A general queston on TABS

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britguy

Posts: 712
Joined: Dec. 26 2010
From: Ontario, Canada

A general queston on TABS

I've pulled a few guitar TABS off the Net and am a bit puzzled about the one's where timing and key, etc. are not indicated. Just a series of dotted lines for the strings, and numbers indicating frets, etc. But nothing to show the timing. Looks like they are computer-generated?

Do these TABS assume one already knows the melody, timing, etc.?

How can these TABS be used effectively?

Very curious. . .

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Fruit farmer, Ontario, Canada

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 28 2013 13:35:19

tri7/5

Posts: 570
Joined: May 5 2012

RE: A general queston on TABS (in reply to britguy)

Tabs usually aren't meant to be any kind of official score for a piece for the most part, especially ones you see at the free sites. You're lucky if you can even find a decent tab now days. Most use tab as an easy and quick way to dictate notes which it does effectively. No one is getting paid for it so why waste hours trying to write out the entire rhythm and fingering? If you want the whole shooting match, buy a licensed score book with notation which sometimes also has the tab along with it especially in the guitar world. Another good alternative is the program guitar pro. Some guys are really good with it, releasing very accurate transcriptions, and it plays the tab back to you using midi instruments so you can hear the rhythm.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 28 2013 13:47:21

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: A general queston on TABS (in reply to tri7/5)

quote:

No one is getting paid for it so why waste hours trying to write out the entire rhythm and fingering?

That’s the charitable view, certainly. My experience is that it’s usually just incompetence. With pencil and paper, or any halfway-decent software, the effort involved in putting time values in is minimal.

(Granted that if you have to produce tab with just ASCII, then adding time-values is a major pain.)

With good tab (such as M. Faucher’s) you can play the piece without access to the recording. After all, if the lutenists could do it 500 years ago, why can’t we?

If you can’t afford the software, six-line manuscript paper is available from the Lute Society — that’s what I used to use.

As for existing tab pulled of the net: print it out and then put in the time-values (and bar-lines, if necessary) yourself.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 28 2013 16:47:37

mark indigo

Posts: 3625
Joined: Dec. 5 2007

RE: A general queston on TABS (in reply to britguy)

quote:

Do these TABS assume one already knows the melody, timing, etc.?

How can these TABS be used effectively?

I assume all tabs assume you have audio to work from, and that they function only as an aid to learning something by ear (or jogging your memory) by showing the left hand fretboard positions.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 28 2013 21:40:30

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: A general queston on TABS (in reply to mark indigo)

quote:

I assume all tabs assume you have audio to work from

Obviously the kind of tabs the original question was about assume just that; but the assumption should be unnecessary — and is indeed unnecessary with decent tabs.

It’s been noted previously that Alain Faucher sells tabs of recordings that are long deleted — or of live performances that only he has a recording of. But no competent player should have a problem learning from them.

(Granted he’ll also sell you a cassette of the recording, for extra money — very naughty, of course).

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 28 2013 22:21:13