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RE: Why do we have sharp and flat notes?
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guitarbuddha
Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007
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 RE: Why do we have sharp and flat notes? (in reply to XXX)
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Hi Deniz, I think that we are mostly in agreement. Some people will try and take shortcuts, miss the point and generally make a hash of things. I think that nothing we can do will make them grow up any quicker. My concern here is for the dilligent and interested student, if they are willing to study and are directed away from reading music then that is a shame, our shame. Obviously such a student will make good use of any materials that they can get and TAB imay be amongst these. On the subject of rhythm though I have had bright and interested students of rock guitar who learn like Jimmy Hendrix licks from tab and end up in a real mess because it was just too easy to memorize the TAB and not think about the music enough. Once they rot sets in (playing without feeling the beat ) it is really difficult for a learner to break the habit of playing unrhythmically.
Just like playing by ear really helps a player understand the music more so does learning to read the rhythm, and similarly you dont get anything that you are not ready for. Learning to read rhythm (WELL!) IS learning to understand rhythm the two fit hand in glove. Lots of listening and the guidance of a good teacher is part of this.
I hope you don't mind me correcting you on one point about guitar sheet music. A good score contains a massive amount of detail about how and where a not is actually played that is completely absent from TAB. In guitar 'music' the convention is that a note is in the lowest postition (or is an open string unless a different position is obvious form the context or explicitly indicated, this element of scoring is missing in most flamenco scores and I would welcome its inclusion, but it is a fundamental part of well produced scores and has been for about three hundred years. The system is actually VERY clear .
Positions should be notated as roman numerals, bars by the letter capital letter C, left hand fingers just plain numbers next to the associated note, right hand fingers by pima, and strings by number with a circle round them. This multilayered approcach really helps in picking up information quickly and without confusion. TAB lacks the ability to illustrate most of this, it is a much less complete system. I remember playing through page after page after page of a transcription book for Jim ( the original poster) at sight and only really getting strumped when the engraver had used the excuse that TAB has the fingerings and failed to put enough detail in the score itself. This made me flounder or play in the wrong position, but not because of the limitations of the scoring system but because of the half assed score that TAB editions often use. The problem is caused by the growing concessions to tablature that worries me so much.
Thanks for you considered response Deniz, I feel strongly about this. I think I was clear that learning music is not 'nessecary' ( I said as much in fact ) but it is definately 'desireable'. For example I play a lot of violin music, flute music,cello music etc from original score (and there I do need to do the fingering from scratch) also The Real Books and (very occasionally) arrange from piano, also the odd 'instant arrangement' from a vocal score. I don't have to wait for a TAB edition with a fraction of the amount of music, I can go straight to the original and get through it on my own. Now I am really not trying to boast, all these things are normal straightforward tasks (enjoyable ones) for players of nearly every other instrument. TAB opens the doors to none of them.
D.
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Date Mar. 7 2008 8:47:45
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XXX
Posts: 4400
Joined: Apr. 14 2005
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RE: Why do we have sharp and flat notes? (in reply to Bogdan1980)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Bogdan1980
I don't think it's possible to communicate all colors and nuances through numbers indicating which frets to play on.
Well to me the nuances and colors dont exist on paper anyway, but in the music. TABs and notes are just ways of notation. What you do with them, how you interpret them is your thing IMO. Or why should the color of a note change, if you call it "D" instead of 4th string, 0 fret? And by the way, this is also a note to GB, you have to compare similar things. There are TABs that contain exactly the same amount of information like notes, like rythm, dotted notes, pima, fingering, everything... the only difference are that on TABs the notes appear as guitar friendly fret numbers, and not, like its usually done on (all?) other instruments, as notes.
And that is also the only disadvantage of TABs as i see: if you work alot with other instruments it can be tireing always having to change the notes into TAB and the TABs into notes. My perspective is very limited and very guitaristicly when it comes to that. If i want to have the notes of something i just type the TABs in guitar pro and it gives me the notes  . (i did this only once for a violin player)
I dont know if its a wrong method, but i like to see and learn the guitar "visually". I memory everything, chords, scales, as "images", how they lay on the fretboard. Like chord voicings. There is a finite number of them, and if you know all, you can play everything, and reconstruct everything from memory. It seems natural because of the fret system. Only thing is you need playing technique, which is the real hard thing, and not the style of notation.
