Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Tabbing Out a Break - Assistance Needed

#1

I’ve decided to spend some time dissecting a mandolin break to help me with my improvisation. The first step for me is to go through the break and tab it out. After I get it tabbed out, I’m going to start looking at the different pieces of it and see what I can pull from it for my own improvisation.

I wanted to find a mandolin break that had a classic bluegrass mandolin sound with double stops, tremolo, slides and some bluesy notes. I heard this tune, and the mandolin break fit what my ear was looking for.

I thought this would be a relatively easy break to tab out, but soon realized there was more to it. I originally started tabbing things out with all of the notes in the 1st position. I soon realized there were slides happening that were not possible in the first position, so I had to find the notes in another place.

I’m pretty happy with what I’ve come up with, and I think it’s pretty close, but if there are some people on this forum with a great ear and eye for tabbing things out, I’d love it if you could take a listen to the mandolin break on the YouTube video, and see if there are any glaring mistakes with what I’ve done.

I’ll try to attach the PDF and TEF file. Thanks for any feedback!

larrysparkscloserwalkwiththee.tef (2.7 KB) larrysparkscloserwalkwiththee.pdf (29.9 KB)

2 Likes
#2

As I’ve started to play what I’ve tabbed out, I’m already seeing some changes I’ll need to make with the position I’m playing the notes in. It looks like a lot of these slides are really meant as a convenient way to change position. I’ll work on updating this with the new note positions and try to add fingering indicators.

1 Like
#3

It looks really great to me. In measure 5, I believe the melody goes to the 14th fret and comes back down to the 11th. I could be wrong, because I’ve not tabbed out songs before.
I think it is really cool to see people that have that much patience to TAB out songs like this! Keep going!

2 Likes
#4

Thanks for the feedback! I think you are right. Once I started playing through this, I was thinking that measure didn’t sound quite right. I’ll tinker with that. Thanks again!

I’m also thinking the first measure needs to be a rest, then four 8th notes and a quarter note. I tried to fill that measure, but I’m not sure what I did was correct.

1 Like
#5

Hey @Scot, great job tackling this one!

You’re correct in thinking that your positions are off. You wrote your doublestop positions on the lowest two strings, but the mando player on the recording is using the middle two strings, which is a better go-to for higher doublestops. Always remember to consider the option with the least shifting required and which seems most logical. For instance, in measure 4, you wrote in a floating scale lick to allow you to move up to that high position on the G and D strings. A much simpler way to play these notes would be to simply play the G scale as you normally would within the first five frets, then use the doublestop on the D and A strings.

Also observe the use of syncopation – this can get tricky fast. I like to count out EVERYTHING with a straight eighth note rhythm (one and two and three and four and) and observe where the notes fall and the pauses fall within those eight possible options.

For reference, I tabbed out the whole break for you with the positions I believe the player is using in the recording:

Man-JustACloserWalk-Sparks.pdf (54.1 KB)
Man-JustACloserWalk-Sparks.tef (3.0 KB)

Rather than just following this arbitrarily, aim to observe how these positions take shape on your fretboard and how they feel under your hands, and you’ll be able to explain why these positions would be logical choices. I think you’ll definitely get it!

3 Likes
#6

Wow! Thank you!

What do the notes in parenthesis mean, like the open notes on the A string in measure 3?

Also, I’m a little confused by the first 2 notes in measures 5 and 9. How do you fret a 5 on the A string, a 5 on the D string, and slide the D string up to a 7 or 9? Should those be a 4 and a 6 sliding up to a 5 and a 7, and a 4 and an 8 sliding up to a 5 and 9? Or is there some way to finger it that I’m not seeing? The best I can come up with is barring the 5th fret on both strings, and sliding the index finger up to the 9th fret, then putting the index on the 5th fret. I guess that works. Is there a better way?

In measure 6, you have a 4 (F#) sliding down to a 2 (E), followed by an open D. When I listen in slow speed, I would swear I hear the slide going from the F# all the way down to the D, followed by the D. That’s why I went up in position here, to slide from the 11th fret down to the 7th fret on the G string.

Thanks again for going through all of that! It’s been a great exercise, and the process of going through it has been as valuable as having the break tabbed out.

2 Likes
#7

The notes in parentheses are “ghost notes”. These are notes that can be heard ringing out, but are more “in the background” and don’t sound like they are the main intent of the pickstroke, if that makes sense. Those definitely don’t have to be marked as ghost notes; I just fall into the habit of using them to portray some of the fashion in which the notes are played.

I should have written the slide up to those doublestop positions better. I hear the slide happening on the D string much more than on the A string, so I wrote it that way - for me, this is just one of those “just slide up there” moments. I shouldn’t assume the reader knows my mind! Haha. I’d recommend sliding the position up on both strings or just sliding on the D string and fretting the A somewhere in/after the process. A little sloppiness here will sound fine.

I can also hear what you’re talking about with that slide from 4 going farther down- but keep in mind that the D note that follows sounds very much like an open D string. It’s possible that the player just slid “down” without aiming for a particular note, overshooting 2. Sometimes the trickiness of tab comes from trying to accurately notate things that aren’t originally intended to be examined at their smallest level!

2 Likes
#8

I agree that the D note sounds very much like an open D. The “rewrite” I was working on, I had changed it so it had the slide down from 11 to 7, and then the following quarter note was the open D string. I saw this open note as an opportunity to shift positions down to the following 3rd (or more accurately 2nd?) to 4th fret slide.

Thanks for all the help. I’ll tinker with this a little more and try to get some fingerings notated on the tab. This will give me an opportunity to try different fingerings to find the most efficient option.

I think at this point, I will also take the liberty of making some minor adjustments to make things fit my style a little. This will still let me use the guts of it for my improvisation learning purposes but it will also make it a bit easier for me to follow.

I’ve already been able to glean some useful bits from this. The first thing is that what I consider “tremolo” is easily expressed/played with triplets. Just that alone will help me get some tremolo into my improvisation. I did know that tremolo could be done with triplets, but I didn’t realize how natural it was to play. My past attempts at tremolo have been either unmeasured notes, or attempting 16th notes.

2 Likes
#9

@Michael_Mark, that was really considerate and well done. You should get a badge for extra credit, maybe the good Samaritan badge? I’ll just give you a bunch of nice stickers like we used to get in kindergarten:
:clown_face::space_invader::heart_eyes_cat::hear_no_evil::bomb::boom::100::facepunch:

3 Likes
#10

Quick question and I hope this isn’t too much of a sidebar, but is there a software that makes tabbing easy?

Thanks for sharing your tabs, @Scot!

2 Likes
#11

Yes TablEdit https://tabledit.com/

1 Like
#12

My fave is Soundslice, which allows you to host your tabs on the web for free. You’ll need a paid version to download them, though.

2 Likes
#13

Thanks for the info, gents!

I like this version of the song, too! A great pace to work on fills/breaks.

3 Likes