Grateful Dead Music Forum

Who do you think benefits more from a tabbed portion of a song? The person doing the tabbing/transcribing? Or the end users who seek out the tab?

I'm of the opinion that it's the person doing the tabbing who actually benefits more. Thoughts?

-Jim

+1 for the transcriber. However, early on in my playing JDarks helped me a ton before my ear improved.

It saves the tab reader time, but the one writing the tab learns the music better.

Even better for both would be the written musical notes to go along with it. It's similar to tab but contains about 5x the information.

Rusty the Scoob wrote:It saves the tab reader time, but the one writing the tab learns the music better.

Even better for both would be the written musical notes to go along with it. It's similar to tab but contains about 5x the information.

That was exactly my thought on it. I recently tabbed out an outtro to He's Gone, and it really felt like it stuck with me. I had the sense of accomplishment of actually learning it myself, but then I had to sit down and figure out where it would be easiest/most logically played on the fretboard (or at least attempt to find this). Doing so, and sitting down to physically enter the tab on the system, seems to have really reinforced it in my head.

Also, the outtro itself sounded reminiscent of the notes played during the "go on home, your Mama's calling you.." portion of Cosmic Charlie --- which makes me want to sit down some mp3's, see if/how that He's Gone riff might fit into Cosmic Charlie, then actually try to figure out the Cosmic Charlie stuff --- all without looking at the site's tab until after I'm done, as a double-check.

It's a vicious cycle, I tell you!

Well, the tabber may gain more from doing the tabbing, but if it's posted on the web, and by that I mean the WORLD WIDE web, then technically hundreds of thousands of people could benefit from that one tab, which would mean that while the tabber got more out of the inital tabbing process, tons of others benefited from it. I'm just saying...

Oo, this just popped into my head: if we ascribe a number to what the tabber gets out of it, say 100, and then we ascribe a number to what the tabee gets, say 5, then we can measure it. So, if I tab it out, I get a 100 but if 25 people use it to learn a song, then they win, but if only 19 utilize the tab, then I'm still in the lead...

Learning by teaching is a great thing - a win + win situation for sure. Even if you're tabbing something pretty basic it gets you thinking about stuff that you don't usually think of while you're playing. There's not a guitar player out there that doesn't benefit from some rudiments. I remember my first guitar student many years ago asking me "what do I do with my right hand?" and it occurred to me that in 15 years of playing I hadn't thought a whole lot about my right hand - thanks to that moment, I have done a lot of thinking about my right hand.

Good question.
Thinking about it, it's hard to say!
I guess since the net effect for "tabber" and "tabee" is positive both ways, there's nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.
I got a lot of benefit from the tabs here because I had to learn (or re-learn) most of the GD catalog in a short amount of time - couldn't have done it without RUKind, thanks a million to everyone who posted those tabs.
So when I had to work up stuff that's not posted here (or I needed a different version/interpretation), I was glad to tab it out and give back - I hope it helps somebody sometime.

Is there a worry, maybe, that players can become so dependent on tabs that their musicianship suffers?
Sort of like, "when all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail"?
I know classically trained musicians who (think they) can't play without a score, who (think they) can't jam/improvise... and these folks are amazing players - so, I dunno.

9 mile skid wrote:Is there a worry, maybe, that players can become so dependent on tabs that their musicianship suffers?
Sort of like, "when all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail"?

I have always felt that having access to information is never a bad thing. If your job is tabbing songs then relying on someone else probably doesn't help but you are playing music anything that can save you time with a tape machine is not a bad thing.

I remember learning my first guitar solo at age 14. It was Allman Bros "Southbound" I had a record player that had a 16rpm option. I figured that 16rpm was about half of 33 1/3 and that would slow it down and lower it almost an octave. Probably the first time I used math for anything other than computing my batting average. Then getting a Who songbook and having to teach myself to read music to learn songs. Having tab has certainly meant less guitar players force themselves to learn music theory but at as Chet Atkins once said when I think it was the conductor of the NY Philharmonic asked him if he read music he replied, "yeah, but not enough to hurt my playin'." I wish I'd had the intarwebs and rukind back then. . .

Unless you are in a world where reading music is helpful or are a songwriter etc, I don't know that it hurts that much. I play a lot and a lot of different styles of music but rarely have to actually read staff - jazz gigs I read chord charts, bluegrass, you just have to capo at the right spot to play G-C-D, and Dead music just need a key, chords, and a groove. When I was playing in theater orchestra pits I had to read charts but that was probably about the only time I can remember needing to read actual music for a gig. Tab is a better way to display a guitar part IMHO gives more important info for what a guitarist needs to know, what string, what fret, what accent, etc.

Tabs are to music what Ebonics are to the English language. Tabs are ok for those who are satisfied limiting their musical abilities, but all in all they are a crutch and a poor substitute for actually learning to read music in the traditional way. I'm afraid generations of musicians will grow dependent on tabs and limit their musical ability to read melody, harmony, rythym, modulations, and different keys. Do yourselves a favor and learn, take the time to learn and read traditional music. Tabs are a lazy shortcut for lazy musicians and should be phased out. Reading music will benefit you when you get tired of playing the same old stuff over and over again year after year.

