Grumble, grumble...tab

[Pilgrim]

Something that always bugs me is the way most tab is written. 

I started on upright bass, and on upright, it's a gift to find notes one can play on open strings.  There's a lot of left-hand work involved in playing upright, and I quickly learned that open strings were my friends.

Then (after a 24 year layoff) I discover that in the interval, tab has become a very popular option for those who don't read music.  In fact, if I'm working on a rock or blues piece, tab is usually all I can find to get started with. 

BUT....it seems like in every tab I've found, the author would do ANYTHING to avoid playing an open string.  This is true even when there is no position advantage at all to playing up the neck.

Yeah, yeah, I know there's an argument that many players feel that open strings sound different than fretted notes. OK, fine, whatever, but I don't think that the audience can usually tell any difference.  In fact, I personally like the sound of open strings.  As a result, I end up mentally transcribing the tab back to positions where I can play open strings.

What I think is going on is that people who write tab want to LOOK busy so they invent ways to play up on the neck when they don't need to. That's not something I'm worried about.  I LIKE using open strings when they're available.  When it gives me an advantage to play up the neck, that's fine...I'll do it.  But it's never my first choice.

You all may think I'm weird, but my wife just says I'm special.   

[patman]

I too have played upright in the past...I look at them as different instruments that are played  differently.  Don't use tab for bass, but I use a lot of tab for banjo...it can be very useful when the notes are too fast to comprehend.

[Pilgrim]

Agreed - sometimes it's very helpful to get help with the notes. 

[copacetic]

I agree with you (@tablature with respect to the upright vs electric bass guitar) totally. My daughter is an accomplished upright player and fiddles with electric and read music like water out of a faucet and she agrees as well.
Now about your wife thinking you are special. I'm lucky to be standing sometimes after the charring I get. Great thing about her she cannot tell the differences between any of the basses that come and go and fill closets. I mean you can't see the difference between a Hofner '58 and a Fender Select Jazz and a Gibson Les Paul Signature?! Thats why I ...love her.

[rahock]

I learned on an electric (electricity was still new).  I was taught to play in closed positions , with no open strings, as much as possible. I was told this would help me as I progressed, because it would make changing keys easier. I guess that's true because you don't have to think as much when you change keys .

However, later in life I discovered that sometimes the open string sounds a lot better, but I had this terrible habit of avoiding them. When I started fooling around with ABGs, with that nice woody sound, those open strings really sounded nice , but I was very awkward in going to them because of this thing I was taught when I was 14 years old. So I had to teach myself to move the stuff down the neck and open up the closed position and start playing open strings like the upright guys did. ABG playing forced me to do this and it made me a much better player. In fact, I would say that playing an ABG and picking up some upright type technique, has done more for my playing than anything else that I have ever done. It taught me to play like a bass player rather than playing like a guitar player with a bass in his hands. I'm certain there are 20 million guitar players out there who have no idea what I just said, and one of them may be the guy who is posting Bass Tabs on the site you have been visiting .
Rick

[Pilgrim]

Interesting, to hear the difference in the way you learned, Rick.  It's only recently that it occurred to me that my early experience with upright could be the reason I'm so comfortable with open strings.  Your story seems to provide a contrasting experience; it might support the idea that your technique depends a lot on the kind of instrument you learned on.

just as you've made an effort to move your technique to open strings, I'm working at learning to use the positions around the 5th fret (Aka: 5th position) more effectively.  There definitely are occasions when it's a better idea to be there, and it's not my strong point.

[rahock]

When I was 14 years old I took lessons from a guy who was an accomplished guitar player/bass player and he definitely had a guitar players perspective. As a kid I learned most of my chops from guitar players I worked with. As a result, it was all about the scales and all about the licks. I guess I was sort of a flashy player when I was younger. When stuff like ZZ Top came around, it was all but impossible for me to play. The bass part just thumped away on whole notes and never did anything else. It took me a while to get it. It's all about the groove , not how many notes you can jam in to a small space. That's the guitar players job .
Rick

[Highlander]

I dabbled on upright at school but never took it seriously, but learned everything by listening to records, never having had a lesson. So it was the styles of Dennis Dunaway and numerous others that I picked up on. But now I prefer to play fretless, which may be a throwback to the upright.
Tabs' a drink, isn't it...?

Dave summed it up re Dusty Hill and his I swear to play the root, the whole root, and nothing but the root jibe...

[Dave W]

I can't even relate to tab. Too far after my school days, I guess. Just doesn't click with my brain. Some people take to it just fine, if it works for them I have no problem with it.

Not that I'm a sight reader or anything close, but I learned to read standard notation in grade school string quartet and that's what I can process.

BTW, I was recently looking through some old papers that had been stored for years and found my original guitar lessons from 1959, all hand written and notated by my teacher. At the bottom of the very first lesson he wrote "remember, the students of today are the stars of tomorrow."

[patman]

tab is useful when...there is only one way a passage can be physically played, but there are several locations on the neck where you can find the notes.  for instance, there may be several places on a banjo where you can find the notes, but only one position is going to work for a given tune. tab helps you find that position faster.

[rahock]

I'm not a big Tab user myself. I usually just get the chords and build it from there. But sometimes there is a piece with a distinct bass line and there's just no way to improvise your way through it and make it sound right. Sometimes I listen to a piece over and over but I just can't seem to find the notes  . That's when I go searching for the Tabs. It's usually something really simple and the missing notes were staring me right in the face , stuck right there in the middle of a scale I use all the time. I just wasn't hearing it. A lot of times it's an accent or a rest that I'm actually missing and not the note. It's nice to have a Tab to look at to show you where you're making the mistake.
Rick

[ramone57]

I use tabs, can't read notation, learned to play closed position, discovered open position (and learned to love it).  I try to figure parts out by ear but sometimes tabs give that process a bit of a boost. 

[Pilgrim]

tab is useful when...there is only one way a passage can be physically played, but there are several locations on the neck where you can find the notes.  for instance, there may be several places on a banjo where you can find the notes, but only one position is going to work for a given tune. tab helps you find that position faster.

Not to be too grumpy about it, every now and then (not often) I find a tab that nails the finger positions I would use.  That's really handy and eliminates some fiddling around. If the tab that you find is well planned, then it's a nice find.

Sheet music gives you the notes and you figure out where to play them. Tab gives you the finger placements and if you want to change them, you need to mentally process the notes as you would have if you were reading sheet music...then create your own fingerings.

[uwe]

A world without open strings would be a sad place. Being able to play the same note fretted and open is a wonderful thing. And how I love playing A fretted fifth on the E and then - downstrokes only - add the empty A string as well (while sliding the fretted note up an octave on the E ...). If you play root note, do it right! 

[slinkp]

Jamerson reportedly played plenty of open strings.  Case closed!