Steel sans Tabulature?

Joe Ribaudo · From: New Jersey, USA

I'm afraid I already know the answer(s) to this question, but I'll throw it out there anyway...
I hate tab.
I've been playing stringed instruments for over 40 years and have gotten by just fine learning to play and figuring out licks by ear. I'm guessing there are a fair amount of forum members with similar experience.
So I guess my question is, Is Tab resistance futile?
Do I just have to get used to doing things at an agonizingly slow pace waiting for my brain to interpret those dots and convey to various body parts what finger needs to be where and which pedal and/or lever needs to be pushed or released?
Does it get better? Really?
(My apologies if this is posted in the wrong section - I couldn't see posting it in the Tab section.)
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Lane Gray · From: Topeka, KS

With the advent of youtube, tab resistance is less of a problem than just ten years ago.
HOWEVER, there's a lot of good stuff in the tab, and it also works to involve more mental "channels" in learning.
With most of us (but everyone is different, of course), it doesn't take long for remembering where the A pedal is, or which lever raises or lowers certain strings. But the visual connection of seeing "A pedal" next to the 5th string fret number will help internalize "A pedal raises B strings."
PS: I didn't answer the poll because I didn't think any of the three fit. My answer: it's a helpful tool, but there are others. Rejecting this one can slow you down, but it won't derail you
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Joachim Kettner · From: Germany

I guess it depends on your talent. I can figure out chords and easy single string lines by ear. The best is a combination of the two. A friend of mine refuses tab and he has a better hearing, but with me having the tab experience I'm a little better than him.
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Joe Ribaudo · From: New Jersey, USA

I posted this partially out of frustration but mainly to get some input. Thanks guys. I had a bit of a break through last night and who knows... maybe the worst is behind me.

...until I decide to tackle the C6 neck.
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Carl Mesrobian · From: Salem, Massachusetts, USA

I'm with the "no" votes, just because of all the great musicians who never used it.

When learning 6 string jazz guitar my instructors used tab all the time. Guitars have the convenience (and inconvenience) of having the ability to play the same voicings in different positions, unlike piano, which has 88 unique notes. As a guitar player when reading sheet music you have no idea which position to be in, unlike piano. Tab solves that problem.

Although I voted "no" I think it is very helpful, and I also find that, like any other repetitive thing, reading tab gets easier the more you use it.
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Jon Light · From: Saugerties, NY

When someone on the forum asks "how do you play such & such passage played by XXX in the song YYY" and the response is "you put the bar is the 3rd fret and pick the 4th & 5th string and then you hit the A pedal and then move the bar to ........" I just walk away.

This is where tab shines and this is how I use it. Anything that enhances communication of ideas is a plus.

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

I'm with Jon - life is too short for verbal instructions.

Tab is no substitute for notation, because unless it has a melody staff at the top, it doesn't tell you what you're supposed to be playing. But as a means of communicating how to play something you've already heard, it's ideal.
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Carl Mesrobian · From: Salem, Massachusetts, USA

Sometimes life is too short to write tab for the readers who want tab Smile

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"The better it gets, the fewer of us know it." Ray Brown

Jeff Garden · From: Center Sandwich, New Hampshire, USA

I generally play by ear especially when figuring out a break, intro, or fill from a recording. Tab is a great way to document what you came up with so you don't have to reinvent the wheel if you don't have a fantastic memory (I don't seem to as I grow older!). My ultimate goal is to commit a tune to memory but it doesn't always work out that way...I find it saves a lot of time to keep a reference notebook of things I've worked out. Sometimes a particular fret/string group/pedal/knee combination is the key to nailing a certain sound...why not write it down while it's still fresh in your mind?

Mike Perlowin · From: Los Angeles CA

I use tab to teach absolute beginners. IMHO it really is the best way to get started.

But I also believe people need to get away from it ASAP. It's like training wheels on a bicycle for toddlers who are learning to ride.