9 mile skid wrote:Is there a worry, maybe, that players can become so dependent on tabs that their musicianship suffers?
Sort of like, "when all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail"?
I know classically trained musicians who (think they) can't play without a score, who (think they) can't jam/improvise... and these folks are amazing players - so, I dunno.

I wouldn't worry about that much. Anyone who is serious about music will sooner or later want to read or write music to a higher level than tab can handle feasibly. I probably read sheet music better than tab, because my only formal musical training was trumpet (all scale) and I live with 3 piano players who communicate in scale, and that allows me to see that tab is intrinsically a blunt instrument for communicating music. It is fine for transcribing what notes are normally played in an intro or outro, and for what chords the song is on at a given point, but I can't imagine anyone looking at an average tab, and playing a song they have never heard before, and having it come out sounding anything like what the composer intended. I also found that attempting to learn to play guitar by working with tabs became an exercise in rote memorization, and thusly, was not only ridiculously frustrating but quite boring as well. I am sure there are more gifted players who can get a lot further down the road with tab than I did, but if they are really trying to develop to the highest level they can, I am sure they will move on from tab sooner or later.

That's not to say that the guy playing in his weekend band and learning songs by reading tabs is doing anything wrong.

I would agree that tabs are somewhat limiting and in the long run learning how to read music or more importantly, learning solid music theory is a lot better. I was lucky that my high school taught music theory - I took 4 years of it since there was nothing else for a guitar player to take. It was a better class than the couple I took at the university level. I understand that my high school was an anomaly of sorts but unless you are forced to learn that stuff or suffer the pain of failure, most people won't because it's not especially fun or as fun as playing. Schools are cutting arts programs and there's just not a great avenue to learn this stuff if you are a guitar player.

I would stop short of being dismissive of tablature because it's all in how you use it and how you intellectualize it. I'll use tabs on occasion to get the intro of a song or a specific passage. No reason to reinvent the wheel and spend the time learn it from tape (or mp3). I taught guitar for 15 years and put in more than my fair share of time learning guitar parts to Dave Matthews and Green Day songs. If you take a tab and see how that part fits into the scale of the song, what "blue" notes the person used, a couple of cool passages then I think it's fine. Learning a Jerry Garcia solo note for note, or any improv, is not especially helpful because it's more about the approach than the notes and riffs.

tcsned wrote: Learning a Jerry Garcia solo note for note, or any improv, is not especially helpful because it's more about the approach than the notes and riffs.

I agree in principle with this, but practically, they have a meeting point. I have "tabbed" several solos of Jerry's that I particularly like, I put "tabbed" in quotes because I don't make any attempt to transcribe it literally note for note. But the process of doing that has taught me some of the things Jerry liked to do (example, the pattern X, X-2, X-1, X-3, X-2, X-4, X-3 etc. is very common in Jerry solos), and given me a greater understanding of how his solos interplay with the rhythm of the song etc. I generally focus more on the notes relative to the key, rather than a particular spot on the fretboard, but I sometimes write stuff down in tab too. Again, I am sure there are more talented folk out there that can reach my level of understanding just by listening and playing, but I view anything I can do to better understand what "fits" and what sounds good can't be bad.

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Mick wrote:I agree in principle with this, but practically, they have a meeting point. I have "tabbed" several solos of Jerry's that I particularly like, I put "tabbed" in quotes because I don't make any attempt to transcribe it literally note for note. But the process of doing that has taught me some of the things Jerry liked to do (example, the pattern X, X-2, X-1, X-3, X-2, X-4, X-3 etc. is very common in Jerry solos), and given me a greater understanding of how his solos interplay with the rhythm of the song etc. I generally focus more on the notes relative to the key, rather than a particular spot on the fretboard, but I sometimes write stuff down in tab too. Again, I am sure there are more talented folk out there that can reach my level of understanding just by listening and playing, but I view anything I can do to better understand what "fits" and what sounds good can't be bad.

Exactly what I was trying to say Mick. Doing this is a great way to break down a part and analyze and visualize it. Its a great resource. I didn't mean to sound snooty or anything just saying that performing an improvisation note-for-note is a little bizarre IMHO.

RiverRat - cool stuff! Especially the "vocal tab." I guess if you think about it there's no real difference between a well-notated tab and the same part written out in staff other than being instrument specific.

I'm all for giving everyone access to information and tab is a great way to get beginners interested in playing guitar. It's a great way for intermediate players to move to the next level. It's also good for "advanced" players if anyone really belongs in this category. As a friend once told me, guitar is an easy instrument to play poorly and a really hard instrument to play well - I'm still workin' on it

tcsned wrote: As a friend once told me, guitar is an easy instrument to play poorly and a really hard instrument to play well - I'm still workin' on it

guitar : The easiest instrument to play the hardest to master ....