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by 6stringmerc 3724 days ago
Perhaps, but Guitar Tab is one of the great equalizers of the internet - proper notation has typically cost money to access a copy, whereas Tab could spread in .txt format, small sizes, etc. Sure, they could be off or need the song to play along with, but that's the trade-off. Lastly, though it's a personal opinion, Guitar and "proper notation" are really only needed in the same sentence when playing Classical/Orchestra, Real Jazz, or as a Pro Studio Session Musician[1] - as in, very small, elite group of players. Most will get by just growing along with the instrument over the years, for which Tab helps a lot.

[1] Great studio guitarist Glen Campbell supposedly couldn't read music at all, just went along with what he heard and made it work; Tommy Tedesco by comparison could read sheet music upside down.
2 comments
austinjp 3724 days ago
Ya, plenty of highly successful musicians and "composers" can't/couldn't read music, Paul McCartney being one of the most famous.

Joni Mitchell apparently didn't even use regular tab notation. She'd detune her guitar and annotate the relative pitch shift per string, e.g. D-2 G+1, etc or similar.

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midgetjones 3724 days ago
But luckily Paul McCartney had George Martin, who could do it very well :)
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midgetjones 3724 days ago
I agree, I just feel like it ends up as a crutch for a lot of musicians. For example, it isn't very specific in terms of rhythm so you get a lot of beginners who see that part of music as loose or unimportant.

But of course, up to a point, lowering barriers is always a good thing for beginners.

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squeaky-clean 3724 days ago
Depending on the style of tablature used, you can convey rhythm, and more. I'd say it can actually get more specific than staff notation when you allow for guitar specific notation, like all the different types of legato capable, harmonics, and specifying which string to play a note one (it makes a subtle difference).

Here's a screenshot I took of a random song in TuxGuitar (a GNU licensed tablature editor/viewer). You can see the rhythm fairly clearly, as well as the difference between pull-offs and slides.

http://i.imgur.com/bg9MitN.png

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