IMHO, far too many players use it as a crutch. Also IMO, players need to learn how to read music instead.
(And once again, I wrote a short article on how to read music on the E9 neck, using the pedals, which I will send for free to anybody who requests it.)

I've mentioned thus before, but it's worth repeating; The last time I played at the Phoenix show, I played the song "Venus" by Frankie Avalon. Afterwards, somebody asked me where I got the tab for it.

Now, first off, there is no tab for it. It apparently never occurred to the guy that a player could learn a song without it having been tabbed out previously.

Second, I figured out most of the song by ear, but there was one chord that stumped me. So I looked up the sheet music, and saw what it was. It wasn't hard to play, just hard to figure out. Once I read what it was, there was no problem.

There has been a lot of discussion here about the steel dying out. I think that if it is, this over-reliance on tab is one of the things that's killing it.
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Jim Cohen · From: Philadelphia, PA

Back when I was 18 years old and about to start my very first steel guitar lesson, Scotty asked me, "Do you want to learn steel by reading tab or by reading music notation?" He said "Tab will get you going faster, but music notation will take you farther."

Well, to an 18 year old, that's like asking if I'd like to jump into the driver's seat of a '67 Corvette and take it for a spin right now, or would I prefer to learn about the inner workings of combustion engines first? No contest!

Sometimes I wish I'd picked music notation, but then I wouldn't have joined that country-rock band that had an opening a few months after I started lessons, and I would have missed out on a lot of great experiences that playing, for better or worse, led me to.
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Calvin Walley · From: colorado city colorado, USA

about the only thing tab is good for is to help students
understand instructional videos , when student can see
what the video is telling them it helps
other than that its not much use
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Lane Gray · From: Topeka, KS

Because I lost my utility with Standard Notation (I had oodles of years of piano lessons), I'll tab out stuff I see. I remember a few years ago I was watching a Mickey Adams video showing a lick I wanted to learnÂ¹. I listened to the video, I played "air steel" on the table, and then I drew up the tab to what Mickey was teaching. Then I drove to the bar and I played the lick off my tab.

Â¹My phone didn't play videos then, and I had no Internet at home, so I donned headphones and sat at a computer at the library
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chris ivey · From: california (deceased)

notation is worthless to most of us (me). tab is a quick easy way to be shown something. i would think it foolish not to take advantage of it.

Carl Mesrobian · From: Salem, Massachusetts, USA

Jeff Garden · From: Center Sandwich, New Hampshire, USA

Some bars won't even let you keep a tab Smile

Mike Perlowin · From: Los Angeles CA

chris ivey · From: california (deceased)

BANG....rimshot!!!

Pat Chong · From: New Mexico, USA

Hello Folks,

I play by ear and can figure out some chords and lines on the steel guitar, too. But there is one thing that is being taken for granted in this thread. That is the ability to play by ear. This is a skill that not all people have, but is a factor wether tab is helpful or not.

To say that tab "is not much use" really (to quote another) "...depends on your talent", wether one can use it or not.

Joe, reading tab is also a skill, glad you made a "break-through". Some may choose to do so, some may not. But if we were all to involve ourselves in all available sources, this discussion would not take place.

What this discussion amounts too, is that we all learn at different paces and from sources of our own choice.

As Chris mentioned, "take advantage of it", if you see fit. I would vote "Yes" and "No".....depending on circumstances, so I did not vote.

...................Pat

John De Maille · From: On a Mountain in Upstate Halcottsville, N.Y.

