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Rodney, that sounds like a great idea! We also had our guest Brandon Acker talk about tablature in his recent live stream on early music (<- click to watch) - did you know tablature is actually older than standard notation, in the guitar family of instruments at least?
Anyway, glad to hear you're having fun with Kai's course!
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I did not know that! Good info, thanks.
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I can't read music either, I might make an effort to learn one day but now my brain groans with agony at the prospect, tabs is straight forward. If I can't find tabs for a piece I can get them made using the Fiverr website.
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nathan Thanks for the tip!
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nathan and Rodney: hi guys! You might be aware of this already, but just in case you are not, we just held a 5-week "reading music course" on tonebase Live, featuring 5 weekly livestreams (~10 hours of video) and weekly assignments.
Although the course is technically over (meaning there will be no further livestreams on the topic at this time), you can still submit assignments in the dedicated forums (<- click). And if you do, I will still give you advice and pointers on everything, including pitch, rhythm, fingerings, and more.
Here is a link to the forum threads:
Here is a link to the livestreams for:
Hope this is useful to you!
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Thank you Mircea!
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Rodney Yes the reading music livestream was very helpful. It covered a lot of ground reinforcing what I knew, and also helping to bridge gaps in my knowledge. I'm a poor reader but a TAB monster!
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Kai is great. He has inspired me to learn the Flamenco style and it is has become a
regular fixture in my practice.
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As someone that has struggled for years with sight reading, I have to say it's WELL worth the time investment in learning. While I acknowledge the validity of tab, especially knowing that in the guitar family tab was first, there is a certain universality of learning notation that is gained.
My story is this: I was in college majoring in classical guitar. Life began taking some interesting turns, so I left college and joined the US Army as a guitar player. I attended the US Navy School of Music (which at that time all Army musicians would attend) and was really put through a rigorous course. However, my sight reading didn't really improve.
Many years later, I made a commitment and started reading a little every day without fail. That has made the difference. My recommendation for reading would be to get some basics down (note values and names) through the 5th position. Then invest in various guitar methods (Mel Bay, Berklee, Hal Leonard) to really dig into positional reading. Once you've gained some comfort, the Berklee "Melodic Rhythms for Guitar" book is an amazing resource. I'd also recommend looking into Colin Rhythms. Those are instrument agnostic and present melodic rhythms in various keys. The big thing to remember is you are "reading" not learning and memorizing. Never read the same thing twice in a week. If you are serious about being a good reader, you will need to invest in some charts of various styles and instrumentation.
WHATEVER YOU DO, don't make the mistake of blowing off proficiency in flat keys. While I know flat keys are usually centered around horn players (not as guitar friendly either), the flat keys offer you the ability to perform with transposition wind instruments and not only the cliche flute players.
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Jimmy Muhlenbruch said:
If you are serious about being a good reader, you will need to invest in some charts of various styles and instrumentation.What charts are these? They sound useful, but I'm not quite sure what they actually are...
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ANY charts, sax solos, violin solos, trumpet solos. The idea is to read ANYTHING. Have enough stuff that you're not memorizing, but actually reading.
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Good advice, thank you.
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I’m also a tab lover and got a tonebase subscription to have access to Tal’s La Catedral lessons . I was disappointed that tab wasn’t available . I also have a paid subscription to another advanced classical guitar site and they have tabs . But I really liked Tal’s little ornamentations that I haven’t seen in other transcriptions, so that’s why I also paid for tonebase.
Now I can look at sheet music and identify each note within a second, and in fact I took Tal’s sheet music and wrote down the notes to those ornamentations (see attached photo). But how do I then know which string to play those notes on? As things are now, after writing down the notes, I’m still having to study the video in slow mo to see what strings/frets he’s using to play those notes. And I notice tonebase lessons don’t do a lot of closeups on the left hand that I might see on other sites, so identifying strings and frets through video is not the easiest thing on tonebase.
So any suggestions here , specifically in the case where you can read notes on sheet music but don’t know what strings to use to play those notes (eg playing a G on the 3rd fret of the high E string or on the 8th fret of the B string)?
I’m still excited to learn here, it may just take longer than expected . Thanks so much .
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Sunil Chacko Hi Sunil. I'll just give my own two cents here. I'm not a TB Team member.
One of the many great things about learning standard notation (and not relying on TABS) is that it opens you up to the other possible fingering options by NOT specifying exactly where each note is to be played. However, if you want to specify the exact place to play a note in standard notation, it can be done simply by writing a number with a circle around it above or below the note. This would tell you what string to play the note on.
Looking at the musical example you included, however, there is very little question about where to play the notes. The first note is actually E# (which is the same as F) and not G# as you have written. There is only one place that can be played on a guitar in standard tuning - sixth string, first fret. The small 1 above it tells you to play it with the first finger of the LH (the most obvious choice, regardless). This then puts you in first position, so the rest of the notes in that group can only be played one way (with the exception of the B). For instance, the F needs to be on the 4th string, third fret, since the only other place to play that note is on the 5th string, 8th fret, which would be an impossible stretch. Like I said, the only note in that group that would have two options is the B, since it could be played on the 3rd string, 4th fret, or the 2nd string open. I would definitely favor the 3rd string here. None of this consciously goes through my mind when I'm sight-reading, of course. It's sort of like driving a car - you do so many things without even thinking about them simply because you've done it so many times.
I know this all seems cumbersome, but taking the time to learn to read standard notation proficiently is so well-worth the effort. It teaches you the names of notes, which then opens you up to learning music theory. It also gives you a musical language with which you can communicate with non-guitarists. It also forces you to truly learn the fretboard instead of just slavishly following one way of playing the music.
By the way, I am not anti-TAB at all. I read TABS all the time, because I love playing Renaissance lute and vihuela music, which is generally only found in tablature. If Tonebase chooses to make more TABS available, I'd be fine with it, as long as they also include a score in standard notation only (not mixing the two).
Take all this for what it is worth!
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