_____________________________
Фламенко
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Date Mar. 7 2008 9:41:56
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guitarbuddha
Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007
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RE: Why do we have sharp and flat notes? (in reply to XXX)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Deniz
I dont know if its a wrong method, but i like to see and learn the guitar "visually". I memory everything, chords, scales, as "images", how they lay on the fretboard. Like chord voicings. There is a finite number of them, and if you know all, you can play everything, and reconstruct everything from memory. It seems natural because of the fret system. Only thing is you need playing technique, which is the real hard thing, and not the style of notation.
Hi Deniz, that is what I do too !
When I look at a score and it is done well, I see all of this at a glance. It has taken years and years but I really do.
It is also a great memory aid because when you get to this level you can use all of the techniques of speed reading (away from your instrument) which are so useful for people who use the help memorise the written word. I wish I had a perfect memory and didn't need to do this but , I dont (damn  ).
D.
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Date Mar. 7 2008 9:58:57
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Ricardo
Posts: 14833
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Why do we have sharp and flat notes? (in reply to guitarbuddha)
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Guitarbudda, the plain fact is, no matter that you are correct that reading standard notation is superior, it is not now, was not in the past, and won't be in the future, PRACTICAL. Too many genres that use the instrument, the guitar, have virtuosos that don't read notes, nor tab. If there were a huge amount of such figuras that both read, and were strong advocates for reading, then you would find more kids think reading was "cool" or something.
The hard fact is if you like rock, no Hendrix and Van Halen were not readers. Weird guys like Vai, but that is not strong enough and still you don't see Vai on stage with his music stand. Jazz, well couple guys are masters of reading,, but Wes, Christian, Django? Django could not even read or write his own name. Flamenco, we know by now the only guy who wrote notes was Riqueni, and he went crazy writing stacks of music until they put him into an institution. Note reading is almost "taboo". Like if you even try to learn with notes, you will get messed up.
The list goes on, so without some guitar "hero" readers, there does not seem to ever be an inspiration for reading. Is it a shame? Yeah, because there is nothing wrong with it, and it could bennefit for students. Foreignors learning flamenco, without access to the traditional way, would benefit greatly. It is true, score's have the POTENTIAL to indicate some much detail. Saddly, there are no such complete scores I have seen for flamenco. Anyone that can truely learn from a bad score with wrong meter fingerings, expressions, etc, meaning the VAST majority of flamenco transcriptions, could learn just as well WITHOUT any such score.
Only in very rare cases will a potentially good student get so terribly thrown by a bad score as to be hurt by it. The best score in the world might not help a student at all, if he can already play but doesn't read well. It would be great for me, but guess what, I don't really need it either. I would buy it of course. The only point some folks make here, that I know is upsetting for a teacher that has hords of heavy metal kids with pages of bad downloaded computer tabs and no ear, is that it is not necessary AT ALL, and particularily for flamenco. You can never convince someone that it is usefull just by saying so because YOU see the benefit. Too many examples of why it is NOT helpful at all, too many stronger figuras, guitar heros saying "I never needed it...".
Perhaps one day guitar players will have the patience to make good scores as you describe. At present, I don't see any for flamenco on the market. What is available is fine for what it is, the rest I can fill in myself. I personally like best a good standard notation with fingerings and rhythm, attached to TAb underneath. Or just notation, and in the back the whole thing in Tab with rhythms. I dont' mind flippng pages. I would never perform with a music stand anyway, except for a chord chart. But I love READING scores along to a recording...something you can't really do with tab.
So with me it would be "preaching to the choir" about standard notation. But as a teacher I prefer to not use notes at all, rather then explain detail in a bad score to a student. But different students can learn different ways, and even a bad tab can be a helpful tool.
Ricardo
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Date Mar. 8 2008 3:51:24
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guitarbuddha
Posts: 2970
Joined: Jan. 4 2007
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RE: Why do we have sharp and flat notes? (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
I would never perform with a music stand anyway, except for a chord chart. But I love READING scores along to a recording...something you can't really do with tab.
