Convincing a student that music notation is the way

[Daevren]

I have this 21 year old collage math student who plays bassguitar and is interested in music theory.

Of couse this person thinks in tablature but I told him it was a good idea to learn music notation. He can now write down all chords of every key in every key in music notation. So we moved on and I had him do some more real music and had him use a grand staff to write it down with the Finale software program as homework. But now he wants to do it in some program called Guitar Pro 4, so he can use tablature notation.

So I had a discussion with him, trying to convince him that music notations describes the music directly and that tabs describe the the physical movement of the fingers on the fretboard. He did not seem to get my point and I failed to convince him of my point.

Maybe I should have spent a full lesson on this, but I figured the more I talked about actual music the better for him. Seems he couldn't get my point because he doesn't master the sysyem of music notation and that makes a vicious circle.

Any advice?

[Torp]

Is he only interested in playing the bass guitar?  If so, I don't see the problem with tablature.  Afterall, piano music is exactly the same thing, a representation of where to put the fingers on the instrument, i.e. piano music is tablature for the piano.

The fretboard of a guitar, or bass, for that matter has it's own logical patterns and sequences based on different positions.  These patterns are not readily evident when reading traditional notation.  They are extremely evident when reading tablature.  For me, at least, that has meant I can play things on guitar using tablature that would be near impossible (or at least very time consuming for me) if I read the same thing with "traditional" notation.

Not knowing for sure what the overall goals are of your student, it's hard to say whether he will ever "miss" anything by not reading standard notation.  If he walks into a studio and someone hands him a lead sheet, or the sketch of a bass line for the rest of the group to comp on, and he doesn't know how to translate that into the appropriate positions and notes on the fret board he's going to look silly.  If, on the other hand, he's playing in a band that works through compositions on more of a "jamming" type basis and then he wants to write down the progressions for later recall, he probably won't have any problems and it will be more useful to him in tablature.

Anyway, I'm kind of rambling now so I'll sign off.

Jef

[Derek]

The obvious problem with reading notation for guitar music is as torp says, it takes a lot of practice to know what chord /scale patterns to use to play the notes on the page. tablature makes this easy.  On the piano there is exactly one pattern for any notes you see on the page, though there may be different fingerings.

The problem with tablature is its hard to indicate even notatable rhythm with it.  Some tablature writers put "dummy notes" over each tablature chord or note to indicate rhythmic values.

Once a guitarist or bassist gains enough fluency with improvisation in all sorts of scales and chords, and knows the notes of the fretboard,  at that point it probably wouldn't be unreasonable to learn notation.

[Daevren]

I am not teaching him sight reading.

I am teaching him music theory through composing.

Thats all I can, I cannot teach bass guitar. He knows this. Its just that I teach him for free. Kind of a friends favor.

[ChristmasCarol]

My general approach is to find out what the students responds to and give it to them.  If he is not hungry for the food you want to give him, why force it?  And, ah, er it has almost never worked out for me when I give my skills away for free.  I have stopped doing it altogether.  It is not balanced somehow when your expertise is not valued appropriately. 

[whynot]

This is interesting.  I think you're onto a good thing, encouraging him to work outside his comfort zone, especially since what you're trying to give him is something so useful.  I just think you need to be more sneaky about it!  He's composing for guitar?  Ask him how he could "flesh out" a guitar piece with a small ensemble.  Let him pick the instruments and the players and come up with some musical ideas.  Then tell him to go ASK those people how they'd like to see their parts written out.  With any luck, he'll get requests for the whole range: tab-chart-tradition notation (maybe even for a transposing instrument), but now THEY'RE asking for it.   You become the good teacher and friend who can help him with this instead of a nag trying to convince him to change.         
If you can get him to think it's his idea, and it becomes a project or goal that he can care about, he'll do it.