As I tried to tell you before - for that program to be maintained and created, it is important for the programmer (in this case) to know standard notation and tab.

Further more, if you don't know standard notation, how do you know the program's doing the right job? For a computer, it is so easy to create things that, technically, aren't possible to play.

Why do you need to know it?
first off you dont have to kno stander notaton to know G is here and there
you dont need to know it to make songs


why whold you need it?


you know if they are Impossibile to play

plus ive seen m,usic sheets do that

I've had to re-write/re-arrange songs before for this very reason.

Does it do it without a computer?

Where do you get your music sheets?

If you get them form a store I do not live no where a music store

but if you get them online then its no defreint

Generally, I got it from the band director, who handed it out to all of us.

And where do you think he gets them form?

You got like a 65% chance its form the internet (unless you live near a music store)

Quick primer on the horns and woodwinds. With reeds you are generally using 9 fingers in different combinations, the right thumb basically holds the horn in place. Now those combinations include using the fingertips to cover holes and the side of the finger to activate levers. Like guitars there are multiple ways to hit a single note and depending upon where you are and where you are going the musician chooses the best way.

Horns have 3 or 4 values which must be pushed in combination with a lip position making tabbing impossible for them. Reeds players also make minor corrections with their lip but I don't think its as critical as with brass players.

Trust me reading standard notation is easier then trying to read a fingering chart. Fingering charts are just used as references until the different fingerings are committed to memory.

I'm guessing the school bought them through mail order. No telling, though.

thats aso wha yo do with reading music

and tab and anything eles

99.5% of things are memmory

Fingering charts suck with the power of a million vacuums.

(trumpet player here. lol)

Ive never found reading tab to be particularly easy.

And Im kicking myself right now for not learning standard notation earlier. I really feel like a cripple when I have to deal with other musicians.



Im actually cutting out all the crap I dont need, and keeping all the important, pertinent, useful information that I do need by reading standard notation.



I have 3 suggestions for you, they are all books, and Im studying them all right now, and finding them incredibly useful.

1. A Modern Method for Guitar - William Leavitt. It comes in 3 parts, I reccomend buying the 3 in 1 book. Its cheaper than buying them seperately, plus you have all of that reference material already handy in one book.

2. Melodic Rythms For Guitar - William Leavitt. This covers, as its title suggests, Rythmic material organized into melodic phrases. This makes studying the material both interesting, and immediately useful because you see how to apply the rythms in a musical fashion.

The peice I mentioned earlier is actually a study from that book. All of the music in that book is interesting.

3. Reading Studies For Guitar (positions 1 - 7) - William Leavitt. This is just a raw, balls to the wall, no hand holding, get your ass in gear aproach to reading music for guitar. Its intense. I made it 3 or 4 pages in and set it back down. Im not advanced enough to play the material in that book. Mostly because I can only accurately read 3 key signatures.

There is a 4th book Im spending a modest amount of time in. Its "Classical Studies For The Pick Style Guitar", also by William Leavitt.

Also, you can look up free scores to well known songs, and hymns, on the internet. Standard Notation, like Tab, takes work to read and understand. If you reapply yourself to SN rather than Tab, I think you will start to see results.


I have that program. Its only good for outlining ideas. But when it comes time to present those ideas to other musicians you have to present it in standard notation. A pianist is not going read tablature. Why do you think Tux Guitar has an option for including the score? Its because they know that professionals are going to require the score, not the tab, in order to use the music with other professionals.



You need to know it because its the professional standard. No other instrumentalist will read tab. Only a guitarst can, theoretically, read tab. Everyone else, if you give them a tab, will be lost. The language that musicians speak is Standard Notation. And if you walk into a setting with musicians who are serious about their craft they will be reading SN, and they'll expect you to read it aswell. Tab just doesnt cut it.

Because, on the most fundamental level, Standard Notation is the official language of music. Period.



You wont see the harmonic structure of a piece of music by reading a tab. I know I get confused about harmony, and key, when I read tab. I need SN so that I can see what Im playing in relation to other musicians, and so that I can tell exactly what I SHOULD hear. Tab wont tell me that.
Tab can only tell me where to go, but it cant tell me what I should find when I ge there.

Standard Notation tells me I can go anywhere that I know something specific is going to be. That means I can go anywhere on my fretboard that I want, and I know what Ill find when I get there. And the beauty of it is is that Ill always know its right, and Ill always know where to go.

A tab can never give me that.


I third this.

why? is it hard for you?

i wont be dealing with other musicions really
I'm a one man guitar with maybe a drumer and a bassist
drumer dont need music sheet
and bassit can use tabs

we are good





umm lets see tuxguitar

tells you the dynaimcs
tells you the keyect






i hve eight books. two CD;s three vids and a teacher ever week

no where close to geting it done





















I third this.[/QUOTE]

Meh...I feel like this is going in circles. If someone has something actually pertinent to add, PM me and let me know. Otherwise consider this stale and clopsed.

