Guitar tab or by ear

[BobR]

I am definitely in the Tab camp. I have hundreds of tab I use in Guitar Pro. I used the tab because like quite a few here if you don't now timing you obviously need to know the song. I did start to read music quite a few years back but I have forgot all but the simplest stuff. I would really like to learn by ear so maybe that's a good goal for the new year.

Bob

[Lavallee]

mark wrote:

BigBear wrote:

TAB provides no timing or rythym information so practically speaking it is impossible for a guitarist to pick up a piece of TAB and learn a new song if you haven't heard it before. But if can "read music", as it is often called, you can get pretty close.

How can you have a meaningful discussion about 1/4 or 1/8th notes, or timing when all a guitarist knows is TAB or by ear? I think we cheat ourselves because TAB is so simple and intuitive and standard notation isn't.

Hi BigBear
GuitarPro actually uses tab which shows the timing. The notation for the timing is very similar to standard notation.

Mark, I would like to get to the level where I could read the rhythm from the notation and play a song I do not know just based on the music sheet. You mentioned that GP shows the timing. Could you explain that as I am not sure what you mean (do you mean just look at the notation or is there a special feature that I am not aware of?). You could PM me if you want to discuss this out of the thread.

Thanks

Marc

Marc

[AndyT]

Actually, GP does not show the timing on the TAB, it shows the rhythm. You get the timing from the standard notation. Timing comes from the different note types, Whole, half, quarter, eighth...

What you see circled in red in this picture is the rhythm.

[Chasplaya]

AndyT--

Why can't the 'rhythm' notation you show in the GP TAB be interpreted exactly like the notation used in the standard score? Seems to show all of the same timing information as the other: the groupings are the same, the eighth notes are marked the same, as are the 16th notes -- even the dotted eighths are marked the same. What information is lost in the TAB?

Thanks.

[Lavallee]

AndyT wrote:

Actually, GP does not show the timing on the TAB, it shows the rhythm. You get the timing from the standard notation. Timing comes from the different note types, Whole, half, quarter, eighth...

What you see circled in red in this picture is the rhythm.

Thanks Andy, this is what I was seing as well. I thought that there was a feature showing the up stroke and downstroke. I know you can enter them manually on the sheet, but I was wondering if Mark was refering to an auto feature.

I think we are hijacking the thread however, maybe we should discuss this somewhere else.

Marc

[goldleaf]

Mark, Marc, Andy & any other users of Guitar Pro. I haven't used GP before but it sounds like it is very useful to many people. Could someone explain what the basic uses for Guitar Pro are? I've read the reviews and it sounds like it has a lot of features, maybe so many that I am confused about some of the basic purposes that I could be gaining from having it installed on my PC. Appreciate your responses. Anything that would make learning easier. Gary

[Chasplaya]

mark wrote:

BigBear wrote:

TAB provides no timing or rythym information so practically speaking it is impossible for a guitarist to pick up a piece of TAB and learn a new song if you haven't heard it before. But if can "read music", as it is often called, you can get pretty close.

How can you have a meaningful discussion about 1/4 or 1/8th notes, or timing when all a guitarist knows is TAB or by ear? I think we cheat ourselves because TAB is so simple and intuitive and standard notation isn't.

Hi BigBear
GuitarPro actually uses tab which shows the timing. The notation for the timing is very similar to standard notation.

I agree with Mark here Guitar Pro TAB can help you as it uses both notation and tab and rhythm marks, which if you look closely follow the standard notation lines that link notes either one line two line etc depending on the note value, it also has the built in metronome. Also if you use the view without notation the time signature shows on the TAB, howeverif you have standard notation view it is on the music stave.
Me i'm in the TAB camp mostly and try to learn notation I understand it but can't read it quickly enough to sight read and play.

[AndyT]

If you notice in the sample song here in this pic (Sweet Home Alabama) the time signature is 4/4. The rhythm display is in 4 groups. One group for each beat. Looking at the groups you can pretty easily pick out a strumming pattern that will get you the required number of notes for the beats. As you can tell, you will need to be doing 16th strumming for this song in order to keep a steady rhythm through the entire song. For this song, we are seeing doublets and triplets.

The rhythm display is not normally used with TAB. GP allows you to turn it off or on. You can see how useful it actually is as long as you have an accurate TAB.

[Chasplaya]

AndyT wrote:

If you notice in the sample song here in this pic (Sweet Home Alabama) the time signature is 4/4. The rhythm display is in 4 groups. One group for each beat. Looking at the groups you can pretty easily pick out a strumming pattern that will get you the required number of notes for the beats. As you can tell, you will need to be doing 16th strumming for this song in order to keep a steady rhythm through the entire song. For this song, we are seeing doublets and triplets.

The rhythm display is not normally used with TAB. GP allows you to turn it off or on. You can see how useful it actually is as long as you have an accurate TAB.

Andy I'm gonna have to disagree here, the pattern is made up of 8th notes and 16th notes no triplets. A tuplet is any rhythm (can be triplet, duplet quintuplet etc, also sometimes written like a ratio)that involves dividing the beat into a different number of equal subdivisions from that usually permitted by the time-signature.

[AndyT]

If you click on the picture, you see that groups 2,3,and 4 are 3 notes which do not divide equally into the 4/4 time signature.

You have to play the three notes within the space of the single beat for each of the groups noted.