# How do YOU notate for 8 string guitar?



## Solodini (May 28, 2011)

Treble clef with a ton of ledger lines? Treble clef up a further octave? Bass clef? Two staves as though piano?

What's your method? I've not started notating for 8 string yet so I'm curious.

If you say tab then you shall be killed with a rock!


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## Explorer (May 28, 2011)

On instruments with more range than a guitar, I typically use two staves. My largest hammered dulcimer has a range of 5 octaves.

If I'm notating a fretboard instrument, I will *also* use tabulature in conjunction with it. Standard notation can't easily notate position on so many strings, just as tabulature can't easily notate duration. There are also some great guitaristic notations which have become standard (hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends, etc.) which have become common due to the many books and magazines which use them. All the "Recorded Version" books need both standard and tab to put across in print all the nuances of a performance.

To me, the point of notation is to write down the intended music for later playing/reproduction. I have no philosophical objection to using whatever tool is necessary for getting a particular job down, so I have no problem with using tabulature as part of notation, or even just as shorthand. 

I can easily write out tab with some duration information included, much more easily than writing on a staff alone. 

Ever read lute tabulature? There's a reason it was so common for 8- and 9-course instruments, and its compactness is a virtue for some. 

However, you are definitely within your rights to insist that it's a tool forbidden to you due to your philosophies.

Good luck!


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## Solodini (May 28, 2011)

Tab does have uses, as you mentioned I just find it useful for appreciation of music and improvement as a musician to be able to interpret. As you say, neither medium shows every nuance of playing: being a musician is about interpretation. I'm thinking double staves is going to me the method I adopt.

I think it's important to be able to use both but I like notation for the ability to play what's written on other instruments without having to translate it first.


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## Explorer (May 28, 2011)

I can agree with the transportability. I constantly run across people who play hammered dulcimer who can't play a piece unless it's been tabbed out. I'm glad I decided to learn from those mallet percussion method books, instead of going the folk route.

However, if one isn't going for complete reproduction, and if transportability isn't an issue, then I can definitely see the superiority of tabulature to standard notation for 8-string.

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This won't be applicable for 8-string, due to its huge note range, but for the sake of completeness, I'll occasionally use a single alto clef for some instruments....


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## Solodini (May 28, 2011)

As I say, I think it helps with appreciation of music, as well. Even if it's something you've written, I think it helps you to notice things musically which you may not have previously. Especially when writing music, I think it helps for development of ability for later composition.

I had considered tenor clef. It's also tempting to go a bit gregorian and create a pdf of an extended stave.


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## SirMyghin (May 28, 2011)

You can try to kill me with a rock, but I think I can take you. I use tab. Can I write on a staff for guitar, yes, ofcourse. I can read treble easily too, bass is usually a bit of a hang up. Thing is I find notation quite unintuitive for guitar, the range is too great for the staff. Unless you use some arbitrary staffs and start where you want that is, but comes with its own issues (like learning to read again). 

Tab is just better suited to show all the nuance of guitar playing. Treble clef and an octave up notation when needed(so I can write on the staff) works to some extent, but it one thing I would rather not watch for. I really hate reading too many leger lines, sax got bad enough with 'high E' or whatever my top note was. (pretty sure it was E, 4 semitones about C iirc anyway). Even below the staff, without using a grand staff, gets annoying to me on a 6 string alone.


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## Explorer (May 28, 2011)

Having just taken a quick look at my music bookcase today, I see that I use different tools for different reasons.

When transcribing a recording, or when working at a keyboard or dulcimer, I use standard two stave.

When composing for multiple instruments, standard. 

Songwriting? Melody with chord grills above.

Interlocking bass/guitar parts on 8-string? I thought the answer would be tab, but I use two-stave standard, so that I can see what's happening harmonically. There are a few examples where I use tab with chord names written above, but not so many.

The examples of 8-string just jotted down off the cuff are in tab, but apparently I compose most things away from instruments, using a small voice recorder, and later transcribe them to develop them further. 

And the stuff I've been working on with my new fretless 6-string and eBow is all in standard with typical bowing/articulation markup, likely a result of my always having used written violin/cello music as learning material for full fifths. 

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As Solodni notes, it can be handy to have things written in standard, in order to aid one's comprehension of what is happening harmonically. 

I have to wonder, though.

You know how people who *learn* electronics can look at a schematic and comprehend a circuit, in the same way most of us can look at written English and see sentences, built up of individual letters and so on? 

I wonder if the old lutenists could apprehend tabulature the way I (and others) have learned to apprehend standard notation.

Really, the only reason I understand standard, and can see harmonic developement, is because I put in the practice time, drilling the same way I drilled in order to read and write. Putting in enough time on something is really the only way to master it, to be able to use it unconsciously. 

Does anyone who uses tabulature exclusively, or almost exclusively, have any comment on understanding and reading it in that way?


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## Solodini (May 28, 2011)

I've wondered the same but I find it unlikely that they would comprehend in the same way as we do with notation. Notation is a legend for the language, as with any written language where you read the letter A and think A; see A, C and E and read ace. Most people who read notation can see a dot on a stave and tell you it's an A or see 3 dots and tell you it's an A minor chord.