The problem is that standard notation is the language of music. If you are going to communicate with other musicians it is the common language.

I love playing guitar in orchestras; particularly pit orchestras for theatre productions. I recently played guitar in a production of The Sound of Music. When I got the gig I was given the guitar book (which was around 35 pages I think) that, of course, was all in standard notation. There were also some notes on changes and a few added parts done by the conductor to make the music match this particular production. Since this is the score for the original broadway production recordings are rare, and the guitar is mostly a supporting instrument so it's not easily heard. The new parts that were given to me have never been recorded or played. This means I can't listen to a recording to learn the parts.

Tab for this music simply does not exist (I will give you $1000 if you can find me that score in guitar tab ;))

In order to use tab, I would have to read the standard notation, then convert it to tab myself and print off a chart which would be completely pointless and redundant because I already have the standard notation in front of me and if I can read it well enough to tab it, then I can sure read it well enough to perform it. So what would be the point?

So, tell me how tab helps in in that situation? Sure I can read tab, but it does me no good when I'm given something in standard notation. It's like being able to read fluent English and being given a book to read in Russian. It doesn't matter that I can read English, when the rest of the group is reading Russian right?

If I didn't know how to read standard notation I wouldn't have been able to play the gig period.
At the first run through I would have just had to sit there with a stupid look on my face while everyone else played through. Or maybe I could have raised my hand and asked the conductor who is paying me to play my part if he could write it out in tab for me :lol:

I also once played a German written guitar & marimba duet and I challenge you to find tab for that piece! :)


The problem with your premise is that you are assuming that tab is easier than standard notation which is simply not true in general. It may be true for you, but it's not true in general. What it comes down to is that both tab and standard notation are musical languages, they are meant to convey the same thing, but they do it in different ways. It's the same as our communicative languages. If I go to China and the Chinese government declares English to be the only language to be spoken, written or read in China that would be great for me because I already speak English. But would it be easier for all the Chinese who don't already speak English to learn a whole new language when they are already able to communicate their ideas effectively in their own language?

You mentioned that tab was better because you were able to read and learn a piece in tab in a much shorter time than in standard notation. Does it not make sense that for a person who reads standard notation fluently, but has never read tab that it would be quicker and easier for that person to read and learn the piece in standard notation rather than tab?

What I'm trying to say is that tab is a musical language for guitarists, and that's fine, but there is already a standard musical language that has been around so long and become so engrained in the culture of music around the world that it isn't going to be replaced by something that is seemigly simpler; it's the same reason the metric system never caught on in America even though it makes far more sense.

For example, my wife plays piano and reads notation like she's reading a children's book. When it already works so well for her to quickly and easily read a piece in standard notation why would she waste the time and energy to learn an entirely different system?

Besides if you really learn the standard notation system you'll discover it really is much easier and much much more convenient than tab. On a given sheet of music I know exactly where to find the key signature, I see three sharps and know I'm in A major, I can glance over the line of notes and quickly outline the chord progression, I see what clef I'm in and where F is. Not to mention when rhythm's get tricky it is way way way way way easier to read them in standard notation. When I'm playing stuff with frequent key changes, various odd time signature changes and things like quintuplets mixed in with combinations of duplet and triplet figures with ties, grace notes and ornaments it is SO much easier to read in standard notation rather than tab.
Standard notation is also universal, meaning it works for every musical instrument. Tab only works for guitar. You could possibly come up with tab systems for other instruments, but they would all be different and it would be a nightmare to try to arrange stuff for large ensembles.

Imagine if you are composing a piece, or conducting a small ensemble and instead of needing to know one notation system to write and communicate all your ideas to your ensemble you had to know 20!! It would be like conducting a group where instead of everyone speaking one language you had one guy who only speaks English, one who only speaks Spanish, One French, One Twi, one Amharic, one Latvian, one Russian, one Italian, one Japanese and one Icelandic. Every time you had to communicate something instead of saying it once, you would have to be fluent in 10 different languages to say it 10 different times in all 10 different languages! Sheesh... does that really sound easier and more convenient to you?

Even if I'm just leading a small worship or rock band with guitar, bass, keyboard and drums. Assuming there was a tab system for all these instruments, if I was writing and arranging music I would need to write out separate charts for every instrument in their respective tabs, I would need to learn to read and write four different notation systems and I would have to communicate ideas differently to every member in the band. With standard notation I can write one lead sheet in one notation system that every member can read. Again, which way sounds easier to you?