The Steel Guitar Forum

Yes, I was teacher for beginning Hawaiian Guitar in the mid 1950's and used several of Oahu music.

I sent you an e-mail with details.

Thanx,
Jim

The real test would be for the lawyer to randomly pick a piece of sheet music off the shelf and see if they could play it.

That's not what the case was about. It was about tablature being a form of notation from which people could play music. And it was proven to be that when the judge was able to play the tune within a few minutes.

"Has just been painting by numbers all these years?"

Do you think Jerry uses tab?

"That's not what the case was about. It was about tablature being a form of notation from which people could play music. And it was proven to be that when the judge was able to play the tune within a few minutes.
"

Yeah, I got that. But unfortunately, it is a form of notation that keeps you locked into the publisher of the tab and limits you to whatever has been tabbed by the publisher. By learning standard notation, the student is free to purchase sheet music from any and all publishers of sheet music. Not something that Oahu was particularly interested in promoting, I would imagine.

A disagreement about the merits of tablature vs round-noted treble clef is pretty off topic.

It is directly related to the fact that Oahu taught tab and was sued for it. Plus it goes directly to their business model, which at least one of their direct competitors didn't do and used as a differentiator.

...unfortunately, it is a form of notation that keeps you locked into the publisher of the tab and limits you to whatever has been tabbed by the publisher.

I agree with that, but that is beyond what this case was about. The judge concluded that Oahu had not defrauded buyers because the buyers could play the music from the tablature. End of case.

I can see that this discussion of tablature VS sheet music fits in very nicely with Jordan's stated objective of, "What worked well? What didn't work well? Who participated? Why?"

Exactly Ted. It goes right to their business model and bottom line. By steering students to their tablature, they not only lock them in to Oahu as their only source of new sheet music, it locks them into a specific tuning and guitar setup. Tired of what you are playing? Only one source to go to for more.

When Eddie Alkire split from Oahu in the 30's and began his own publishing empire to compete directly with Oahu, he specifically differentiated his product by NOT locking them in to him as the sole publishing source and not locking them into a specific tuning, which worked to his advantage when he extended the tuning. And since he wrote harmony parts for other instruments, it opened his market beyond the steel guitar "A tuned" instrument. Notice the marketing speak on a typical Alkire publication:

One can argue what the best approach is, but it is interesting to note that modern day publishers for steel guitar, like Doug and Andy Volk, have adopted a more hybrid approach, providing both tab for a specific tuning as well as standard notation. This makes sense since, in today's world, fewer people are trained in standard notation, unlike former times when music instruction was a standard part of an elementary school education. For instance, I learned to read standard notation starting in 1st grade and I still remember Every Good Boy Does Fine and FACE being drilled into us at an early age. In my public school, everyone learned an instrument in the first grade.

In addition, since there are multiple places on a steel guitar to play the same note, it takes additional knowledge to know where to play the note based on the harmonic setting. Most people today who are picking up steel guitar, just don't have the background and want things easy peasy (that is not a value judgement). Hence the need for tab in today's marketplace.

I think this is a fascinating topic that is largely forgotten. I was recently in Oahu and told a local all that history about how Hawaiian Guitar became a national craze and industry and that's why people play steel guitar all over the world. He was blown away.

All my tab is written to include the musical notation, chords and lyrics.
It doesn't take long to figure out the correlation between the tab and the notation.
It is definitely a learning experience.
Erv

On a side note, a small music store here in Ontario just gave me a stack of Ontario Conservatory of Music Modern Method for Electric and Hawaiian Guitars"! I've yet to go through them, but am curious.

There were quite a few different publishers putting out hawaiian sheet music back then. I have a bunch of one offs from different publishers. I'll try and post some.

Jordan: The person I wrote about isn't sure of the method her father used. I can still send her email if you're interested though.