copedent vs written tab

[Tony Prior]

I really don't think we will ever be able to narrow it down to "A" system.
Maybe we need to think out side the box...

Anyone have any trouble reading this?

1_________________________5_________
2___________________________________
3____________________________5 ___
4________________5 -5_____________
5___________5-5 ___________ 5 ___
6______5-5 _______________________
7____5_____________________________
8__5_______________________________
9__________________________________
10_________________________________

Ok Dick, you are on to something here !

[Charlie McDonald]

I confess I can't make sense of it.
It's possible that the player is to use his fifth finger or his bar on the fifth fret, moving in time to the right, up and down the scale....

It seems that tab is so simple that no one has bothered to break the code for those of us who see a foreign language.

And I can't figure out what tab has to do with LKL or RKR. Just leaves me actually stumped.

[Lane Gray]

Charlie, some (fortunately very few) tab writers signify lever use by their position, such as LKL. Ick.

[Dick Sexton]

Hi Charlie,

The acronyms LKL RKR have nothing to do with tab or music. As you know, they represent the location of a specific lever on the steel and the direction it moves. Most useful when writing out Copedents.

Steel Guitar Tab has nothing to do with music, it is a Diagram/Schematic/Instruction sheet, of physical position and required action for a period of time. Nothing more. A simple language, best used for instruction.

[Ian Rae]

Steel Guitar Tab has nothing to do with music, it is a Diagram/Schematic/Instruction sheet, of physical position and required action for a period of time. Nothing more. A simple language, best used for instruction.

That is so well put. It's fine as long as we accept its limitations. It's not intended to be performed at sight like notation.

[Herb Steiner]

I want to thank Ian Rae and Lane Gray for their endorsement of the tab system I use, which I based on Crawford's Mu-sym-tab design, primarily for its universality.

Those who swear by the alphabetic designation systems and reject Mu-sym-tab and its variations are too hung up on imprecise symbolism. Letters DEF etc., likewise LKL-RKR etc. tell you nothing about what changes are being used unless you know the writer's lever setup, which are far from standardized and universal.

As stated by Lane and Ian, the use of # and b symbols tells the student what he and the guitar are supposed to do to achieve the desired musical outcome, wherever on your personal guitar those changes reside. The result is that the student learns WHAT those changes are (whole step, half step, raise, lower) and WHERE on his particular steel he can find them. It's the most unambiguous system I've found

When I was teaching privately, I had students that literally did not know what pedal A does or why; only that Jeff Newman told them to mash the A pedal and hit string 5. Raising the string a whole tone was a foreign concept to them. When the system is explained to them, they slap their foreheads when the light bulb comes on.

[Charlie McDonald]

As stated by Lane and Ian, the use of # and b symbols tells the student what he and the guitar are supposed to do to achieve the desired musical outcome, wherever on your personal guitar those changes reside. The result is that the student learns WHAT those changes are (whole step, half step, raise, lower) and WHERE on his particular steel he can find them. It's the most unambiguous system I've found

Anything that ties it to musical changes would be better.

Helping Tom Bradshaw on his theory paper, I commented there that a code to interpreting the chart would be helpful to those like me,
and it seems to be lacking here, like what does the 5 mean, the location on the chart, etc. Imagine, there be might be many like me.
No, let's don't imagine that. Just a legend, interpreting the chart....

[Richard Sinkler]

I confess I can't make sense of it.
It's possible that the player is to use his fifth finger or his bar on the fifth fret, moving in time to the right, up and down the scale....

It seems that tab is so simple that no one has bothered to break the code for those of us who see a foreign language.

And I can't figure out what tab has to do with LKL or RKR. Just leaves me actually stumped.

The designations mean to use an elbow harmonic.

[b0b]

The first thing a pedal steel player has to learn is which pedals and levers move which strings. Once you know that, the A B C D E F G designations are real easy to learn, even if they're different by different authors. Musymtab is downright obvious in any case. If you don't know what your pedals and levers do, you'll never learn anything from tab anyway.

[chris ivey]

from the beginning of tab all that mattered was 'what string', 'what fret', and 'raised or lowered'.
most of us figured that out over 30 years ago.

for those who still aren't sure, 'pedal' steel refers to 'pedals/knee levers' that raise or lower certain notes.

[Ken Pippus]

Actually, I found that Herb Steiner's approach of designating the changes occurring on the string, rather than the pedal or lever performing that function, made me much better aware of the function of those pedals and levers.

[Dick Sexton]

Thread title: Copedent vs Written Tab

Poll Title: Do understand Tab or is it confusing?

Tony's opening sentence: Lots of discussion with regard to standardizing copedents , "if only all steel guitars were the same".

I should have bailed there! But nooooo...

A lot of discussion, some apparently passionate.

I think it indicates this, we are coming from different camps. I cannot speak for any but myself. Moons ago, before steel guitar in my life, I read Winnies book, Pedal Steel Guitar. Hence, Newman tab ingrained in my brain. Had I read, a book at that time, based upon the Mu-Sym-Tab system, I suspect I would be fully ingrained in that system, a better more musically knowledgeable player. The Mu-Sym-Tab system is a better system and better indicates what happens musically when pushing pedals and levers.

I happen to be the proud owner of a couple of Mr. Steiners books, "Essential Bandstand Solos" and "Shuffles, Ballads and Waltzes". I must admit, I haven't done to much with them. But, after all of this discussion, by the end of the day, I will be fully engrossed in and at least playing a few of his well written Tabs. And, the next tab I write and post on the forum will use the Mu-Sym-Tab system.

Does or will this negate or devalue the usability of all other systems of Tab. How can it. It is the information itself that is of value, not the Tab system per se. Remember, nothing more then a tool.

