A question about music notation????

I just bought my 13 yr old son a copy of Bass Tab White Pages. It shows the music notation and tab, he is more interested in the notation. He was looking at a song and asked how do you know what position on the fretboard to you play a certain note. He understands what the notes are but how do you know which note they are talking about on the neck if you have no reference to the tab. Btw, I really didn't want to buy a book with tab but it was the best we could come up with for the bass anyway. The kid is on a real mission playing Bass in the school band and also taking drum lessons. I'm sure his music teacher can help him with the book but I thought I could find out before he sees her again next week.

standard notation does not take into account the fact that on a guitar/bass you can play the same note (same octave) in a few different places on the fingerboard. what you have to do, is look at the piece of music and while keeping in mind associated notes in the musical line or phrase, determine where the easiest place is on the fingerboard to execute this line/string of notes. this is not an issue for other instruments as there is only one place to play each note (in each octave) - piano, for example.

very good practice would be for your son to learn the notes in a linear fashion up and down each string AND "in position". this helps to see the fingerboard as one big playground and not as separate areas.

hope this helps.

That does make sense, thanks.

Get the "piano" music books for songs you want to learn and look at the bass cleft. Won't be the exact bass line a guitarist would use but will help him to learn standard notation and how to transpose it for the bass.

If I remember correctly doesn't the white pages book have standard notation also? If it does simply cover the tab and work from the standard notation. No peeking of course :lol: but by comparing the two, if they are there you can learn where to finger certain runs.

A third option would be to get one of the tab programs that produces both tab and standard notation. And write it out in standard notation and see what the tab suggests for fingering.

Peter

I took piano lessons as a kid more so to learn to read music than to learn the piano because I was already hooked on guitar. One day I brought my guitar to my piano lessons and asked my teacher the very same question because I wanted to be able to apply what I had learned to my guitar playing. Here is what she told me: Look at the 5th string, third fret C (the root of the open Cmjr chord) the same as you would look at "middle" C when reading music for the piano. Now I have never tried to play the real fancy classical piano stuff on guitar but for basic songs this has always worked for me. For all you Music nuts out there I may be way off when it comes to theory but it seems to work.

Here is what she told me: Look at the 5th string, third fret C (the root of the open Cmjr chord) the same as you would look at "middle" C when reading music for the piano. ... I may be way off when it comes to theory but it seems to work.
Well, you're off by about 12 notes. ;-) Guitar sounds an octave lower than written, so middle C on the piano is the same as the C played at the 1st fret, 2nd string on the guitar. Hope it helps, CS :-)