A different tablature

[triggerfinger]

Grizzly

What is it that you think I do not understand about standard notation?

[jonkip]

that wasn't tom's post, it was mine.... the quotes containing quotes get confusing...sorry for the confusion....


I was typing about your post that said

Yes, I read but poorly. What can I say, I was a guitarist in my former life. Learning to read well for guitar is difficult because of all the enharmonics.

that was you, yes?
at this point, it could have been anyone, but the point of my post seems to hold up, for me , at least..

[Grizzly]

http://www.crea-7.com/FICHIERS/Dodeka%20music%20Method-ES10.pdf

Not that I have my finger on the pulse of every musical invention, but Rochat started this in 1980, thirty years ago, and I've never heard of it until now. Saves you the effort. Learn Dodeka, learn standard notation, but learn to read proficiently. I stand by my earlier statement: it won't replace standard notation in what's left of our paltry little lives.

Please try not to gloat.

Tom

[jonkip]

http://www.crea-7.com/FICHIERS/Dodeka%20music%20Method-ES10.pdf

Not that I have my finger on the pulse of every musical invention, but Rochat started this in 1980, thirty years ago, and I've never heard of it until now. Saves you the effort. Learn Dodeka, learn standard notation, but learn to read proficiently. I stand by my earlier statement: it won't replace standard notation in what's left of our paltry little lives.

Please try not to gloat.

Tom

Gloat at what?

Seems to me that a system that's been "in progress" for 40 years without making a dent in practical, real-world  music notation, could be called a Failure. Unless the inventor simply wanted others to leave him/her alone.

Nobody will ever convince an "already-reader" to switch systems from standard notation to anything else.

It won't happen. There is no plus side to that.

The transition time is such that, as one poster wrote: "It, (learning to read) can be done with practice but most guitarists outside of the classical world see the cost/benefit ratio as being too high"

The best one could expect would be to convince enough early-stage non-readers.... for instance, an elementary school's worth of children who will then work together for their whole lives, since once they moved into the real world, nobody else could communicate with them, reading-wise.


The number one lie keeping people from learning to read music is "Learning to read music is difficult"


Mind you, that's not the #1 lie in the world.... not by far. Look at the news.

[triggerfinger]

Modern communications and computational power opens a new door for change.

If you truly want to devise a fair test for whether a system of notation is superior to another then one would not demand that one be learned well before trying another. That would greatly bias the reported results of which is easier to use. A better approach would be a scientific one - a randomized trial. Assign to a sufficiently large groups of randomly picked subjects a notational system to be learned then measure proficiency in using that system at various points in time.

The first thing I would like to see is a more efficient system of notation. Whether group dynamics might limit the adoption of a new system is an open question. Most surely those dynamics will be influenced by the technology of communications.

[Grizzly]

But wait! There's more!

http://musicnotation.org/

One man's fish is another's poisson.

Never heard of any of these, either. They may represent a fraction of one per cent of all the music notation systems that musicians use on a regular basis.

Learning to read standard notation ain't all that easy. But, having taught music in public schools, I know that kids can learn to read easily enough to perform at a fairly high level. Even those who don't aspire to careers in music performance.

Western music isn't based on augmented chords or diminished chords, both of which would be visually more accessible on a chromatic staff. Major and minor chords, based on the diatonic scale, are the underpinnings of most western melodic composition. That's the most visually appealing thing about standard notational staffs. Rather than being an empirical mishmash, as Rochat proposes, standard notation is elegant in its discrete representation of keys, chords and melodic shapes. These are the anchor pins to reading standard notation fluently. Chromatic staffs are amorphous by comparison. There's no diatonic structure to them.

Unlike his clumsy representation of the birthday song, with its illogical enharmonics, an accurate key signature would have made it extremely easy to read and understand. Despite the logic of his system, he uses illogical arguments to put it forth, the most illogical being that standard notation is somehow broken.

Tom

[triggerfinger]

Chromaticism defines jazz.

[Grizzly]

Modern communications and computational power opens a new door for change.

If you truly want to devise a fair test for whether a system of notation is superior to another then one would not demand that one be learned well before trying another. That would greatly bias the reported results of which is easier to use. A better approach would be a scientific one - a randomized trial. Assign to a sufficiently large groups of randomly picked subjects a notational system to be learned then measure proficiency in using that system at various points in time.

The first thing I would like to see is a more efficient system of notation. Whether group dynamics might limit the adoption of a new system is an open question. Most surely those dynamics will be influenced by the technology of communications.

Okay, we'll get equal numbers of non-reading kids together, have someone teach them different notation systems, then see who progresses beyond the initial learning phase. Those on the alternative system will then have to be turned loose in the real musical world to learn another whole system—standard notation—in order to fit in musically with their peers, and not get wholly confused in the process. That's kind of cruel.

In this age of computers, any notation system can be converted to any other. So a bunch of students learned Dodeka, say, while their counterparts learned standard notation. The teacher could do the conversion and hand out the proper music to his players. Then how the heck is he going to teach the class? If he teaches just one system, what's the next teacher down the line going to do?

