Absolute Beginner

[Jessica Maybury]

Hey hey there everyone,

My name's Jessica (duh) and I live in Galway, Ireland. My main instrument is the piano and my secondary one is the violin, which is good because it's close to the mandolin!

Seeing as I've been reading sheet music all my life, I'm finding it really, really hard to get to grips with tabs! That might sound stupid, but that's how it is. Just wondering if anyone has any tips for me?

Jess.

[Eddie Sheehy]

You can live easily without tabs. Being able to read music opens up a plethora of tunes. Tabs will come as you use them. I usually have to transpose tabs to either notation or Tonic Sol-feg (doh, reh, mi etc.) to make them usable. They are very handy when used in conjunction with notation (better description of timing/rests etc.) to determine finger positions...
Ultimately it's just another tool that's going to enhance your musical experience...

[Phillip Tigue]

Aw...i thought this was a wodka thread! :)

[JEStanek]

Jess. Welcome to the Mandolin Café. Tab is just another system of getting notes on paper off your fingerboard. If you can read standard notation you have more options in the music available to you to play.

There are plenty of tunes in Tabledit format at MandoZine.com (http://www.mandozine.com/music/tabledit_search.php) you'll need the free TEF File viewer (http://www.tabledit.com/?AfID=19329)which allows you to hear (MIDI files) and print the music in Standard notation and/or Tab. There's a ton of tunes there FREE!

While I use Tab and there's nothing wrong with using it, being able to read Standard notation allows you so much more. You can pick up Tab if you have sheets that have standard and tab together. The tab staff isn't a staff, its the strings on the fingerboard. The numbers are the fret to press on that string. There will be lines from the numbers to somewhat indicate the type of note (1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 whole, and the rests...) Hope this helps.

Jamie

[Mandophyte]

Jessica,

If you've already got standard notation (I'm still learning it) stay with it, most of the music you want you can probably find at: The Session (http://www.thesession.org/).

It's available as a printable file or ABC, which a simple method of producing notation, see the link in my signature.

[Santiago]

I hate tabs. Reading music, they're only good if I'm unsure of the fingerings.

[Jill McAuley]

Howya Jessica,
What resources are you using to learn that use tabs? I only ask because in my experience back home (exiled Dubliner here with a home near Ballinasloe and now living in the States...) most learning materials tend to be in standard notation or ABC's. I remember being at a tenor banjo workshop that Kieran Hanrahan was giving at the Feakle Festival a few years back and it was only the American folks attending who asked if he had the tunes in tab - the rest of us worked from the dots or ABC's. For myself, I find that if I learn a tune via ABC's, in a very short space of time I'm not reliant on sight reading them, but for some reason the odd few times I've learnt a tune from tab it takes a lot longer for me to not be needing it anymore. Welcome to the Cafe!

Cheers,
Jill

[Coffeecup]

G'day and welcome Jessica. This should explain the basics of TABs - http://www.folkofthewood.com/page129.htm

I agree with the previous comments; notation is better, TABs are useful if the fingering needs to be worked out but not to play from.

[Jim MacDaniel]

To follow-up on John's and Jill's points re ABC, here (http://abcnotation.org.uk/) is a great starting place for learning about ABC, and for links to download an ABC freeware or shareware viewer.

(Note: if you end up getting TablEdit as noted by Jamie above, it can also import ABC files, so you won't need a separate ABC viewer.)

[Lee]

I'm with you Jessica. Also a violin player having learned notation at an early age. My brain translates it right to a finger position without a conscious thought. When I read tab there's too much brain confabulation going on.

Practice cross-picking technique. You'd think the little plectrum is a picnic, but it ain't.