Standard notation vs tab

[sinebar]

I just started playing the mandolin but I have been playing the flute for a few years and I know standard notation pretty good. So should I stick with standard notation and learn to apply it to the mandolin or would it be better to use tab? Tab seems pretty straight forward while applying standard notation is going to have quite a learning curve I can tell.

[jmcgann]

Not as big

as you may think

[JeffD]

I think you will find standard notation on the mandolin will be fairly easy to pick up. Get a beginners violin book or something (I used a beginners banjo book), and you should have little problem. Your background in reading music on the flute will easily move to mandolin.

The main advantage is that with standard notation, you will never be limited to music written for mandolin.

All the fiddle tune repertoire, sheet music for piano, vocal music, even some of your flute music, all the music in the world actually, what ever it is written for, will be yours for the reading. You can rip fun music from anywhere and adapt it to your instrument.

You can always learn tab later if you want. But you will never be sorry you learned to read standard notation on the mandolin.


What was much harder for me in moving from woodwind to mandolin, (clarinet and bassoon in my case) was getting past playing one note at a time melodies. Harmonies, double stops, chords, chord melodies, all of that was really uphill for me.

[sinebar]

Not as big

as you may think

Thanks for those links. They were very helpful.

[sinebar]

I think you will find standard notation on the mandolin will be fairly easy to pick up. Get a beginners violin book or something (I used a beginners banjo book), and you should have little problem. Your background in reading music on the flute will easily move to mandolin.

The main advantage is that with standard notation, you will never be limited to music written for mandolin.

All the fiddle tune repertoire, sheet music for piano, vocal music, even some of your flute music, all the music in the world actually, what ever it is written for, will be yours for the reading. You can rip fun music from anywhere and adapt it to your instrument.

You can always learn tab later if you want. But you will never be sorry you learned to read standard notation on the mandolin.


What was much harder for me in moving from woodwind to mandolin, (clarinet and bassoon in my case) was getting past playing one note at a time melodies. Harmonies, double stops, chords, chord melodies, all of that was really uphill for me.

Do you or anyone here know of any good beginner mandolin books that emphysize on standard notation?

[ApK]

Vs? Why must you choose one over the other?

[sinebar]

Vs? #Why must you choose one over the other?

Well I guess I was really just trying find out which is better suited for the mandolin. From what I have read standard notation is better all around but that's just what I have read. Since I already know how to read standard, and it's perfectly fine for mandolin playing then no sense in going down the tab path.

[mandocrucian]

You already read so go with notation.

Niles H

[mikeyes]

While it depends on the type of music you want to play, notation is probably the best way to go because there is more music available in that form than any other. Almost all Irish music and virtually all Old Time music can be found in notation or ABC which is easily transformed to notation. (Jazz, too.)

Bluegrass is usually found in tab form, but since notation is only the bare bones of the music anyway, it could work, just get a Fiddlers Fakebook and see.

Mandolins are so logically laid out that finding the notes is easy.

[jk245]

If you easily want to know the positions of your fingers on the strings then go TAB.

If you want the 'finer' points of the music then go to STANDARD Notation.

However, there is a happy compromise. Many of the TAB books, like those of Mel Bay Publications, have both TAB and STANDARD Notation. The advantage of the combination is that you can see the timing better with one on top of the other (TAB is at the bottom).

There have been many posting on the benefits of each. The STANDARD guys seem to be the l-o-u-d-e-s-t especially those who play classical music. Many have said that they started with TAB but got more out the pieces when they learned STANDARD.

On the other hand, the music in the http://www.mandolincafe.com/tabarc.html Mandolin Tablature Archive at this MandolinCafe are in guess what? TAB!
AND, at the http://www.mandozine.com/music/index.php the Mandozine website are in guess what? TAB!

[Kirk Pickering]

Since you already know how to read music, I
can't think of any reason to bother with tab.

[Peter Hackman]

If you easily want to know the positions of your fingers on the strings then go TAB.

If you want the 'finer' points of the music then go to STANDARD Notation.

However, there is a happy compromise. Many of the TAB books, like those of Mel Bay Publications, have both TAB and STANDARD Notation. The advantage of the combination is that you can see the timing better with one on top of the other (TAB is at the bottom).

There have been many posting on the benefits of each. The STANDARD guys seem to be the l-o-u-d-e-s-t especially those who play classical music. Many have said that they started with TAB but got more out the pieces when they learned STANDARD.

On the other hand, the music in the http://www.mandolincafe.com/tabarc.html Mandolin Tablature Archive at this MandolinCafe are in guess what? TAB!
AND, at the http://www.mandozine.com/music/index.php the Mandozine website are in guess what? TAB!

Mandozine, like the books mentioned has both standard and tab. The Cafe has chosen the sadistic method of TAB only, which is good for those who like to read and learn a piece in a purely linear fashion. The point with standard is that it displays the structure and direction of a piece in a way TAB never can. It's a fast way of fixing your ideas, and conveying them.

