Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.
This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.
We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.
|
|
To Ta(B) or not to Ta(B), That is The Question
|
You are logged in as Guest
|
Users viewing this topic: none
|
|
Login | |
|
Patrick
Posts: 1189
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Portland, Oregon
|
To Ta(B) or not to Ta(B), That is Th...
|
|
|
Personally I think many of us spend too much time with tabs. In my opinion, the best teacher is our two ears and the bit of matter between them (in my case, very little). How many times do you learn something from a tab and it just doesn't sound right? I would venture to say in most, if not all cases. I have spent hours working a piece out from tab, only to spend countless hours with the CD to get it to gel. I don’t like to practice in front of a computer, so I wanted an alternative to programs like the Amazing Slowdowner. A couple of months ago I picked up one of the Tascam (CDGT1mkII) Guitar trainers. You pop a CD in it and adjust the tempo without changing the pitch, as do the software versions. I am telling you, it’s one of the best investments I have made. The sound quality is much better than the software versions. It doesn’t come with speakers, so I plug an old set of powered computer speakers into it. Not only am I learning a new piece “note for note”, I am internalizing it at the same time. For really hard passages, I am still writing it out in tab, just to get the mechanics down and then get right back to the player to get the timing and nuances. Personally, I hate learning off tab. It seems like it takes forever and is boring as hell. When I pick it off a CD, I usually have the mechanics down in minutes versus hours with the bonus of getting the feeling down at the same time. I have read on this and other forums, why players just don’t seem to sound “flamenco”. I think this is a major problem learning from tab. Oh you may have it “note for note”, but the most important ingredient, the feeling, will never be there. We have all been impressed how “flamenco” Ron M sounds. Ron has said it many times that he doesn’t read tab, he just plays what he hears. Pat
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Aug. 15 2005 22:06:29
|
|
Guest
|
RE: To Ta(B) or not to Ta(B), That i... (in reply to Patrick)
|
|
|
I totally and 100% agree with Patrick. I think that MANY players use way to much time with tabs, and that their playing sounds like that. What Patrick describes, I find to be a lot faster and it gives me a musical understanding that I don't get from paper. I prefer to play music with my ears and not with my eyes. I want to say though that I never learn things the same way as the original. I cheat a little bit, which could also be called to be creative. When I've learned the basics, I might change a frase so that it fits me and my playing style. I was a classical trained violinist way back, so I know very well what paper music is, but in music like flamenco, it doesn't convince me. The listening thing has one backdraw (as does 95% of the tabs) It doesnt tell you the chords we are playing within. Flamenco is played very much within chords and fixed positions with one or two fingers locked. The best is a good video (digital) recording. It's the closest we get to old fashion learning.
_____________________________
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Aug. 16 2005 7:28:59
|
|
Ron.M
Posts: 7051
Joined: Jul. 7 2003
From: Scotland
|
RE: To Ta(B) or not to Ta(B), That i... (in reply to Patrick)
|
|
|
When I first became interested in Flamenco, there was nothing. I really mean it...absolutely nothing at all, save maybe something on the back of an LP cover. Now Flamenco teaching is really becoming a small industry! There are Videos, DVDs, Books, Tabs...everything you could ask for. Everything is shown to us in complete detail by the masters themselves, right up close. That's what the modern world is about now IMO. Enter your Credit Card details and have Instant gratification But I just can't absorb it at that level....it's just too much for me to take in! So I just concentrate on the bits I like and fool around on the guitar doing little things that please me ! I suppose if I had a dream then it would be to live in Jerez and be able to attend some casual juergas and fill in some chords as second guitarist accompanying a good singer. But I tend to agree with Pat here that some kinda written "road map" or fast track course to all the ins and outs of Flamenco, is complete hogwash. A bit like working one's way through the 1960's Josh White's book... "How to Play Blues Guitar", will suddenly turn a Northern European into a great Delta Blues player by the time he finishes the exercises in the book. You know what I'm trying to say?.... cheers Ron PS By the way, there is a great 15 min bio serialisation of Jimi Hendrix on BBC Radio 4 in the mornings this week. Apparently his father didn't like him to do anything left handed, 'cos he thought it was bad luck and a sign of the Devil. So Jimi when he was young, would play a normally strung guitar left handed and flip it over any time his old man came into the room... So he ended up being able to play both ways... (In fact...just to show you what a nice guy I am, even though my bedtime is long overdue, I searched out the BBC website where you can listen to the whole story...) http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/book_of_the_week.shtml
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Aug. 16 2005 21:58:47
|
|
Guest
|
RE: To Ta(B) or not to Ta(B), That i... (in reply to Patrick)
|
|
|
Pat wrote: quote:
The point I am trying to make is I hear so many players grinding away with tab only and can't understand why it doesn’t sound right, treating flamenco as classical music. We don’t have the luxury of being surrounded by this stuff as a kid to internalize it. I understood your first post like this, and I can only say that I fully agree. Everything helps, but in the end the ear and if you can see someone play in front of you or on your screen is what works the fastest. IMO.
