Re: Tab one octave off?

[Lamy Jean-Baptiste]

> Sort of the opposite.  The *guitar* has been one octave off for
> centuries.
> Banjo has always imitated the guitar.  Long necked lutes also, balalaika,
> colascione, etc., are usually at the octave.
> 
> The short-necked lutes, viol and mandolin families
> have generally not been off.
> 
> I was happily surprised to find no one protesting the use of "G_8" for
> guitar
> music.  If you don't notate instruments according to their true pitch
> guitar is not the only instrument that might cause you trouble.  Some
> winds don't always consistently use octave clefs either.  I have heard
> midi files where the author apparently had trouble putting his guitar
> parts in the right octave, and the result was peculiar.
> 
> It may or may not surprise you to know that when the guitar had only four
> strings
> guitar music was commonly written in notation with one voice, adding 
> arbitrary more-or-less standard chord names a-z etc..  That system
> was called "alfabeto" and it coexisted with tab.  At that
> time noted guitar music was written at the octave because all the notes
> in first
> position fit on the treble clef staff without leger lines that way. 
> Nothing
> ever happened to change the practice, even the exclusive use of
> tab for the 5 course guitar, until the invention of "G_8".
> 
> I think that if you use "G_8" with guitar music that it will save
> you and your users trouble in the long and the short run.  Its acceptance
> seems
> to be much more widespread than I thought.  

Thank you for your reply !
But please can you go further and explain me what is the "G_8" ? I have
only a very limited musical knowledge, and i have never used
non-tablature-based system.

Jiba