--- Sean Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > It was easy to transcribe, both by hand and in > print. It allowed the > individual to transmit his own fingerings and > provided a diagram that > was easily absorbed by the brain at speed for those > weak of harmonic > education. I don't know which of these benefits I > appreciate most, > really. > But why are we speaking of tab as if its a thing of the past? It is very much alive and well for the guitar, in fact it must surely be the prefered form of notating guitar music if we go by shear popularity.
Why has it survived so long? Why is it still popular? Its easy for the player. Today's incarnation of tab is vastly poorer than ages past in that it doesn't even include the rhythmic notation. No need to compute what you're doing, just move your fingers like so, then like so, etc. But this is no slight against the music that has been laid down in tab so long ago, nor the composers who set their down on paper this way. All of notation is nothing but a set of _instructions_ on what sounds to make - not the sounds themselves. Chris ____________________________________________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. http://new.mail.yahoo.com To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
