guitarists I ever played with didn't even know the names to the chords he was using...so what? We had a blast playing together. 

 

Please feel free to gather round the campfire and sing "Kum Ba Yah" .....bring your own marshmallows

[SteveXFR]

9 minutes ago, dclaassen said:

Please feel free to gather round the campfire and sing "Kum Ba Yah" .....bring your own marshmallows

 

I don't know that one. Do you have sheet music and tabs for it? 

[Downunderwonder]

8 hours ago, Geek99 said:

@Downunderwonderis it Jackson 5 - I want you back? 

It better be, or I have to hand in my reader card.

[Geek99]

What is my prize ?   Do I win a Stratocaster ? 

[Downunderwonder]

1 hour ago, Geek99 said:

What is my prize ?   Do I win a Stratocaster ? 

It was fun stringing Dad along. No prizes for the reveal.

[Nicko]

14 hours ago, Nail Soup said:

I don't really agree with the view that TAB makes you play the  finger position rather than the note.

The finger position in the TAB is just a suggestion  of where to play the note and most players, even me, know the alternative positions of each note. I mean it mainly involves being able to count to five.

I often re-position to my preferred way.

I completely agree.  The fact that a notation reader has to translate a note name into one of several alternative finger positions isn't an efficient way of writing music for stringed instruments.  A piano player, trumpet player and many other instrumentalists of course have no choice where to play a note anyway.

[TimR]

14 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

It's a funny old world isn't it? Whenever this debate starts there are always two groups of people who dive in. Those who read proper music and demean those who can't and those who play by ear and look down upon anyone who can't pick out a bass line, note perfect from just listening. The implication is always that people who rely upon tab and chord sheets aren't 'real' musicians and really shouldn't be trying.

 

 

I do both. It's useful. So put me in the middle group who don't imply anything. 

 

Previously on this subject I've said that most pop songs should be fairly quickly learned with one listen through by anyone who calls themselves a bass player. It should be any musician's aim to learn to use their ears. If you're not listening in a group situation you'll just sound like a bunch of instrument owners playing off rote.

 

Music is like any other language.

[TimR]

15 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

Yep. That is not tab. I forgot it had the tempo on it.

 

I can play stuff in my head from notation only so well. Generally when sight reading my fingers lock in the key so the accidentals have to be read while the rest are sorta assumed, if you know what I mean.

 

When I leapt into reading I was very reliant on the chords for root note and played something akin to what was on the page well enough to get the job. I was a pretty handy treble clef reader from 30 years prior so I was keeping up with the charts. @RichI promise you could go from needing the note names to not needing the note names in a couple of weeks if the BL stopped doing that. All the information is there already!

 

Here the 1 bar rest and the rhythm had pretty much given the game away by the end of the 2nd bar.

 

When I was playing the Tuba the arranger gave all the music in treble cliff.

 

This was historical because players would often move 'down' the band from trumpet, through baritone and euphoniums as they got older.

 

I used to spend a lot of time writing fingerings on the parts for a couple of the other players in my section. They could do it but it was quicker for me to do it.

[Geek99]

3 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

It was fun stringing Dad along. No prizes for the reveal.

Thank god - now I don’t have to own a guitar 

[dclaassen]

13 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

 

I don't know that one. Do you have sheet music and tabs for it? 

You’re welcome…https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/peter-paul-and-mary/kumbaya-tabs-2393417

[ambient]

9 hours ago, Nicko said:

I completely agree.  The fact that a notation reader has to translate a note name into one of several alternative finger positions isn't an efficient way of writing music for stringed instruments.  A piano player, trumpet player and many other instrumentalists of course have no choice where to play a note anyway.

One of the benefits of playing a 6 string bass is I can play pretty much any chart from one position. A low E all the way up to an A that would otherwise be at the 14th fret of the G string.

[Geek99]

I had this tonight with tab - there was a note accurate tab that I found, but I totally changed the fingering to suit me

[dodge_bass]

On 03/03/2022 at 13:02, Nicko said:

I completely agree.  The fact that a notation reader has to translate a note name into one of several alternative finger positions isn't an efficient way of writing music for stringed instruments.  A piano player, trumpet player and many other instrumentalists of course have no choice where to play a note anyway.