Standard notation isn't going away. There isn't a standard instrument in the world that isn't taught using diatonic scales, and major and minor chord arpeggios. Teaching those to a chromatic staff would be a nightmare.

Tom

[Grizzly]

Chromaticism defines jazz.

Bullcrap. Improvisation defines jazz. And all the fancy 7th, 9th and 11th chords circle back to basic chord names that are best understood in standard notation. As a guitarist you should know this. You don't set up your guitar in diminished or augmented tunings. It's mostly fourths, and your chord fingerings delineate majors and minors.

Tom

[jonkip]

Okay, we'll get equal numbers of non-reading kids together, have someone teach them different notation systems, then see who progresses beyond the initial learning phase. Those on the alternative system will then have to be turned loose in the real musical world to learn another whole system—standard notation—in order to fit in musically with their peers, and not get wholly confused in the process. That's kind of cruel.

they could be given really neat uniforms... that might help.

uniforms always are nice for kids.... I, myself, even wore one in my early twenties.

I felt special..

In any event, you folks have, it seems, totally covered this topic very nicely, in spite of my participation... I think I'm going to stop now and see if I can invent a new language to replace English....with a language that makes more sense.... I'm hoping it will catch on. Seems a natural to me... all those exceptions to rules and all seem to confuse people.... I'll move this to the "Didn't like Ebonics? try this" board...or the "Esperanto is your friend" board... after all, over 100,000 people speak Esperanto, out of almost seven billion people on the planet... that's a pretty good percent, right? It's only been 123 years since that language started. Give them time.

[Gnarly He Man]

Most of my musical experience has been onstage, as a performer, not a musician--my big joke is, "I want to be a musician when I grow up."

yikes, if you're onstage, I hope that's not really your big joke!
..unless, of course, all you have is Big Jokes and Bigger Jokes..
playing by memory is great. but doesn't address how you learned the music.. in your case, you learn by listening. That's a fine way.
Didn't you have a hat? What happened to the hat? Or glasses or something... you still look really small, sort of an inch by an inch, but different.
No, I think it was a hat.
Sorry for your loss.

Right, I'm not really funny--I have been told that.
Still got hats, just not in photo.
The memory is the second thing to go.
G

[jonkip]

well you must at least be entertaining... after all, you did that Holland-America gig....

[triggerfinger]

Grizzly

You stated that "In this age of computers, any notation system can be converted to any other". So true. Players could go to sessions/rehearsals in which notation might be distributed and simply electronically choose the one they want to use. So where is this cruelty?

[triggerfinger]

Hi Grizzly

Improvisation defines jazz.

There is improvisation - lots of it - in bluegrass as well. It is characteristic of jazz improvisation, unlike bluegrass and rock improvisation, to draw heavily upon chromaticism.

I don't think in terms of scales when improvising. I think in terms of tension and resolution in the context of the underlying harmonic structure. Most of the lines I would play (when I still could) contained about 1/3 "chromatic notes" and 2/3 "scalar notes" ie I didn't favor "scale tones". My goal was to build tenison with non-chord tones and resolution with chord tones or tones with tension properties very near to chord tones.

And all the fancy 7th, 9th and 11th chords circle back to basic chord names that are best understood in standard notation. As a guitarist you should know this.

I understand chords and the different tensions they provide independently of any of the many possible symbolic representations of them.

You don't set up your guitar in diminished or augmented tunings. It's mostly fourths, and your chord fingerings delineate majors and minors.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make but interestingly a didn't use the standard guitar tuning in the later portion of my guitar playing days. It is inefficient (more chord and arpeggio forms must be learned) and interferes (because of lack of across-string translational invariance of intervals) with forming a tight connection between fine motor activity and the minds ear. I used the all 4ths tuning. My only regret in adopting this tuning is that I didn't do it sooner than I did. 

[Bernhard]

Sorry folks, I am completely lost here. I would love to disagree with Grizzly in his point that minor and major chords are particularly easy to recognise in standard notation but I am too confused, right now: Was this not a thread about a new way of writing tabs? Seems like it has changed into the discussion of a plan to rule the world and disestablish standard notation.

Of course, nobody will disestablish standard notation within the lifetime of any man here but I can not see that someone expected this to happen or tried to do it. There is room in this world for different ways of notation and there is need for different forms of notation. Let's just be glad that music notation is evolving and that we don't use the same system as in the middle ages anymore.

Standard notation has it's drawbacks - lot's of them. But of course standard notation is a fiven fact that no one will change. The use of different systems (mostly but not only tabs) is also a given fact - musicians do use different systems. So what could be more normal than discussion different systems whilst agreeing that standard notation is and will stay the standard?

[Grizzly]

I'm getting tired of this. Let me know when chromatic staffs rule the musical world, so I can go off in a corner and nurse my standard notation. I'll even write "The Anachronistic Rag" for the occasion. Do it quick, though; I'm not young anymore. Five hundred years of standard notation, and the wars have hardly begun. Better get on it. A complete changeover in my lifetime would be quite an event!

Think of it. All those music schools and conservatories all over the world making a wholesale change to Dodeka ©™ or some such more or less instantaneously. That would call for some sort of global holiday. The transcription from SN (as it will be known by henceforth) the New Order will keep many people employed, increasing the world economy beyond our wildest dreams.

