The History of GUITAR Tab!

In this video, Brandon Acker teaches the history of guitar tablature which was the dominant style of notation for plucked instruments from at least 1400-1800.

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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:30 The oldest tablature
3:10 Types of tablature
4:00 Rhythm
5:00 Instruments that use tab
6:32 Performing from manuscripts
7:23 Lessons
7:51 Up next

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[brandonacker]

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[xliquidflames]

Wow. I started playing guitar just as the internet was coming into its own in the early 90s. I was always under the impression that tab was an internet invention because sheet music wasn't possible - or very easy - to write on early websites. I believed that until this moment. I don't know how I've gone 30 years without discovering this. Thanks for the enlightenment. I seriously had no idea. There's something a little spooky about playing old music and hearing it with your own ears and playing it with your own fingers. It's almost like a form of time travel.

Well, I should have finished the video before commenting because you said the same thing about time travel.

[egcg]

My classical guitar teacher never allowed the use of tabs. Standard sheet music is written for piano and good for other instruments with fixed positions for notes. On guitar you can play the same exact notes on multiple areas of the guitar so you have to infer the position based on the following notes, or use pseudo-tabs to tell you where to put your fingers anyway

[philipcooper]

I have had not known guitar TAB was a thing since 1400's. I always thought it was a new concept to simplify music sheets for novice players.

[samshidoesmusic]

At 7am I found this video, i've spent all day learning to read Italian tablature on my guitar. Its now 9pm and i've ordered a lute.
Thanks a lot 😂

[junka]

Wow, I've been using tab for well over 20 years and I've never really thought about where it came from, can't wait for part 2!

[thewholeroll]

" An octave with a fifth in it". Sounds like a power chord to me! They were🤘in the 15th century too!

[SO-ymzs]

I play popular styles on guitar and bass, and tablature, like you say is, is common in those worlds: neat, efficient, relatively easy to learn. It also has the big advantage of dictating/suggesting a fingering that will give a desired timbre. On an electric bass, the tone colors between strings can differ wildly, so it very much matters where you choose to play a particular note. I'm heartened to see this system, sometimes scorned by snobs, has a long, distinguished history. If the end goal is to transmit or teach music, tab is a rather wonderful tool.

[IcedForce]

It is also interesting that with digital era we have basicly come around back to the start again using more tablature like "language" than notation. MIDI as a code is extremely simple to read if you don't need to think about notes, the raw code just basicly tells the length of a sound, channel for which the sound is and the ordinal number of the pressed piano key.

The interesting part about history of MIDI is actually that before it was settled and there was competing standards, there actually was couple which were notation based, as in they told to play the sound of "4th octaves C" as "4C" or similar. But there were significant problems with those competing systems and not only that they required more memory (anything that requires letters which aren't in machine code hexadecimal format require translation) but the even bigger one was just coders as people. Just assigning every piano key a number and using "press key 25" doesn't require any musical knowledge, like you don't need to know the 25th key from the left on a piano is 3rd octaves C# and the key next to it is 3rd octaves D, it is just the 26th key on piano.

I would say this logical simplicity of tablatures is part of why it has survived, while probably the bigger reason especially with the string instruments is the amount of information relayed to the player as in the fingering. The player doesn't need any deeper knowledge of the instrument to follow along tablatures, they hardly even need to understand the instrument to figure out what they are told to do.

[nstrug]

I didn’t realise that the tablature produced by Guitar Pro, which also incorporates standard rhythmic notation, was not a new innovation. Fascinating that historic tab did the same thing.

[clairenicholls]

How absolutely fascinating! Early music specialists are such versatile musicians, there is so much knowledge required to read and interpret this music that us standard classical orchestral musicians don’t have to even consider
Thanks for the lesson!
Much love from Australia 🇦🇺

[viktormedina]

This is so interesting! You not only play for us the most beautiful pieces, but you also cover so many interesting music related topics. Thank you as always, @Brandon Acker

[kirbymarchbarcena]

Smoke on the Water played from the lute? I approve that one!!!

[RockyH.]

Thank you for bringing this beauty to me! I love Tab!!!

[CookyOfficial]

I've always found tablature so interesting, especially because I never learned how to read tab until I started learning classical guitar! Thank you for sharing this and can't wait for part II!

[noizeemama]

Love that you went into Smoke on the Water! I swear it's the first thing everyone learns on guitar the last 20 years. :)

[louisebeaudry]

Very interesting video, thank you Brandon !

[carlal.]

Woow! Tablature history is so amazing. Thank you so much.

[cheechmcduck]

Smoke On the water on lute sounded cool 😊. it's such a lovely sounding instrument

[PaulAshley]

I always thought tabs were recent and a crutch for those who can't read what we now consider standard musical notation. So I learned something today. In some ways, tabs are a much better way to notate for plucked string instruments.