What to do with campanella?

Wilfried is one of my favorite campanella uke players, and I recommend his tab books and his youtube channel. It is nice to see him visit this forum. The style he has developed is quite unique and very beautiful. I won't attempt to characterize it, except to say that his technique of the upward stroke, where the melody is on the high g string, is really effective. I also agree with him that for reentrant instruments, tab is the simplest way to convey the music. John King's book from Mel Bay explains this in the introduction.

Thanks! I have his solo ukulele book. I will look for others and check out youtube. :)
 
Besides, what is the big deal? Either tab or notes are basically the same thing: a way to help you know where the tone is so that you can produce music.

Agreed. It's admirable that you can read both notation and tab equally. But it certainly depends a great deal on how one's brain has been wired. I'm aware of the history of tab, and do not think of it like "training wheels". It is simply arcane to me, and something I have no use for at this point in life, and therefore no interest in learning.

On the subject of brain wiring... having learned violin as a child, to this day, I'm never actually aware (without stopping to count them) which "numbered" frets I'm ever on when playing a fretted instrument, rather, I just get around fretboards the same way as I get around unfretted boards when playing bowed instruments. Essentially, that's all by feel, as in tactile perception. By this time, I know where a certain interval is going to be relative to the length of fingerboard, as I have many different ones I switch between, it's all the same ratios when compared to the whole, and my brain adjusts for scale lengths accordingly. My default modus operandi is to ignore the existence of the frets altogether, though. Except if I accidentally step on one. :eek:

It's for the same reason that I find it very difficult to mentally process chord symbols (I mean those thingies that look like little grids with dots.) For one thing, I instinctively see "dots" as notes on a staff, for another, I don't "see" the frets at all in my mind (as previously noted). And also, the darned grids are oriented in the wrong direction for me. That is to say that even if I concentrate on them, while in the act of playing, my mind doesn't imagine the fretboard as an observer on the outside would look at it standing up vertically. My brain sort of "sees" it from the backside of my left hand, looking out. LOL Okay, I never really verbalized these things before now, but there you go....

Bottom line, do whatever works. ;)

bratsche
 
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Well, let me clarify: I can read notes on a staff when I play the piano or recorder. I cannot read notes on a staff and transfer it to the ukulele. That's why I use tab.
 
<< Patently campanella is gloriously beautiful and the arrangers are jedi-level, but for me as a player campanella was about as exciting as watching paint dry. One goes measure by measure and practices the "put your finger here, now put your finger there" tabs, and over time you have a beautiful song. But that's all you have after a month invested. >>

You're a funny, funny guy. I guess every symphony musician in the world is doing it wrong.
 
I knew if we banged on about this long enough Wilfried wouldn't be able to resist joining in.

Interesting observations, Bratsche. Do you have the same ease of sight reading if your instruments aren't tuned in fifths?

When I first started reading tab it was like a really hard crossword puzzle. In fact, that's one reason I stuck with it--wanting to exercise my brain. It's still hard, but has become more like Sudoku.
 
Interesting observations, Bratsche. Do you have the same ease of sight reading if your instruments aren't tuned in fifths?

I'm sure I would not - that's one of the main reasons I tune them all in fifths. I just want to play music, not decipher it. ;)

bratsche
 
On the subject of brain wiring... having learned violin as a child, to this day, I'm never actually aware (without stopping to count them) which "numbered" frets I'm ever on when playing a fretted instrument, rather, I just get around fretboards the same way as I get around unfretted boards when playing bowed instruments. Essentially, that's all by feel, as in tactile perception. By this time, I know where a certain interval is going to be relative to the length of fingerboard, as I have many different ones I switch between, it's all the same ratios when compared to the whole, and my brain adjusts for scale lengths accordingly. My default modus operandi is to ignore the existence of the frets altogether, though. Except if I accidentally step on one. :eek:

It's for the same reason that I find it very difficult to mentally process chord symbols (I mean those thingies that look like little grids with dots.) For one thing, I instinctively see "dots" as notes on a staff, for another, I don't "see" the frets at all in my mind (as previously noted). And also, the darned grids are oriented in the wrong direction for me. That is to say that even if I concentrate on them, while in the act of playing, my mind doesn't imagine the fretboard as an observer on the outside would look at it standing up vertically. My brain sort of "sees" it from the backside of my left hand, looking out. LOL Okay, I never really verbalized these things before now, but there you go....

