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I may have asked this before, but with the recent discussions about Guitar Pro it made me realize that I still don't have an answer. Since GP does have "official" TAB's and sheet music for copy written songs then why doesn't BIAB.
It would possibly increase sales.
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Hi Bob. Just curious and trying to understand your question: does Guitar Pro show the melody with that sheet music? If they do, then they must have negotiated a lot of licenses. Or is it just showing the chord progressions?
And a dumb question since I don't know the first thing about Tab, but can Tab show the melody? I think it's just chord diagrams in the correct placement, right?
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And a dumb question since I don't know the first thing about Tab, but can Tab show the melody? I think it's just chord diagrams in the correct placement, right?
Tab is melodic as it shows locations of individual notes, etc. Even I learned to flatpick some bluegrass standards via it way back in the day. Or as Wiki reads, “Tablature is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering or the location of the played notes rather than musical pitches. Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the guitar, lute or vihuela, as well as many free reed aerophones such as the harmonica.” Bud
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Hi Bob. Just curious and trying to understand your question: does Guitar Pro show the melody with that sheet music? If they do, then they must have negotiated a lot of licenses. Or is it just showing the chord progressions?
And a dumb question since I don't know the first thing about Tab, but can Tab show the melody? I think it's just chord diagrams in the correct placement, right?
On the official songs put out by GP, they show the melody and other pertinent parts. Not just the chord progressions. I would hope they've negotiated a lot of licenses. " And a dumb question since I don't know the first thing about Tab, but can Tab show the melody? I think it's just chord diagrams in the correct placement, right?" TAB does show the melody since all modern TAB includes the standard notation. It's actually the "premium" version of music notation for stringed fretted instruments and it works for all other instruments since it includes standard notation.
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If you wanted to learn a Tony Rice break written on guitar and then play it on a sax, then you could by using TAB that includes standard notation.
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A visit to https://www.guitar-pro.com/ might answer some of your questions. Contrary to popular belief, TAB is not a shortcut to playing music on a stringed fretted instrument. It's a much more precise method of conveying information. Unfortunately, some old dipsh*ts still discourage people from using it because they think it's "cheating". I never knew that conveying precise information to a student would be "cheating".
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The answer may be in the design. GP is based on Notation, which is equivalent to the sheet music. Therefore, GP can play a song note for note - lick for lick. While BIAB is based on the chord chart and therefore designed for Accompaniment. Apples and Oranges.
Oh and by the way, I just stumbled on a collection of 51,000 GP tab e-files. This comes from a time back in the day, when ALL music on the Internet was Free.
Last edited by MusicStudent; 08/20/23 07:08 AM.
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I'm just guessing that to introduce another having to pay for layer (sub) to biab would only put buyers off rather than increase sales.
I am also new to Guitar pro due to a discussion thread on here, but think I may have installed the demo in the past and opened Mysongbook when I started the software, and was greeted with a sub to sign up to. I soon uninstalled the software.
It was only after seeing a recent thread on here about Guitar pro, that I realised that I didn't have to sign up to that sub and lots of files are available on net.
Likewise with biab, a good friend of the forum has made available thousands of files.
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And a dumb question since I don't know the first thing about Tab, but can Tab show the melody? I think it's just chord diagrams in the correct placement, right?
Tab is melodic as it shows locations of individual notes, etc. Even I learned to flatpick some bluegrass standards via it way back in the day. Or as Wiki reads, “Tablature is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering or the location of the played notes rather than musical pitches. Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the guitar, lute or vihuela, as well as many free reed aerophones such as the harmonica.” Bud The more I read about Tab (such as what Bud is saying) the more I'm liking it.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677BiaB 2026 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
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The more I read about  the more I enjoy 
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I think tab is great, if it is tabbed correctly it can show the right position on fretboard to play a melody, As far as I know this can't be done as easily with standard music notation.
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eddie1261
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I think tab is great, if it is tabbed correctly it can show the right position on fretboard to play a melody, As far as I know this can't be done as easily with standard music notation. You know what else works equally as well as paper telling you what to do? Learning the neck and practicing. For 2 hours a day.
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Yep you are right there Eddie, but I am getting older time is short, I have a few other hobbies as well, so sometimes its only ten minutes a day, not two hours. I'm not bad at playing a few common scales up the board, but my view is, whether its tab or standard notation, if it helps to learn a tune faster, why not accept it. For this kind of fast tune, probably Tab will be more useful than standard notation as it gives a better idea of position on fretboard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvSzLT2QG1k
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To eddie1261: Everyone can learn and play a guitar solo, but not everyone can play a production level guitar solo. In modern professional productions, for most guitar solos, a shred part (1/32rd notes) are required to be not only played but also played clearly with articulations. If you don't have the skill, or the budget to hire a professional guitarist, then a virtual guitar would be your only option.
To Matt Finley: Tab = MIDI_Notes + String_Fret_Info + Articulation. The power of a guitar tab, is not to be read by a human so he can just play it on a guitar, but is the ability to be read by virtual instruments such as Guitar Pro and Realistic Sound Engine, and generate a high fidelity guitar sound with all the articulations being played such as pitch bend, vibrato, legato slide, palm mute, pinch harmonic, etc.