It bears repeating that TABs often are composed in a very mechanical fashion,
e.g., they often suggest open strings where fretting at the 7th fret would be much better. I think fingering, pick direction, choice of positions is something the player must devise on his own. Perhaps an occasional figure to indicate position, or directions like "play from B chord", could be useful.

I wonder if the ubiquity of mandolin TAB rests on the assumption that mando players, especially in some genres, are, and must remain, ignorant, much as guitar TABs (again in some genres) assume that guitarists must use a capo to play in other keys than G or C.

But, anyway, where's the learning curve in something you already know?

[Stephanie Reiser]

I play alot of solo music that I learn from Standard Notation. I have read music since a child on piano, and then on guitar. I've only been playing mandolin for 4 or 5 years, one to two hours a day, so I'm still getting used to the location of the notes up the neck. There are times when learning a new piece when I have to decide on a fingering strategy, and when I finally do I will often tab out that passage to help me find my way. I am getting better at navigating my way around the upper neck, and I am finding myself tabbing things out less and less, but it can be a useful tool for that purpose.

[AlanN]

I like both, notes above tab, such as MZ, Niles' and Grisman's old books maintain. Notes have way of visually showing the flow that TAB does not. It's all good.

[sinebar]

[QUOTE= (Peter Hackman @ Oct. 04 2007, 04:19)]

But, anyway, where's the learning curve in something you already know?

I was refering to learning where the notes are on the mandolin so I could apply the notation.

[kvk]

IMNSHO

Notation =
Tab =

[entau]

I think you might find the melodic nature of flute music - to be prevelant in mandolin -

I know a couple of flute players - who not only started playing bluegrass and fiddle tunes on flute - but also picked up the mandolin as a second instrument

so I think it is easier than you might suspect

[psann]

Quote:
On the other hand, the music in the http://www.mandolincafe.com/tabarc.html Mandolin Tablature Archive at this MandolinCafe are in guess what? TAB!
AND, at the http://www.mandozine.com/music/index.php the Mandozine website are in guess what? TAB!

Re the mandozine files - the tabedit files on mandozine toggle from tab to notation or can be read with both seen at the same time. The toggle is an "M" at the lower right of the tabedit reader.

[ApK]

Learn both. #Tab is very useful for quickly learning HOW to play a new tune. #Standard notation is useful for opening a huge volume of written music to you.
If you know both, you can make use of the stuff like mentioned above that has both...the standard notation to teach you the notes and the tab to help you learn where to find those notes on the mando. #Very useful for learning. #I need to to practice that a lot myself.

[JeffD]

Do you or anyone here know of any good beginner mandolin books that emphysize on standard notation?

There are probably a few. But I found it just as easy to get a beginner violin book, there are so many of them. The left hand is the same, and the teaching technique is often exceptional.

[JeffD]

I was refering to learning where the notes are on the mandolin so I could apply the notation.

Available on many a mandolin website. Once you know where the open strings are, and you know that each fret is a half step - you can figure out the rest from there.

[sinebar]

I think you might find the melodic nature of flute music - to be prevelant in mandolin -

I know a couple of flute players - who not only started playing bluegrass and fiddle tunes on flute - but also picked up the mandolin as a second instrument

so I think it is easier than you might suspect

Yeah the music can definately be played on the flute. Especially Irish trad which a lot was written for the penny whistle. But to me bluegrass just doesn't sound right on the concert flute. Maybe the tone is too pure.

[JeffD]

You know, a thought just occured to me. Another difference between woodwinds and the mandolin that is crucial - (I played clarinet and bassoon), woodwinds have a particular place where the fingers "go" for each note. Sure there are alternate fingerings, but in general it is one finger pattern for each note.

Not true on the mandolin. It took me a while to get a handle on this. "Where do my fingers "go"?" In general it is good to start with assigning two frets per finger, but soon enough you will see that there are many places up the neck where the same note can be found, the difference being the ease of access to other harmony notes and chords, and the tonal qualities of the notes. You can play in various "positions" up the neck, and get the same notes out with different feelings, different emphasis, and different levels of difficulty.

It is this difference that may guide your decision regarding tab. Tab tells you where to put your fingers to play the tune. It is where someone has decided you should put your fingers, to play the tune the way he or she wants you to play it.

Notation leaves the finger placement up to you. There is a greater sense of accomplishment and of "owning" your version of the tune. There is more freedom I think.

Good luck. Its one awesome load of fun.

[sinebar]

[QUOTE= (JeffD @ Oct. 04 2007, 10:05)]

Once you know where the open strings are, and you know that each fret is a half step - you can figure out the rest from there.

Hey that's right. Each fret a half step. I hadn't thought of that. Yeah that makes it easy to find the notes from a known starting place.

[JeffD]

Hey that's right.