If someone plays from tablature in standard tuning all the time then they'd possibly develop the relative pitch to determine how it would sound and, thus, determine other tunings by the differences. However, I find it difficult to imagine the absolute recognition that notation gives being read from tablature.

Maybe a better comparison is comparing the spelling of a word to the phonetic description as in the dictionary. You can see "anechoic" and derive an- echo -ic and see that it means 'lacking properties of reverberance' but see 
æn&#618;&#712;k&#601;&#650;&#618;k and pronounce it without any idea of its meaning or usage.


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## Explorer (May 28, 2011)

I don't know about it being so incomprehensible. 

I can look at someone's hands on their fretboard, if I'm familiar with the tuning, and know what they're doing. Similarly, I can look at tabbed chord shapes and music for a standard-tuned 6-string and understand the music. 

At some point, if you invest time into scales, chords, and their relationship, you understand how deviations in chord shapes, or moving a scale step, changes what is going on. Most people can do that with a guitar in their hands, if they've practiced that stuff. 

Tabulature just lets you put that fretboard stuff down on paper.

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Honestly, I prefer keyboards for studying and composing music, as it's easy to perceive relationships between notes. In fact, I find it much easier to work at a keyboard than using standard notation, so I normally compose multi-part things using one. All Cs look the same, all Gs, and so on. 

Hmm. This thread has me GASsing for a harpejji again.

*laugh*


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## SirMyghin (May 28, 2011)

I recognize quite well on tabs, having stopped reading msuic some 5-6 years ago on guitar, mostly as I don't buy it, and for my previous music. I can pick out the note, and then I generally think in intervals after the note. So I can follow 'harmonic structure' to some extent from it alone. It really isn't that far fetched, the fret number is a convinience but it is still a note and a lot of folks know what that note is. Intervals are also easier to see when using tab I find, I never liked reading chords as a stack of notes. I pick out the scales, know my chords and triads, the whole lot, tab at a glance is quicker for me though. 

On a side note I have made use of Guitar Pros standard notation over a tab quite often, that works quite well too, as it is sort of the best of both worlds. 

The one thing I have no experience with is a Nashville chart, from what I understand those are another thing entirely.


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## Solodini (May 28, 2011)

Myg & Ex, consider transcribing that into another tuning, though. Tablature of Davy Graham, Kaki King, et c..


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## SirMyghin (May 28, 2011)

Solodini said:


> Myg & Ex, consider transcribing that into another tuning, though. Tablature of Davy Graham, Kaki King, et c..



I shift tunings and such in tabs all the time, as far as tunings go I play in standard, how boring is that?  Tuning are generally used to facilitate certain aspects, but I just attack from a different angle instead. 

Yes notation is universal, but it is still doable to a great extent.


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## Explorer (May 28, 2011)

Solodini said:


> Myg & Ex, consider transcribing that into another tuning, though. Tablature of Davy Graham, Kaki King, et c..



That's an excellent consideration. I have a good example.

I remember learning the Michael Hedges composition "Layover" when it was in Guitar Player Magazine back in the '80s. 

You could learn the broad strokes of the piece using the standard notation on another instrument (yes, I learned it on hammered dulcimer), but there'd be no way to transfer that standard notation version to the guitar. The guitar was in an alternate tuning, and that might have been the only Hedges piece using that particular tuning, so there is no real incentive to master playing in that tuning using standard notation. 

If I recall correctly, I was once talking with Mike and he said that he had starting composing that piece on piano. He later devised the tuning to be able to play it on guitar. 

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Now, having considered that example, I have two observations.

If one wants to understand a piece through its written form, one has to be conversant with that form of writing (standard, tab, whatever) for that particular instrument and tuning.

If one wants to learn a piece in an unfamiliar tuning on guitar (Sebastapol, DADGAD, any of numerous 7- and 8-string tunings), then tabulature is the easiest way to transfer that from paper to fretboard. 

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I hadn't really thought about how cool it is to have all these tools at our disposal. I remember working my way through that Pierre Bensusan book in DADGAD back in the 80's/90's, as well as that "Masters of Fingerstyle Guitar" book from Mel Bay (3 CDs, so many different tunings!). If they hadn't combined the tab and standard, who knows how much a guitar player would have gotten out of them....


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## Mr. Big Noodles (May 28, 2011)

For an 8, I'd use a grand staff or alternate between clefs on a single-line staff. Hell, I'd do that for a 6 in standard tuning if I needed to. I'm pretty savvy with a lot of different notations, though, and I write most of the leadsheets in my band. It's pretty much whatever the situation calls for - chord symbols, riffs written out, rhythmic notation to indicate what sort of rhythm I want for any given part, I might give a bass note and a chord symbol, to indicate where I want the chord played, or I might spell out the entire chord (along with leadsheet symbol) so that whoever reads it can look at the voicing one time and understand what I'm going for. Basically, I make my intentions clear in whatever way I know how to. I'm lucky enough to be in a band where everybody can read standard notation and has a good ear, so I'm in an ideal situation, but if somebody needed to see tab along with my notation, I'd gladly provide. Mmm, margaritas.


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