To Bass Thumper: Guitar Pro is the industry standard for lead guitar solos. If you know how to professionally humanize that thing, you can generate riffs and licks better than Brent Mason.
To Janice & Bud: Yes, piano can only play one note on one piano key, while for one note it can be played on different frets and strings on a guitar, that's why guitar solos sound so different and unique.
To musiclover: BiaB is using a different algorithm to generate guitar solo. Guitar Pro is notes based, each note can be edited to form an ensemble melody, resemble a real life playing. BiaB is audio based, the algorithm just pick a few pieces of pre-recorded audios and put together a melody, that's why the rhythm tracks sound ok, but the lead tracks always sound weird and forced.
To bobcflatpicker: I have no problem with BiaB's guitar soloist tracks, they were all recorded by great guitarists. My problem is with BiaB's algorithm to piece together those soloist tracks, the end result just sounds random and mismatched. I hope Peter can come up with a new algorithm in the future years, specifically made for comping lead type of RealTracks. The current algorithm for comping Rhythm type of RealTracks is already doing great.
To MusicStudent: Who doesn't want Slash to play a piece of guitar solo in every single song they produce? Currently BiaB can't do that, but with a virtual guitar, yes, you get unlimited Slash for free.
A Canadian music producer, singer songwriter, composer, and professional guitarist.
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I think we've gotten off track of the original question, and I take full responsibility for that by mentioning TAB. I just mentioned Guitar Pro because they do have tons of official TAB's that are for songs that are copyrighted.
It's not about notation. It's about providing BIAB songs/arrangements that are copyrighted, (copy written ?).
I know there would be fees involved and I'm going to give Guitar Pro the benefit of a doubt and assume they've paid those fees. Those "song packs" could be sold separately which wouldn't cause the price of BIAB to go up.
So again, hey Peter Gannon. LOL
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To Bass Thumper: Guitar Pro is the industry standard for lead guitar solos. If you know how to professionally humanize that thing, you can generate riffs and licks better than Brent Mason.
I have no interest for lead guitar solos using Guitar Pro; I love lead guitar and several other instruments, but the bass is my main musical passion. Due to Matt and Dan's recent suggestions in this forum I recently purchased GP. Some may say that tab is the musical equivalent of paint by numbers and it may be, but I'm using it to get inside the head of masterful bass players and (hopefully) figure out what makes a good bass line and how I might apply that thinking to other songs for which I only have a chord progression or on songs I write myself. And because tab tells you what string and what fret, I'm finding situations where the same note at a different position on the fretboard works better for me. This will be a life journey and GP is a good tool in this regard.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677BiaB 2026 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
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I think we've gotten off track of the original question, and I take full responsibility for that by mentioning TAB... Not your fault, Bob; it's mine. I thought perhaps by understanding Tab better, I might be able to lend support to your request. I did learn more about it, and thanks to all who offered info.
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There should be no confusion about TAB. These graphics should make the understanding self-evident.  So...the six lines represent the strings of a guitar, and unless otherwise states in standard tuning. E A D G B E Like this. The numbers represent the fret.  The above example represents a well-known melody. To use TAB if you do not know what the song is supposed to sound like would require you to listen to the song. That fact would be expected for using TAB. The reason you need to listen to the song is there is no rhythm information in TAB. By knowing the notes on a guitar neck, a Trumpet player could play the single notes. Also, the standard notation of the diagram will not inform the guitar player where to play the notes because there is more than one place to produce the same note on a guitar. Chords can also be represented in TAB. Like this.  So...as you can see, this is not rocket science. In professional recording studios, several methods of communicating information to session players are common. Standard notation, Nashville notation in several forms, TAB, verbal information like "this is like the bridge in XYZ" and someone plays the part on the same instrument or another instrument to demonstrate. So...if you call it a 1000 or ten to the third it is still a 1000. No big deal but ten to the ninth is a pain in the butt number to write being 1000000000. We describe things differently for convenience and simplicity. The open low E string on the guitar is E2 on the piano. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of resistance to learning new information. Why is it that the USA and Bangladesh are the only two countries not using the metric system? If a system of communicating information is useful to you, then it is logical to learn it. If you don't have any use for the system then don't learn it. What's the big deal? Billy
Last edited by Planobilly; 08/20/23 06:23 PM.
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Yes, that’s very clear. Thanks Billy.
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When I started guitar there were no tabs. The Mel Bay guitar method put a little number by a note to let you know what position you should start the exercise. After that you were expected to figure out what position you should be using. Thus you had to learn the entire fretboard.
I had to start learning tabs so I could help my students use them. I will admit tabs is a lot easier to learn positions than the Mel Bay method but if one doesn't learn notation they will be handicapped in the long run IMHO.
So yes I use tabs but for me tabs without the notation is almost useless. I need the notation like the ones Billy posted for note duration and to help me remember where the notes are on the fretboard. YMMV
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