Ethan Iverson had some idle Sunday thoughts on tablature: scordatura, reentrant tuning, and pieces in natural harmonics are all arguments in favor of tab over against sight-reading snobs

I guess Ethan Iverson's idle Sunday thoughts as a pianist on guitar tab is a reminder that he's not a guitarist.

https://iverson.substack.com/p/idle-sunday-thoughts

 

As a pianist, I can sight-read almost anything within reason, including orchestral scores and choral music. I can’t get to first base with guitar tablature, which always struck me as the ultimate capitalist feint: “Here, we will give you something easy to start with that will ineluctably cripple your growth after a certain point and keep you walled off with the self-same community (other guitarists). Please don’t learn to read music, that is a distraction from our main interest, which is selling you more and more guitar gear to compensate for the fact that you can’t play in bands that use any conventional notation.”

Yesterday: guitar tab. Today: A.I.

…

Counterpoint one: Henry Kaiser on guitar tab.

Counterpoint two: Joni Mitchell’s Blue is the one of the greatest albums of all time, and she wrote a lot of it on guitar.¹

 

The real counterpoint can be summed up as "scordatura".  There are several layers to this counterpoint, as would be fit a "counterpoint" rebuttal.

Ethan Hein on John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillen", some observations about harmonic rhythm and all the songs that came after the original that missed that part of its rhythm

http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2021/boogie-chillen/

Ethan Hein has gotten around to blogging about one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite blues musicians, John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillen".  His analysis is well worth reading. Go give that a read before you read what I'm about to add about how many subsequent tributes to this classic blues song miss a crucial concept called harmonic rhythm.