_____________________________
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Aug. 17 2005 7:59:58
|
|
Ricardo
Posts: 14889
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
|
RE: To Ta(B) or not to Ta(B), That i... (in reply to Patrick)
|
|
|
There tabs that are wrong or have mistakes. But you can learn stuff "wrong" with your ear too. I have students who come back the next week with with something totally different than what I had showed them. We each have developed our musical ears differently. Just because someone uses tab ONLY, doesn't mean they will sound classical. Why does one pick up a tab anyway? Most likely because they HEARD a piece of music and wanted to learn it. You can use your EAR to learn a piece by Paco de Lucia, but I will promise you that no matter how many details you try to pick up, you will never BE playing it like Paco. But that is ok. Same thing if someone plays from a score and has their own different sound. It is ok. The only thing that is NOT ok, is you learn something that is meant to be rhythmical, and you don't feel the compas. It is really hard to do with your ear, and many transcriptions have mistakes, and many teachers have trouble making students feel the rhythm. Just because you can play along to a CD does not mean you can feel it on your own with real palmeros or whatever. In the end, no matter how you learn it, you have to feel it for yourself. I learned this falseta from a tab made by Conrad, who posts on here every once in a while. I have also the recording (Duquende's Samaruco) and a video (Francisco Sanchez DVD), but the final version is very much my own. I picked up a lot of details with my ear, but without that initial Tab, I would have nothing. In the end I had to work on my own with Palmas to get the feel. It did not matter that I could play along with the CD, I did not really understand it until I could do it on my own. It took, like, all day! http://michaelk101.com/todd/toddmp3/Ricardopdlslow.wmv http://michaelk101.com/todd/toddmp3/Ricardopdlfast.wmv Ricardo
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Aug. 17 2005 17:59:17
|
|
Guest
|
RE: To Ta(B) or not to Ta(B), That i... (in reply to Ricardo)
|
|
|
Ricardo, Very nice and relaxed bulería I don't think it's so much about using tabs or not. It's more about how to use them. I've seen it so many times, that someone is staying way to long with a tab in order to learn a falseta, and when you ask about the listening part, oh , this they haven't really done. IMHO tabs should only be used as a roadmap. Never forget to look out the window (listen) And remember, that the chords or the fixed positions are normally never written down in the tabs. Another thing is that tabs, more or less means falsetas and more falsetas and then a falseta. That's another error, that many players only learn falsetas and not all the rest, WHICH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT!!!!!!! Compás, fill ins etc. This is almost impossible to find on tabs.
_____________________________
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Aug. 18 2005 10:06:25
|
|
Thomas Whiteley
Posts: 786
Joined: Jul. 8 2003
From: San Francisco Bay Area
|
RE: To Ta(B) or not to Ta(B), That i... (in reply to Patrick)
|
|
|
quote:
Personally I think many of us spend too much time with tabs. Hello Pat; You use whatever works for you. I have created over 2000 tabs of flamenco chording compas, llamadas, falsetas, beginings, endings, transitions, and complete pieces. It is good to have variety and alternative ways to play something. After playing flamenco for over 45 years I cannot remember every variation I once knew but I have tabs for everything I can remember. At least my tabs provide me with a way to record what I knew or know, as may be the case. I can also share with others. I give my student’s tabs to remember a lesson and find their own variations. A tab is nothing more than a road map. When you learn only by ear you are likely to forget something if not right away then over the years. Then you can ask yourself, how did that variation go? Well, that aural variation you heard is somewhere in the air along with Abraham Lincoln’s voice. Let me give you an idea of what I am talking about. Within my Bulerias Handbook you will find: 1. Chording compas - 40 examples 2. 6 count – 18 examples 3. 12 count 8 examples 4. Introduction in A Phrygian 5. Bulerias Al golpe in A minor (2) 6. Falsetas in A minor 7. Falseta A Major 8. Endings in A Phrygian 9. Endings in A minor 10. Endings in A Major And much more. Then I teach the student how to “build a Bulerias” from the different parts. You see there is no one way to do anything. How much of this material could a student remember over a period of time? This way you have a reference, which you can use to your own advantage. I have learned much by listening and watching. If you can do both at the same time you will learn a great deal. Then I create a tab based upon what I have heard. The tab enables me to provide the fingering as well as to modify what I am playing. Variations make flamenco more interesting. It is good to have a starting point and build upon it. I know a fellow who plays flamenco guitar that has a friend who plays classical guitar. He claims his friend (who reads notation) can sight read Sabicas pieces and play them with full feeling. Somehow I doubt that but then again who knows?
_____________________________
Tom http://home.comcast.net/~flamencoguitar/flamenco.html
|
|
|
REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Aug. 19 2005 1:24:48
|
|
New Messages |
No New Messages |
Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
Locked w/ New Messages |
Locked w/o New Messages |
|
Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts
|
|
|
Forum Software powered by ASP Playground Advanced Edition 2.0.5
Copyright © 2000 - 2003 ASPPlayground.NET |
0.109375 secs.
|