When I first met Jeff Newman back in the 70's, he introduced me to tab. He used it in order to make it easier and quicker for new steel players to learn the steel by. Using tab, he made it so, that, one could play a song or play licks with less confusion from trying to translate musical connotation to the steel strings with pedals and knee levers. And, it worked for me and many others. I don't have a great musical notation background, as do probably many others, so, it got me started. Now, as time progresses, one can learn true musical notation and adapt it to the steel, which, in time will make you more rounded as a musician. But, and I'm going out on a limb here, if you're only playing in honky tonks or play strictly country or maybe just blues and rock, you don't need to know musical notation. That type of notation is not going to teach you speed picking or syrupy slides from one phrase to another. Unfortunately, I've never seen any music sheets that do that.
The Nashville Number System was invented, I believe, to speed up production and to make sure everyone was playing the same sequences on recordings.
Orchestral, jazz and contemporary music delve deeply into sheet music as they can be much more complicated. Even though jazz tends to evolve into a lot of improvisation.
I still believe that, tab is an important factor in learning the steel especially if the player has no real musical knowledge or background. It'll get you started and progress accordingly.

chris ivey · From: california (deceased)

Mark van Allen · From: Watkinsville, Ga. USA

People do, and always will, take in and process information in different ways. Some seem to be blessed with a discerning ear for interval and tonal differences that helps them figure how and where a phrase is being played fairly quickly, others have to develop that skill, some never can.

Tab is essentially just another notational system, a way of cataloging something. It is dangerous for those who can't find or learn anything without seeing numbers on a lineâ€¦ but only because they've painted themselves into that box, or haven't spent enough time working on their own ear training.

The cataloging part is essential, at least in my world. I give long lessons covering LOTS of material, because I want students to have LOTS to work on over time. there's no possible way for them to remember every thing we talked about, each lick and positionâ€¦ so when I take a few minutes at the end of a lesson to tab out most of what we've gone over, they have easy access to remembering it at any time.

How do you guys remember all the stuff you've worked on or learned? I've been playing since around 1975, and I have many hundreds of pages of tab from stuff I learned over the years- seminars, records copied, scales and chord patterns and my own versions of licks and ideas. I keep going back through my piles, and constantly find stuff I've completely forgotten, or no longer use. Some of the most basic material is often the most inspiring.

I would vote for standard notation if it was more universal (in the steel fraternity) and faster for me to write, but tab is down and dirty, and gets the job done. Again, NOT the only way to process, learn, or discover new stuff. But in terms of discovery, there are several great players who have tab courses out that give a quick window into their thinking and even setup choices, that are honestly more quickly accessible in tab form than by a lengthier time figuring it out by ear. I'm thinking specifically of John Hughey and Doug Jernigan, whose C6 playing ( and tabs) use some unorthodox and non-standard changes, that might be harder to figure out if you don't have those on your guitar. "Seeing" them while listening to the recordings really helps understand the reasoning and usage of those changes, IMO. And as has been mentioned, properly written tab re-enforces the mental pathways concerning which strings are activated by which pedals, relationships between chord inversions, etc. etc.

While I would say I most certainly "play" by ear, tab in the Winston book and Newman's early seminars was of immeasurable help in getting me going, and again, in always being there for me to refer back to. Useful stuff, to me.
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Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Dick Sexton · From: Greenville, Ohio

Ian thanks for putting that up. an interesting, by the numbers process...

I just read a "Request for Tab", in the tab section. After listening to the piece mentioned, thought, what a value to that player, the process of tabbing that piece out would be.

My thoughts on its value...

Learn the piece
Learn "new technique" that might be required to play the piece
End up with "Your Tab", material that could be referenced back to, your whole playing career.

The tools are there that will allow even a beginner, to figure out what is being played. I think "Writing Tab" is often more important then "Reading Tab", You have to work harder, thus more is gained.

Of course, this is just my opinion...

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

I voted NO, meaning it's not a NECESSARY evil, but that doesn't mean that it's not important, it is.

TAB can speed up your learning process.It can assist in finding things that may take you hours, days or maybe NEVER to find.

Is it necessary to learn and use it ? No .

You can sit around and work things out without it.

BUT

Is it a benefit to learn and use it ? YES

It's a tool. For some it is the most important tool, for others, not so important.
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