Bottom line, do whatever works. ;)

bratsche

I get where you're coming from. I play harmonica and, though I can play them from dots if need be, I prefer to play by ear. It's about knowing where to move the instrument through your mouth. I listen to the tune and try to match what I hear in the same way as I would if I was singing. If I do have dots In front of me, I use them more to see the shape of the melody and at critical points whether I need to start a phrase with a blow or a draw note.

As to ukulele, I took it up to accompany myself singing so I focussed on chords and mostly either strum or finger pick arpeggios. I find chord diagrams useful though I'm quite happy with simple letter names for chords.

Campanella seems ideally suited to fiddle tunes as the style is mainly legato. The few occasions when I have played some melody, I have based my approach on Campanella.
 
Well, let me clarify: I can read notes on a staff when I play the piano or recorder. I cannot read notes on a staff and transfer it to the ukulele. That's why I use tab.

Me too. The notes make sense at the piano, but not at all on the uke. Tabs wouldn't be worth a damn on the piano (I actually thought about trying this, I must be losing it).
I think reading tabs AND notes would be like being bi-lingual, maybe?
 
Me too. The notes make sense at the piano, but not at all on the uke. Tabs wouldn't be worth a damn on the piano (I actually thought about trying this, I must be losing it).
I think reading tabs AND notes would be like being bi-lingual, maybe?

Yes, I agree. Good analogy.

Tabs for piano?! Gosh, that makes my head hurt! 87 14 32 24 67 . . . :p
 
Me too. The notes make sense at the piano, but not at all on the uke. Tabs wouldn't be worth a damn on the piano (I actually thought about trying this, I must be losing it).
I think reading tabs AND notes would be like being bi-lingual, maybe?

Dunno about bilingual, but I'd give my left arm to be ambi-dextrous &#55357;&#56842;
 
Me too. The notes make sense at the piano, but not at all on the uke. Tabs wouldn't be worth a damn on the piano (I actually thought about trying this, I must be losing it).
I think reading tabs AND notes would be like being bi-lingual, maybe?

Some the earliest tab, dating from the Middle Ages is for organ and it carried on being used until the baroque era. Much of Bach's organ music was available in tablature.

Organ tablature used letters to indicate the key to press (and hence, the note to play) with various additional symbols to indicate octave, duration and accidentals though in the early time the only "accidental" was for Bb and is the origin of the German convention of B representing Bb and H representing Bnat (I think I have it the right way round). Later organ tablature included notation for the top part and tablature for the lower parts.

A modern near equivalent is ABC notation used by folk musicians to share fiddle tunes but that is really a way of writing down pitches and includes a convention for indicating duration as well. It's inventor, Chris Walshaw devised it as a way of quickly writing down tunes he heard in an ordinary notebook. There are now thousands of tunes available online written down in ABC notation.
 
That is very interesting! Sounds similar to the old electric chord organ I had as a child (I loved that thing)! The music was just letters like you say.
 
@ Tootler (Geoff)

I often wondered why there was a bracketed 'H' on 'harp' charts.

I also scribble/write notes down by their letter, & use superscript & subscript to indicate octaves different to the C4/middle C octave, when practicing my chromatic harmonica.
(I'm using that form whilst I try & speed up my notation reading.)
 
@ Tootler (Geoff)

I often wondered why there was a bracketed 'H' on 'harp' charts.

I also scribble/write notes down by their letter, & use superscript & subscript to indicate octaves different to the C4/middle C octave, when practicing my chromatic harmonica.
(I'm using that form whilst I try & speed up my notation reading.)

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Here's a link to the ABC notation website: http://abcnotation.com

It's a fully worked out system and there is plenty of software to turn it into standard notation. I use MuseScore for that purpose. The plugin comes as standard in MuseScore 2.
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