Fingerpicking

Down Up Dick

Down Up Dick

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 1, 2014
Messages
4,410
Reaction score
578
Location
Southern California
Do those of you who fingerpick use tabs or music or play by ear? If you play with tabs, do you use books or get stuff off of the net? If you use
books, what books? I've looked but haven't found any baritone books with tabs. I can read music, but I just wondered what everyone else does.

Happy New Year to all! :eek:ld:
 
Mostly I go off of standard notation, but if I want to do more with chord melodies then I use tab since it's easier for me to visualize. I mostly play Tenor, but I occasionally pick up the baritone.

If you don't mind the key change, you can always play tab written for C6 tuning on the baritone as-is, it sounds pretty good, just in a lower register.

Here's a website that I found that has some baritone tabs. It's all renaissance music, but you might enjoy it.

http://pdfminstrel.wordpress.com/renaissance-bari-pdfs-2/baritone-ukulele-tabs/
 
I am TAUGHT without tabs, but after my lessons I tab it out myself. My teacher does not really like that I do that. Other songs I get off the Internet. Dominator has great ones. I am working on learning songs without tabs. Man, it's hard.
 
sukie said:
I am TAUGHT without tabs, but after my lessons I tab it out myself. My teacher does not really like that I do that. Other songs I get off the Internet. Dominator has great ones. I am working on learning songs without tabs. Man, it's hard.
Click to expand...

It's just the opposite with me, sukie. I can read music, but I'm trying to get usta tabs. I think I'm gonna give up fingerpicking with tabs, though, and just use music. I'm getting better playing by ear too.

Happy New Year, sukie. :eek:ld:
 
Down Up Dick said:
Do those of you who fingerpick use tabs or music or play by ear? If you play with tabs, do you use books or get stuff off of the net? If you use
books, what books? I've looked but haven't found any baritone books with tabs. I can read music, but I just wondered what everyone else does.

Happy New Year to all! :eek:ld:
Click to expand...

All of the above :)

The only books I play from are John King's and Tony Mizen's classical books, and a couple of Japanese jazz and classical books arranged by Kiyoshi Kobayashi.

I'm not great at playing by ear but I do try. Sometimes I play "by sight" if that makes sense - a couple of my favorite arrangements to play aren't really written down, but I've learned them from watching my instructor play them.

I can read music as well, so I tend to just look for piano arrangements or lead sheets for songs I like and then try to come up with my own uke arrangements from there.

When I play from other peoples' arrangements, I read both the tab and the standard notation - as a result, sometimes I end up playing the note in a different place than the tab indicates.

And - happy new year to you too!
 
Ubulele, it seems to me that once one learns where the notes are fretted (like valve positions on a trumpet), he can play any music he wishes to. I know I've said it many times, and people are probably tired of my nagging, but I just don't understand tabs. I think I'm gonna work harder on scales with my baritone and forget the tabs for picking. I would really like to play everything by ear. Maybe someday I'll be able to do that.

Well, have a good time tonight and a Happy New Year. :eek:ld:
 
I use tabs for a lot of melodies and solo stuff. However, I also learned fingerpicking patterns from my guitar days out of a book called "Fingerpicking for Guitar" and a bunch of other guitar stuff. When I started on uke I just adapted what I knew from guitar. So if you know the chords and the notes you can either use a finger picking pattern as an accompaniment or interweave the pattern with the melody to do your own arrangements.
 
I'm pretty new to this whole finger picking thing, but for me. it's all about what I can sing to. I've taught myself a couple of arpeggio patterns that work out extremely well. Since arpeggios are broken chords, I can use the same chord sheets I would use for strumming. It's just a matter of working out the timing.

I've been working out my own arrangements for a long time. I think I'd been playing for about 6 months when I started correcting chord sheets and using multiple strumming patterns in songs... When I work on strumming songs I'm usually adding chords to otherwise unremarkable arrangements. When I'm playing the same song using arpeggios I usually simplify the arrangement to match the flow of the song. I can pretty much tell what I'm playing by the number of chords written in or marked out.
 
I usually play by ear for folky and bluegrass stuff. I work out the melody and fit them into the chords. I do play a low G so it gives me more room to maneuver.
I like tabs for classical. I can read music, but I've discovered that tabs are more specific. If that makes sense)
 
I am lost without my tabs. For whatever reason (laziness, poor ear, whatever), I can't learn a song unless I have tabs for it. There are a couple of songs I have wanted to learn for years but I just can't pick them up by ear or by watching the videos so since I can't find tabs for them I have never learned how to play them.
 
I prefer ukulele sheet music over tabs because tabs do not show timing. Right now I am learning songs from books by Mark Kailana Nelson and music by Colin Tribe. You can buy Mr. Nelsons books from his website. Mr. Tribe has a book of over 800 fingerpicking songs. You have to e-mail him for a sheet music sample.
 
ubulele said:
I worked out almost everything I play, whether fingerpicking or chord-based, by ear.
Click to expand...

