Tab advice needed

[Bill Hatcher]

When tabbing out music for non pedal steel, how do you notate behind the bar pulls?

[Ricky Davis]

Hey Bill; that is a freakin' Good question....never thought of that.
I would say; you would make your own
NOTE: ">" means finger pull and "~" means slide.
1.__5>6>5
2.__5~~~~
3.
4.__5~~~~
5.
6.

1.__5~6~5
2.
3.__5~~~~
4.__5~~~~
5.
6.
Something like that.
what ever you indicate in tab....>you should always explain it in a "NOTE"
Ricky

[Roy Thomson]

I have started putting a "+" next to the note
to be pulled Bill.
If the note is at the fifth fret 1st string
and I want to call for a half tone raise I
show it as 5+. If it's a double raise I show it 5++.
Glad to see you working on this.


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http://www.clictab.com/RoyT/Roy_Thomson_Steel_Courses.htm

[Bill Hatcher]

Thanks for the suggestion Ricky.

And thanks very much for the input Roy. As you know I never did much in the Tab world, but I found that in order to communicate better with fellow steelers and also to enjoy some of the tabbed material on the net, I am having to finally study and write out some tab, as you suggested I do a while back.

I personally found that for me the most useful thing about tab is that I can change around a tuning and then still use the tab to write out my ideas without having to worry about learning what/where the written out notes are on the guitar. Your just tabbing the the positions and the strings. All you have to do is to note the tuning on the left side of the stave.
If you write out the notes in standard notation on a music stave, then when you change a tuning, you have to hunt all over the guitar to find it.

One thing that I am having a hard time with is the fact that the rhythm patterns are not emphasized in tab. Seems that the idea is that the player is supposed to already have a good idea of what the tab is supposed to sound like and the tab is just to show strings and positions.

I thought about putting the rhythm patterns either above or below the stave in the same manner that a drummer reads rhythm patterns. All linear on the same line. Someone reading tab in this manner that had a knowledge of reading standard music notation could see not only what the rhythm of the song or lick was, but also the strings and positions on the guitar.

I tabbed out a tune today (Quiet Nights) for the 8 string lap steel in Leavitt tuning and found that it was pretty straight forward to do. I downloaded some of the free tab sheets offered here. If I might make a suggestion to the person who made them availiable, there is more space at the bottom of the page than at the top. If that bottom page space was at the top, there would be plenty of room to write song titles and such.