Rant:TAB and 'classical' sheet music

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 12:48:30 -0700
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.guitar
Size: 1,998 bytes

 I went to my local Guitar Center today to try to find some music and what
I found was a bit disturbing to me. I could not find ANY books with 'classical guitar' in the title that had
just standard notation and very few without a CD. It seems as if the only
books that sell well have really pathetic transcriptions and the same old
same old in book after book. I found many versions of the same few pieces
and really bad versions of popular 'classical' music tunes like Moonlight
Sonata. This is not just at Guitar Center that I've seen this trend of dumbing down
the 'classical guitar' to the point that our music has become rare in music
stores. It's mostly really simple and poorly done transcriptions of music
that were not even written for guitar with most of the music forced into
first position in a way that further ruins the music. I used to be able to
go to stores and find some good stuff in the bins between the schlock but
more and more I find that none of the music stores in my area carry anything
but TAB 'classical'. There are often very bad mistakes in the standard
notation and only by referencing the TAB can I find out what was intended. Thank you MO and all the others who publish music that I can enjoy reading
without the annoyance of TAB taking half the pages for no reason other than
to appeal to the much larger group of people who cannot take the time to
learn how to read standard notation. I am rapidly becoming anti TAB now that
it is taking over everything that is labeled 'classical guitar' in the music
stores. I used to think it was a good thing that would lead people to
learning standard notation like it did for me but it seems like it's become
the only way anybody can publish 'classical guitar' that will be stocked in
the major music stores. I sure wish we had something like GSP in my area but I'm afraid that if
someone tried to open such a store in this area it would just go broke with
the few of us left in the county who would buy from them.