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Ayreon77

LP
Posts: 270
Quote:
yea most of my tabs are guitar, i,m a guitar player first, and only in the past say 4 years have started playing bass and writing tabs for that too. I like writing tabs, it helps me learn the song better, I know a lot of people say just learn it in your head it will make a better player of you, I just can,t seem to do that, and I can follow a tab and play right through a song if the tabs laid out easy enough to read.

Nice work Ayreon77
mr zee
Posts: 577
I started tabbing when I joined BBT just over a year ago but I find it a struggle sometimes to lay out a tab. In my days of playing in bands i'd jot the route notes down to remind me how a song went and what key it was in. Anyway i'll keep trying but I don't think I will get as good as Lon or Ayreon.
Ayreon77
Posts: 46
I started writing tabs out 30 years ago on paper and wall paper, some were like 4 foot long ha ha ha. to learn a song, and i suppose it just stuck with me that it was the best way to learn a song,

and I have checked out your tabs mr zee you tab well, if you can do the Intro verses choruses bridges solos and outro in sections with timing that's all you need to do, keep it neat, I think the less on a tab is better, i,m not into using tabs that you have to sit there for awhile to see what you have to play, I like to look at it and see straight away what you have to play.
mr zee
Posts: 577
That's my main problem, timing. In my head, great, laying it down as a tab, geewilikers things start to go pear shaped. Was shown basic 12 bar in the late 70's and learnt everything else by ear. I've not read up on any music theory. All I know is you hold down a sequence of frets, get notes, get tune. That's my training in a nut shell.
Ayreon77
Posts: 46
the more you write tabs the better you get at it, i notice you tab like me with the intro verse and chorus bold, and just note for the tabs. I don,t even bother with the timing, underneath. don,t know music theory either maybe the basics, i'm self taught, and just play by ear.
Marko1960
Posts: 3143
Timing isn't important in tabs, it's basically painting by numbers which is why I prefer standard notation, you know exactly where you are. Where I do like tabs though is they give you an idea where you need to be and in my opinion it's not important to play absolutely note for note, not for the bass at least, as long as you get into a groove and keep it moving that's what counts, the original artist rarely plays the same line that's on the record night after night
mr zee
Posts: 577
I don,t even bother with the timing, underneath.

Have done a tab like this and it does look better, doesn't mean it is though
LoudLon [moderator]
Posts: 1938
I can't do without the time counter underneath. But that's just me, my brain grasps music better when I break it down to numbers and beats, so that's how I tab it. I'm not at all a natural musician, I'm completely self-taught and it took me many years to get as good as I am and to fine-tune my ear. But I don't know much about theory. Even now, with twenty + years of playing under my belt, I can play scales, no problem, but couldn't tell you if I was playing a pentatonic scale or a Phrygian mode. The extent of my technical knowledge is what you see in my tab legends (acciaccatura, staccato, triplets, etc).

As for note-for note tabs, again, that's just me, or at least the OCD part of me (to clarify, I don't actually have OCD, I'm just really detail-oriented about some things, music being one of them). When I learn a song, I want to learn every tiny little note of it; I find it interesting to ponder on why the player might have chosen this one note over another, why he might have played this one note staccato but let another ring longer, etc. Some players are happy to learn just the basics of a song, but I enjoy learning note-for-note – even if Marko doesn't.
Marko1960
Posts: 3143
It's ok to be pedantic Lon, that's just the virtuoso in you, unfortunately there's no virtuoso in me, I don't have a good ear so I make do with what I've got and I get by. My dad was a musician, as well as a stand up comedian, he had perfect pitch which allowed him to play just about any instrument he picked up, we had a piano in the house which he was never away from, I never acquired this gene however and I've realised that some people are born to music and some have to hammer away at it for years, I'm still hammering but the nail hasn't gone in yet
2nick3
Posts: 533
Well, I appreciate the timing in tabs. It's what I struggle the most with when it gets away from straight quarters/eights/sixteenths. I hear it in the song, but I just have a hard time making my fingers do the same thing. So being able to visually see that the note is on the And of 2 helps me get a song down faster. If it's not there I will still get it down, it just takes longer.

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