Same with me. Sometimes, though, I'll work out a fingering that feels more awkward than it should be - then I'll take a peek at some tab to see if I missed an easier option.
 
Properly written tabs show timing just as well as standard notation. In fact, they show everything that standard notation shows. This tab is not a finger-picking tab, but it does show timing as well as standard notation:
The Ash Grove for uke.jpg


The main advantage to tabs is that they are much more easily learned by a beginner. One lesson will get a student started on tabs, while it takes many lessons to learn much about standard notation.
The main disadvantage to tabs is that they are intended for a specific instrument. You cannot use tabs written for banjo to learn a tune on ukulele without modification.

I am glad that I know how to read standard notation and encourage my students to learn it, since there is a wealth of material available written in standard notation.
 
Last edited:
Jim Yates said:
Properly written tabs show timing just as well as standard notation. In fact, they show everything that standard notation shows.


The main advantage to tabs is that they are much more easily learned by a beginner. One lesson will get a student started on tabs, while it takes many lessons to learn much about standard notation.
The main disadvantage to tabs is that they are intended for a specific instrument. You cannot use tabs written for banjo to learn a tune on ukulele without modification.

I am glad that I know how to read standard notation and encourage my students to learn it, since there is a wealth of material available written in standard notation.
Click to expand...

I've never seen tabs that show all that standard notation does, and, if it did, one might as well write standard notation. I don't understand why students learn standard notation to play the violin or the bassoon or the clarinet or the piano, but they can't/won't learn it to play the ukulele or the guitar, etc.

We've had this conversation before, and I'm not sayin' that you're wrong. I've just never seen it. :eek:ld:
 
Down Up Dick said:
I've never seen tabs that show all that standard notation does, and, if it did, one might as well write standard notation. I don't understand why students learn standard notation to play the violin or the bassoon or the clarinet or the piano, but they can't/won't learn it to play the ukulele or the guitar, etc.

We've had this conversation before, and I'm not sayin' that you're wrong. I've just never seen it. :eek:ld:
Click to expand...
I try to learn both. I don't want to limit myself with only knowing one or the other. When I started with notation and was doing OK. I will admit however, that I have become better at playing from tabs. I can't get timing down well with notations though. I just don't have that rhythm down well enough yet, to put it together. My counting gets off for some reason. I have to find the song and listen to it a couple times first. But, it is something else to work on.
 
For purposes of your survey, I use tabs only. I don't think of this as the "right" way. It's simply the way I have learned, so far.
I get arrangements from the internet, including from this site, and from books. I spend a great deal of my learning time re-arranging, though.
 
Down Up Dick said:
I've never seen tabs that show all that standard notation does, and, if it did, one might as well write standard notation. I don't understand why students learn standard notation to play the violin or the bassoon or the clarinet or the piano, but they can't/won't learn it to play the ukulele or the guitar, etc.

We've had this conversation before, and I'm not sayin' that you're wrong. I've just never seen it. :eek:ld:
Click to expand...

What is missing from the sample tab in my previous post?

I do agree that a tab with no timing shown is worse than useless, but I've not seen many of those. Tab has its limitations as does standard notation. They're both ways of recording something on paper. but neither of them are music. You can't listen to marks on paper. Someone has to play/sing it before it becomes music.

Most of my guitar, ukulele and mandolin students do learn standard notation, but most of my 5-string banjo students use tab, and those who don't simply record the lesson on their phone and learn from that. I have had some adult students who want to learn guitar or ukulele to accompany their singing and have requested tabs. I did accommodate them.
 
Last edited:
Down Up Dick said:
I've never seen tabs that show all that standard notation does, and, if it did, one might as well write standard notation.
Click to expand...

I've not explored ukulele tab very much, but there is certainly an abundance of guitar, violin, banjo, and bass tab out there that shows timing and most of the other attributes of standard notation.

There is also a large body of tab that is devoid of anything but fingering info. The expectation here is that you are already familiar with the song and thus the timing, dynamics, etc.

So why use tab instead of standard notation? That debate has been hashed out a million times, but the basic answer is that tab is a quick-start method that gets one playing long before the time it takes to develop sight reading skills with standard notation. The advantage of standard notation is that it is instrument-agnostic. I don't see any reason why they (and we) can't coexist peacefully. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

ukeclass
Acquired Pekelo's Hawaiian Style Fingerpicking, Book 2
Replies
18
Views
678
Tonya
Tonya
miqbri
Should you aim to hold whole chords when fingerpicking?
Replies
19
Views
873
Oldscruggsfan
Oldscruggsfan
ppalma00
on the tenor Magic Fluke and fingerpicking
2
Replies
24
Views
991
UkingViking
UkingViking
Kahai
  • Article
UU Podcast Fingerpicking & Fingerstyle & Chord Melody, Oh My! | The Ukulele Underground Podcast #91
Replies
1
Views
234
badhabits
badhabits
rreffner
Chord Melody and/or Fingerpicking
Replies
8
Views
633
casualmusic
C
Top Bottom