> What is tablature?
Guitars--unlike keyboards--can have the same pitch played at
different locations. Thus guitar players have to choose the
locations of the notes that they play, unlike keyboard players who
can only play a given pitch at a single location.
Guitar tablature (or "tab") uses a six line staff, one for each
guitar string. To write a note of a given pitch you write the fret
location on the appropriate line of the staff. Time values of the
note are often represented by the note "tails" (sorry, I don't
remember the technical name for the line that goes up from the note
"dot") and by dotting.
Jazz and classical guitar players frequently object to the usage of tab,
saying--rightly--that tab makes it almost impossible to see the
harmonic and melodic structure of the piece since tab is just
notating finger positions. In these cases, tab becomes a crutch:
Q: How do you make a guitarist play quieter?
A: Put sheet music in front of him.
Q: How do you make him stop?
A: Put notes on it.
On the other hand, standard notation doesn't provide all the info
that a guitar player may need to play a passage precisely as
intended.
Hence, many publications targeted for guitar players use mixed
notation, which is chord symbols over standard musical notation (in
treble clef) over guitar tablature.
Another approach used in classical guitar music occasionally is to
use standard notation but in ambiguous cases to note the string
number of note next to the note.
Jazz players, having considerably more latitude than classical
players, read/write in standard notation but usually omit any
indication of where a given pitch is to be played.
Hope I haven't been too pedantic. Any errors are entirely my own.
--KevinJ
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Kevin "Rudi" Johnsrude, Software Design Developer
Rogue Wave Software, 850 SW 35th St., Corvallis, OR 97333
Email: kevinj@roguewave.com
Voice: (541) 754-3010 Fax: (541) 754-3185
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