Oh, and all those keyboards that will need to be retrofitted to accommodate the New System (heretofore to be known as NS). Even pianos and pipe organs! More employment!

Just think: no more war! Music will unite us all!

Better get busy.

Tom

(aside to Bernhard: I agree with everything you said.)

[Renault]

Old Joke - a man learns Esperanto and then goes to the Esperanto convention, but can't talk to anyone there -because they're all speaking Yiddish. Seriously, I actually have an Esperanto textbook and the problem with the language is that, in an effort to get away from the problems with English it brings in all the unnecessary problems of Spanish and German (example - nouns having gender). Therein lies the problem - no matter how much we try to make a "fresh start" we end up subconciously dragging in some of our old assumptions and ways of doing things. If the English language or the musical notation system would have been invented by one person at a single stroke they would both be more logical - but, they evolved over a long period of time, and we have to deal with what is, not what could have been. I'm certainly no expert, but it does seem to me that one of the major problems with learning to play music is that we keep saying we have an 8 note scale, when in reality we have a 12 note scale. And as far as I know none of the notation systems will handle non-chromatic scales, as in music from India (A, A sort of sharp, B flat, B sort of flat, B - etc.). One of the smartest things I ever heard was from linguist who explained that we don't communicate with words, we communicate with sounds. Words are an imperfect way of trying to memorialize the sounds. The same could be said for musical notation. 

[banjo-guy]

  It  seems so silly to continue this endless debate about learning to read standard notation or tab or some newly invented language. First of all a change away from the existing notation is never going to happen. All this time debating this would be better spent doing a little old fashioned solfeggio.

 Guitarist are notoriously horrible readers because they come to the instrument from a non reading experience. They learn by ear many times and/or are taught by teachers would came from that same background. Harmonica players fall into the same category.
 
  When I teach I love teaching young kids so that I can start them reading right away before the influence of tabs distroys their willingness to learn to read.Their ears are not destroyed simply because they read music anymore than someone who learns to read English is impaired in his ability to speak.

  If those who don't read would devote 45 minute a day to working on reading for 3-4  months they will have gained access to the entire written world of music and would no longer have to rely on finding tabs prepared by others. In the guitar world tabs are incredibly inaccurate and don't contain 10% of the information that standard notation gives you.
It really isn't that hard to get a least slightly proficient in reading. To be a great sight reader takes years and some wonderful musicians never attain the highest level.

  Some of the best musicians that I have worked with,in sessions and in Broadway shows barely read. They are always specialists in country, rock, blues harmonica ect... who provide something unique. Most of them tell me they wish they could read. It is very difficult to go back and play simple exercises and songs when trying to get the skill of reading together. They simply don't have the patience for it but they wish they could do it.
  There was a time when the main way of writting music was tab. All of the lute music of the renaissance period was written in tab. Lute was the primary instrument of the period. If you see lute music written in standard notation it was transcribed from the original lute tab. Tab died as standard notation took over. Now with tabs all over the Internet and the scarcity of good solid music education for guitar (and dare I say harmonica ?) tabs seemed to be here to stay.
I don't mean to comment on the original post just a general comment about tab versus notation.

[John Broecker]

Hello, Tab Versus Trad.

This was originally started to announce a new tab system, and somehow it morphed (I like that word) into a discussion of trad versus tab.

First, we should congratulate the creator of the new tab system. His system is unique, and may prove to be useful by some players.

Whatever means we use to improve our musicianship should be, and are, welcome.

On the other side, music has been a lifetime of learning for me. I majored in music education in college. Learning at least basically, all symphonic wind instruments, all symphonic string instruments, all percussion instruments symphonic and popular, and most harmonica types, hasn't been easy.

The only system that I've learned on a professional level is the traditional system. It has made music in general more understandable. And, I can learn music quicker than any tab types I've studied.

Each musical instrument has it's own tab systems, but, all musical instruments may be played using the one and only traditional notation (in the past there were other trad systems that evolved into today's specimen).

The arguments for any tab system, new or old, compared to the traditional music system, are unconvincing to me.

Why should I have to learn a new tab system every week, when one music notation system does it all, on any musical instrument?

John Broecker

[beads]

I've been playing guitar as my main instrument for 40 years. I learned standard
notation from the very start. Many guitarists CAN read music.  I have never regretted learning standard notation. It opens up a whole world of music and allows you to play with many other musicians. In grade school we learned standard notation in music class playing something called a flutaphone. I wonder what happened to my old flutaphone? I was learning standard notation
on guitar at the same time. My teacher used a Mel Bay course. I'm not the
brightest fellow around by far still I learned starting at 10. Every Good Boy Does
Fine and FACE (notes on the lines and spaces of the treble clef). Thankyou
Mel Bay.

[Gnarly He Man]

I too began reading music before puberty. The difference for me is that my years playing music on guitar have been on the front line looking into the faces of the listeners--nightclubs and the like. I still can't really sight read anything.
I wonder if I'll be reading if I ever get hired as a harmonica player 
Gary