Dear Tom, Here's a simple example. (You will need a monospaced font like Courier to get the vertical alignment correct.) The inner part has a bit of syncopation:
|\ |\ |\ | |\ | |\ | | | | | _______________________ ______________|_____||_ __c__d_____c__|_d___||_ ______________|_____||_ ______________|_____||_ ______________|_____||_ It has crotchet, minim, crotchet in the first bar. Now, if the highest part has a semibreve, and the lowest part has a couple of minims, all three parts will have different rhythms. That would look quite complicated in staff notation, but in tablature everything fuses together to make a bar of four crotchets. |\ | |\ | | | _______________________ __a___________|_c___||_ __c__d_____c__|_d___||_ __c___________|_____||_ ______________|_a___||_ ________a_____|_____||_ Of course, the lutenist has to be careful to hold notes for their full length, but he will use his common sense, and the open strings will help notes ring on. Four crotchets is easier to count than the syncopation of that inner part. Best wishes, Stewart McCoy. ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 11:14 PM Subject: Tabs, Staff and the rest of it. (for Stewart McCoy) > while I have now > understood your point (c), I still don't really see how tablature copes with the > problem of complex inner rhythms. I spent some time this evening > looking through my lute music and did not > come across anything that seemed to correspond to what you say in your point > (c).
