Tabs Vs. Traditional Notation

Ollie Bonugli

Ollie Bonugli

Senior Member
Do you prefer Drum Tabs or Traditional Notation (I prefer Trad). And I don't mean it as 'on the Internet Trad/Tabs are used less/more so they're worse/better', I mean as in 'Trad/Tabs are easier/harder to read and/or write'

Just wanting to get some opinions.
 
I've never used tabs. They look terrible. As drummers, we are typically only concerned with rhythmic notation anyway so how hard is it really to learn how to "read music"?
 
I remember when that stuff came around. Guitarists use tab because melody and rhythm to them are usually two separate planets.

For drummers, tab is useless in the real musical world. You'll spend just as much time learning tab as you would learning traditional rhythmic notation. And while it may have given many cats their start, it's just impractical past a certain point. You can't share a "chart" in tab with the guitarist or keyboard, and you can notate a rhythmic "line" with traditional notation on one line quickly and easily rather than having to type out the entire thing.
 
Traditional music is far easier to read. TAB is useful for guitar where the same note can be played in a number of positions across the fretboard, but for drums is a big step backwards!
 
I've always preferred traditional. It's what I learned to read first and gives you so much more than tabs.
 
For drums, tab is a great way to replace an apparently tricky (but actually simple) task with an apparently straightforward (but actually tricky) one.

Another way to state it is this:

Learning to read music takes a bit of effort, but once it's learnt, playing what is written is relatively easy.
Reading tab takes no new skills, but playing from tab is almost impossible.

If tab was the way forward, those funny squiggles would have fallen out of use long ago.
 
learning to read rhythms is probably the easiest thing anyone will do in their musical journey

why "drum tabs" exist I have absolutely no idea ..... completely and utterly pointless
 
BacteriumFendYoke said:
Traditional notation is superior in every single way.
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I cannot agree more with that statement. To my guitar students' dismay i still cant read tabs comfortably but sit me down with the same thing fully notated and i can read it and play it faster than they can decipher their "easier" tabs. I have attempted to learn some lately because all my students come in with tabs which i didnt expect because i'm a self taught guitarist and i had never dealt with anything other than chord charts, lead sheets, or traditional notation before i started teaching the instrument. There were no tabs for piano, voice, or violin which i took lessons in and my drum teacher always notated rhythms in traditional notation. I only learnt about lute tabulature in college when going over basso continuo writing. Tabs wouldn't have come up in a Classical Composition program. I played rock and blues guitar in high school and we'd either figure stuff out by ear or do a transcription in the notation we learnt in school. I've found tabs to be very annoying because i'm used to having the rhythmic notation as well as the pitch. I had no idea Drum Tabs existed until this thread.what pray tell do they look like?
 
MJD said:
... I had no idea Drum Tabs existed until this thread.what pray tell do they look like?
Click to expand...


Prepare to be dismazed....

how-to-read-drum-tabs-1001.jpg
 
Just to add:

Traditional notation doesn't work for everything. Most of the material I write can't be notated in a traditional way (I don't deal with standard pitches or time signatures most of the time) but for the vast majority of Western music, it works.

A notation system should be theoretically complete. That is, it has all of the information that's required to play the part without reference to external resources. Modern tablature is not complete as a system. With modern tablature (of whatever instrument) important rhythmic information cannot be presented without major structural modification. Traditional notation is just more flexible and elegant when it comes to recording rhythm.

That doesn't mean that all traditional notation charts have to be complete (e.g. lead sheets) but any serious attempt to replace Western notation should at least be as complete a system as the notation that precedes it.

I look at notation as giving you the information that you need, so that you know what to play. Tablature just tries to tell you how to play it, although it fails with rhythm.
 
I find it easier to read tabs, probably because it's more spaced out. I don't have vision problems. Just seeing everything crammed together makes me feel tense.

That being said, I can't actually read either of them well at all. I've always been better at hearing then memorizing.
 
Tabs are not a legit alternative system of notation, so it's not really one vs. the other. The only reason ever to use them is if you have to communicate something very basic in plain text on a computer-- like in an email or newsgroup, or on a forum or something. I almost never do even that; I would never write out a complete part, like in JJ's example. I would say that professionals and serious students never use them, but maybe there's some special case where it's easier or more illustrative to diagram a rhythm or set of parts on a grid like that. I guess.

I used to get really annoyed by the existence of tabs, but videos have kind of replaced them as the least efficient/most slovenly possible way of communicating an idea-- you now have people giving these lengthy verbal explanations and demonstrations of things that could be understood instantly if people would just learn how to read.
 
Michaelocalypse said:
I find it easier to read tabs, probably because it's more spaced out. I don't have vision problems. Just seeing everything crammed together makes me feel tense.

That being said, I can't actually read either of them well at all. I've always been better at hearing then memorizing.
Click to expand...

When I started drumming about 18 months ago, objective one was to learn to read music.

I've played guitar for longer than I care to admit to, but never learned to read.

Honestly, learning to read was the easiest thing. Even at my "cat-sat-on-the-mat" music reading ability, notation is an enormous improvement over tab. I don't consider myself especially musical, but even I can (usually) hear the rhythmic pattern in my head when looking at a piece of drum music*.

* Simple music...Black Page and Polynesian Nightmare do not count!
 
I've got nothing against either form, same as I don't have anything against patterns being written in a line with letters instead of notes (like Adam Tuminaro does in his videos as Orlando Drummer on youtube).

However here is where tab may be better - say if you were to learn Dance of Eternity by Dream Theater, there aren't enough lines on the notation paper for all his different toms, let alone the various crashes, hats and chinas that he uses through out the whole song!

I know there are transcriptions available which explain which cymbal is what on the sheet etc but just for knowing what to hit and where, tab is just as useful as notation. If a piece gets too busy I would rather see it on tab, and then when I'm used to playing it then when I see it elsewhere I can relate to it easier.

To me tabs and notation are just like two different accents - its the same language being spoken just put across a different way. One is no more relevant than the other. Only difference is you change how you read, but you can't stop sounding like a cockney if you are from London! :)
 
Like MJD, I had no idea that tab for drums even existed until I saw this thread. I have used tab for bass and guitar, and it is useful if you want a specific chord voicing, but you could always include chord symbols above the standard notation (which is very common). I don't see any real advantages to it short of trying to notate something on a computer using plain text.


BFrench501 said:
However here is where tab may be better - say if you were to learn Dance of Eternity by Dream Theater, there aren't enough lines on the notation paper for all his different toms, let alone the various crashes, hats and chinas that he uses through out the whole song!
Click to expand...

You can make as many lines as want on a decent program. You aren't limited to a grand staff (and even with a grand staff and a few ledger lines you can easily get a few dozen discrete assignments).

But that does point up one unique thing about drum kits, and that's the highly customized nature of many of them. Sure, it's common to have a four or five piece kit with maybe three cymbals, but it's no big deal to see kits with five toms or eight toms and seven or more cymbals. This would be like some basses having four strings and 22 frets but also having some with 8 or 9 strings and 30 or 40 frets. That is, if someone hands me an electric bass and I'm blindfolded, I still know pretty much what to expect short of a few outliers. But you plop me blindfolded behind a kit and who knows what I'll find.
 
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