That’s quite an honour - thanks! Though for myself I’d have to
rank many other posts higher, mainly ones in which someone creates
a brilliant/elegant solution to a problem.
Leaving a blank space in what’s normally the clef area tends to
make it look as if something is missing; the three letters do fill
the gap. And (I hadn’t thought of this part) I suspect that the
frequent use of all-caps italic is intended to make the thing look
more like a “proper clef” - the treble and bass clefs are curly
and usually have contrasting stroke width - and if that’s the
reasoning, then some kind of “copperplate” style would be a better
fit than the edged-pen style I’ve sometimes seen.
BUT - “Proper clefs” are functional, and T A B isn’t. Since a
guitar-tab staff represents strings, I’d suggest that a real
proper guitar tab clef could be something that shows what tuning
is being used. But maybe that’s problematic for other reasons, and
I can’t even play guitar, so I’ll be quiet now.
David R
Andrew Bernard <andrew.bern...@gmail.com> writes:
Hello David,
I feel compelled to say this is the best post I have ever seen
on this list, on any topic! Marvellous.
As an aside, I find the TAB symbol just particularly dreadful.
But I often wonder why tablature even needs it - surely it is
obvious that
what follows is tab, and it does not indicate relative pitch.
Well, I am not a guitarist.
Andrew
On 28/11/2020 1:27 pm, David Rogers wrote:
If those letters were human, they’d each be wearing a fancy red
dress. And also a fancy blue dress at the same time, with a big
metallic-gold
sash. And they’d have their hair in ringlets, and pinned in
their hair they’d each have two peonies in full bloom. And
every time you played
the guitar, they would sing, in Spanish and Ukrainian and Igbo,
each one singing all three languages at once, with different
lyrics. And it
would be strangely glorious, and for this you would be the envy
of all your friends. Until you discovered that along with the
dresses and the
hair and the flowers, they’re vain and egotistical, constantly
preening and showing off and trying to outdo each other, and
once they
start singing they won’t shut up.
So it’s probably a good thing they’re just letters. :)