So with me it would be "preaching to the choir" about standard notation. But as a teacher I prefer to not use notes at all, rather then explain detail in a bad score to a student. But different students can learn different ways, and even a bad tab can be a helpful tool.
Ricardo
Hi Ricardo. I definately agree that reading a score whilst listening is a great thing to do, kind of forces you to listen ACTIVELY. Truly excellent scores would be a definite advantage for all of us, we wont ever get them if we keep disuading people from making the extra effort to produce them, or even the first step of learning to read. I started as a TAB only player and moved towards reading music when I started looking at the rhythm part of the notation when I couldn't make the TAB sound right, things sounded really sophisticated but on the TAB looked stock.
In a lesson there is a lot of pressure to give people what they want (know what I mean  ). One hour a week is really far too little time to even just give people fingerings never mind talk about interpretation and technique. I agree that working on reading and notation and rhythm and theory may not initially give people cool stuff to play and can turn them off. But I think that it is really important to give them enough advice and instruction on these things to allow them to study more effectively on their own (which will inevitably be the majority of their study time). If you want to keep your students happy and not challenge their discipline then spending any time on notation is not PRACTICAL.
I don't know why guitarists are so bloody minded about notation. Django couldn't write but he COULD read a chord chart, same with Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery etc. Non guitarists certainly could read. Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Coltrane, Miles. I know of no sax instructors who feel that teaching the reading of music in not an important part of their responsibility to their pupils. I know of no Sax players who would boast about not being able to read.
I never perform (except in restaurants) from music. The fact that Steve Vai doesn't play from music on stage I see as a white elephant. Musicians I have seen on stage without music include every classical concert soloist I have ever seen playing a concerto, violinists, pianists, trombonists,cellsits, trumpeters......
I read an interview with Gerardo where he talks about reading music, he doesn't claim to be great at it but he realised that it was a useful tool for him as an improving musician (and improving as a musician is something he clearly does well). Listening to his more recent stuff I would eat my hat if he hasn't been playing through the music some of the great south american guitar composers. Lauro leaps to mind, have you played much Lauro Ricardo ? The suite Venezualon is a gem and the textures and approach to harmony seems to be right through things like Nunez Sevilla which is a whole lot more like a Brazilain/fingerstyle Jazz guitarists use of the instrument than a flamenco's (with the obvious exception of the solea licks thrown in) . Of course Nunez brings loads to the mix and has the skill and experience to still sound like himself. Also Barrios' playing style seems to have been absorbed and reinvented by Nunez for flamenco, particularly in Remache, I am thinking the Allegro from le Catedral here in.
Many students will never make the leap to notation, they may feel they don't have the time or they may just want to play a few cool pieces . But those who are swithering, lets not discourage them ????
D.
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Date Mar. 8 2008 5:21:56
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Mark2
Posts: 1872
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
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RE: Why do we have sharp and flat notes? (in reply to Bogdan1980)
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To me, the great thing about reading music is all the music it opens up for you and all the extra opportunities it presents. I don't think it's the best way to learn flamenco music no matter how well you read.
I studied with a jazz pro many years ago and we worked on reading a lot. His goal was to train his students to be able to do all sorts of gigs. The training included reading all kinds of music to develop sight reading skills, not to learn how to play a particular piece. For example, he had me read a bunch of Bach violin Sonatas, but of course the scores were written for violin. They didn't include guitar fingerings. He was not concerned with me working out what the best fingerings were, but that I played the right notes in time and with some feeling. That would never pass muster if you were delevoping the piece to perform-you'd want the right or best fingerings. If you took the time to do that, you'd lose a lot of the benefit of the sight reading training.
And so it is with flamenco, IMO. No one is going to look at a score of a Paco or Vicente tune, without having heard it, and play it right, no matter how good a reader he is. They might get most of the notes and even the rhythm, but they are not getting all the other stuff. You have to hear the recording for that. At that point, the score, no matter how good it is, is not essential. It's great to have a score, and I own tons of them. But if I really wanted to learn a piece like El Tempul , nothing beats the recording.
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Date Mar. 8 2008 5:32:11
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