 

Agree and entirely disagree. The joy of music notation is a single non-instrument specific system that can be translated across multiple instruments but understood by all, as opposed to having a specific notation approach per instrument / instrument type. Learning different staffs is hard enough as it is! Notation tells you what to play but not where - as a player you're left to make those choices based on your own knowledge and experience. And that's a good thing as it allows you to understand the music and then make sensible musical / technical decisions about how to then play it. 

 

Tab as far as I'm aware was created for lute music in the C15th so it has a solid history behind it and is certainly a valid form of music notation. However, for me personally, notation is the winner because you will never be given in a professional setting (unless you're a lute player!) tab, it will always be dots. So, like it or lump it, the obvious notation form to learn is the one that all other musicians use because it only enhances your skill set and employability. That having been said if you don't want to work in settings (professional or otherwise) where notation is used then either playing by ear or using tab is perfectly fine too. We all have to make decisions based on our own personal circumstances. My experience is that learning to read notation as an electric bass player was singularly the best musical decision I ever made and kept me in professional work and paying the mortgage for about 15years. 

 

I'm going to however, put the cat among the pigeons and say that I suspect the reason so many tabs are wrong is because they're more often than not created by less experienced players for less experienced players. So mistakes are made because the tabber can't hear the part, can't work it out so approximates it etc. Which is fine...kind of. It's fine if it's a guide and the reader is aware of that and then fills in the gaps as it were. Also fine if the reader is like 'no that bits wrong, I'll correct it'. Where it's not so good (and this entirely applies to incorrect sheet music too) is where the reader takes it as the gospel truth and plays it note for note not knowing any better. I've played some pretty dodgy sheet music as well in my time so this is not a tab-bad, notes-good dualism rather a sliding scale of great-awful for both tab and notation depending upon the experience of the creator. 

 

Anyway, I got dragged into a notation debate again. It's really interesting but as has already been pointed out, different things for different folks and both notation systems are valid but not infallible. For example - I did a sight-reading live radio recording a few years back. All notated out, red light on, no rehearsal just read the dots. INTENSE.  Got though it all though, bar one real stinker of a note which I was gutted about (as you can imagine). Anyway the MD gave me quite the death stare as we were doing it and at the end made a big fuss about having us go back and re-record that song again to edit it in. Guess what....same stinker of a note occurs. MD realises at that point it's his error for not checking the part properly and apologises. So there you have it! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lozkerr]

On 03/03/2022 at 22:58, ambient said:

One of the benefits of playing a 6 string bass is I can play pretty much any chart from one position. A low E all the way up to an A that would otherwise be at the 14th fret of the G string.

In my painfully-acquired experience, playing a five-string bass (and I'm guessing a six-string, too) is a lot easier if you can read notation. Not sight-reading - I'm certainly not one of those nauseatingly talented people who can look at a piece of sheet music covered in something that looks like a spilled ants nest and nail it on the first play-through - but seeing how the bassline progresses, noting where the big shifts occur and being able to decide whether to start on fret 10 of the B string, fret 5 of the E string or the open A based on where you have to go from there makes learning a song a lot easier. Sometimes it's easiest to ignore the B string completely - Echo Beach, Back On The Chain Gang, Suedehead, Slippery People and China Girl from our current repertoire spring to mind right away - but some songs are much easier to play by anchoring in one spot on the B string and playing across the neck, especially if you're singing at the same time. Roxanne, Heaven, Pretty In Pink, Rip It Up and The Best spring to mind in that regard.

 

Five-string tabs seem to be very rare beasts indeed. When low Eb or below is needed, even the books I have tell you to de-tune. Online tabs almost always have the open notes detuned. The only person I've ever come across who writes five-string tab is Becky Baldwin, but I daresay there are a few others.

 

And, of course, if you can read notation, you can play anything written for the double-bass if you ignore the bowing instructions.