Orchestra bass tabs. Bit confused here...

[fretmeister]

25 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Really?

 

 

 

That sort of thing is rather rare.

And it doesn't look like it is in C Major so it's lacking a key signature.

 

I don't know why so many guitarists and bassists try to find often more complex ways of reading than just learning the system that every other instrument uses without a thought.

 

It really isn't difficult and despite the "don't learn theory - it ruins creativity" crowd, this is NOT learning theory, it's just learning reading.

We can all read a novel in our primary language without needing to know what the Past Perfect Progressive tense is or how it works.

 

 

 

EDIT:

 

It also doesn't mention tuning so there is no actual confirmation of pitch information.

 

And it doesn't have a clef so it could be for bass, or as it shows 4 strings it could be for violin, cello, uke as well.

Edited Monday at 10:43 by fretmeister

[SimonK]

40 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

 

 

That sort of thing is rather rare.

And it doesn't look like it is in C Major so it's lacking a key signature.

 

I don't know why so many guitarists and bassists try to find often more complex ways of reading than just learning the system that every other instrument uses without a thought.

 

It really isn't difficult and despite the "don't learn theory - it ruins creativity" crowd, this is NOT learning theory, it's just learning reading.

We can all read a novel in our primary language without needing to know what the Past Perfect Progressive tense is or how it works.

 

 

 

EDIT:

 

It also doesn't mention tuning so there is no actual confirmation of pitch information.

 

And it doesn't have a clef so it could be for bass, or as it shows 4 strings it could be for violin, cello, uke as well.

 

As a classical guitarist originally, there is place for tab to see how someone else chose to finger something. Certainly a major challenge I had when I took things seriously was trying to work out the best fingering/position... but yes a pre-requisite was being able to read normal music!

[fretmeister]

Thanks a weird thing with tab. It limits the player to someone else’s choice of position playing.

I once bought the official Muse bass book and although the notes were right, Hysteria’s tab was all string skipping instead of pedalling open strings. It made it much harder to play.

 

I suspect they used software to read the notation a human had written out and it just generated the lowest possible position for a note rather than considering playing ease.

[tauzero]

6 hours ago, fretmeister said:

EDIT:

 

It also doesn't mention tuning so there is no actual confirmation of pitch information.

 

And it doesn't have a clef so it could be for bass, or as it shows 4 strings it could be for violin, cello, uke as well.

 

Well, you know it must be on a fretless instrument as you've got to play at fret 3.2 and fret 2.4. Some sort of microtonal experiment then.

[fretmeister]

2 hours ago, tauzero said:

 

Well, you know it must be on a fretless instrument as you've got to play at fret 3.2 and fret 2.4. Some sort of microtonal experiment then.

Or maybe fretless because of some sort of weird offset tuning system. Like the Buzz Feiten thing that was popular for 5 minutes.

[Stub Mandrel]

13 hours ago, fretmeister said:

It also doesn't mention tuning so there is no actual confirmation of pitch information.

 

I cropped the page quite a lot. All the missing information is on the original.

 

Most sight readers would struggle to interpret 'Portrait of Tracey' with all the notes played as harmonics.

 

To me the shortcomings of tab are lack of key information and not making chord inversions obvious.

 

As I am incapable of retaining anysight reading skills for more than a day or so, I will make the best of tab. Sadly most tab is inaccurate (but then so are many of the traditional scores for bass I have painstakingly worked out a note at a time).

[Stub Mandrel]

6 hours ago, tauzero said:

 

Well, you know it must be on a fretless instrument as you've got to play at fret 3.2 and fret 2.4. Some sort of microtonal experiment then.

 

No those are natural harmonics.

[Stub Mandrel]

10 hours ago, fretmeister said:

Thanks a weird thing with tab. It limits the player to someone else’s choice of position playing.

I once bought the official Muse bass book and although the notes were right, Hysteria’s tab was all string skipping instead of pedalling open strings. It made it much harder to play.

 

I suspect they used software to read the notation a human had written out and it just generated the lowest possible position for a note rather than considering playing ease.

 

Just search round. Both tabs are out there. The main riff is a doddle it's the chorus that's trickier.

[nekomatic]

22 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

As I am incapable of retaining anysight reading skills for more than a day or so, I will make the best of tab. 

I remain to be convinced that tab is any easier to sight read at tempo than notation. I reckon sight reading is a bit like ten-finger typing: you just need to force yourself to practice it, no matter how slow and painful that is, and you will get better. 
 

(It should be noted that I’m a much better typist than I am a sight reader.)

[Stub Mandrel]

4 minutes ago, nekomatic said:

I remain to be convinced that tab is any easier to sight read at tempo than notation. I reckon sight reading is a bit like ten-finger typing: you just need to force yourself to practice it, no matter how slow and painful that is, and you will get better. 
 

(It should be noted that I’m a much better typist than I am a sight reader.)

 

Nope I can't. I can pretty much sight read rhythm but I can't read pitch despite (checks watch) over fifty years of trying.