[chris ivey]

what i've deemed from this thread is that perhaps many people don't understand that a pedalsteel is not only setup one way, tuned one way and played one way. it is more unique than that. i can only hope it remains that way.

[Fred Rushing]

I am with Bob 100 percent. If you don't know what happens when you press the A pedal or the E knee lever then you should take the time to find out before you start trying read tab.

It just isn't that hard. I have used almost every kind of tab and if I do it with ease believe me anyone should be able to.

That's all I got to say about that.

JMO Fred

[Charlie McDonald]

Steel Guitar Tab has nothing to do with music, it is a Diagram/Schematic/Instruction sheet, of physical position and required action for a period of time. Nothing more. A simple language, best used for instruction.

Thanks, Dick.

I think I grasp it. In your example, all notes are played on the fifth fret, if I have it correctly.

It seems that bar lines or some indication of time would be useful.
Unless:

It's not intended to be performed at sight like notation.

As a past-master of charts of all kinds that have too much information, I'm still bewildered at the introduction of variables (RKL etc).
It seems the system relies on conventions that aren't so, combining a static view with something that wants to become dynamic.

Maybe pedal steel needs a tablature of its own, on a slide-rule format, where you shift the functions of pedals and levers around.
Still, I don't see how that would really enable musical communication. Maybe all that's happened is I finally understand
from other recent threads that I know too much theory. I didn't think it was possible.... I mean,
this seems to be something altogether different, a shorthand that isn't meant to be read by others, like stenography.

Sorry... am sincerely trying to understand. Think I should clean my changer.

[chris ivey]

most players learn to locate familiar licks.
tablature speeds up the location process. like a map taking you on a walking tour of the neighborhood on the simple route.
you're smart. i think you're juggling the coherency
factor for fun and discussion.

[Charlie McDonald]

i think you're juggling the coherency
factor for fun and discussion.

Possibly, but I can read tab now.

It's hard to imagine the medium becoming dynamic enough to take pedals and levers into account, it's the same as six-string tablature,
but being asked to do more than it does. I was looking for more information than it carries.

[b0b]

The purpose of tab isn't to teach which pedals and levers do what. It's to teach how to play a particular piece of music. It's hard to figure out exactly what positions are being used in recorded intros, solos, etc. All of the notes are available at every fret, so where do you play it? Tab shows exactly where.

I prefer sheet music with fret/string/pedal "hints" because it is more compact and more complete than tab. But most country players don't know how to read music. Tab is easier to learn because it doesn't show all of the different types of notes and rests. Country and rock guitarists are used to picking that timing stuff up by ear.

English is a weird language.

[Herb Steiner]

Tab CAN be written with bar lines, rests, hits, accents etc. Buddy's tab did it, musymtab does it, my tab does it. Measures and rests are two of the easiest things to incorporate into the tab.

Of course, the student needs to follow the flow, like with standard notation.

[Ian Rae]

Must be something I said, but the other day, out of the blue, Dick Sexton sent me a fragment of tab and invited me to make sense of it. It looked like an intro in D, and the title suggested that it might be a Ray Price song I didn't know.

Beginners Notes # Pride-Price-D
1___________________________________________________________________________________
2___________________________________________________________________________________
3_____3__5~--3______3____________10B_____10B___10__9--8__5B--5B______________________
4__5_____________5____5__5--3--5_____________________________________________________
5_____3__5~--3A_____3____________10A_10A_______10__9--8__5----5A__5A___5A__8__9__10__
6__5_____________5____5__5--3--5 _________________________________5B_5B____8__9__10__
7___________________________________________________________________________________
8___________________________________________________________________________________
9___________________________________________________________________________________
10__________________________________________________________________________________

It had no measures, although I could guess how it finished. But how to get started? Even assuming that it started on the third beat, what was the value of the downbeat note? So all I could get from it was this:-

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n3pyuxnyhd3hz ... 1.mp3?dl=0

So I asked what it was, and it turned out to be the fiddle intro to Pride, which Dick had adapted for PSG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msHYT2S9pn4

So now I could make it fit

https://www.dropbox.com/s/aoub3cyep93qw ... 2.mp3?dl=0

I enjoyed Dick's experiment (I like puzzles) as it shows exactly what tab can convey - not music, but the moves necessary to make music. As Herb says, it is possible to include some indication of note values, but not enough to get the total feel.

[off topic but I'll slip it in anyway - as well as learning the well-known steel intros, harvesting those played by other instruments seems like time well spent]

[Dick Sexton]

Thanks Ian, it was fun... By the way, I have adapted that little 4 note ditty you put on the end just before the walk up, to my final tab of this intro. I think this thing would work fine to bring in a singer...

[Herb Steiner]

The example Ian showed, with apologies to Dick, is the least informative way to write tab.

No bar lines, no symbols to indicate 1/4 note rests, no extended dotted lines from the numerical symbols to indicate a held note, et al. All of these could be easily added to the tab shown above.

Buddy's tab also had small dots underneath each measure to show where the beat fell.

That said, tab is meant to primarily be used to decipher how to play something that the student has heard already and knows how it's supposed to sound. It's not at all like standard notation.

[Ian Rae]

I prefer sheet music with fret/string/pedal "hints" because it is more compact and more complete than tab.

So do I, but then I often start with notation anyway. I wanted to learn what Buddy Emmons plays with Laney Hicks on A Love Like This. The video is not much help but the audio is good, so I started by writing down what I could hear:-



Step two was to work out where on the instrument the combinations of notes could be played and to add fret positions and b0b's "hints":-



Then I tabbed it out for sharing:-



But I practice from the compact version. When I can play it, I'll record it, but don't hold your breath...