Re: Tab difficulty rating
TheDoomOfAllFires
VG Maniak Location: France Joined: Aug 26 2008 |
That's a good idea.
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Re: Tab difficulty rating
Tanimax
Location: In your room stealing your musics Joined: Mar 24 2009 |
That would help alot. There's one little problem, who decides what's hard and whats easy? Plenty of times I've seen a tab called easy, and I've stumbled over every note, and couldn't play it for crap. I think one was a clock town arrangement... supposedly a beginners piece. Other times, a tab has been called insanely hard, and I got it without too much trouble. This happened once with... I don't remember. But, it is a sound idea. |
Re: Tab difficulty rating
archardJoined: Jan 11 2007 |
Tanimax said
That's exactly why we don't have a difficulty rating. There's no objective scale we can put this on. What's hard is going to be easy for others, and vice versa.
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DANG |
Re: Tab difficulty rating
SpiderTemplarius
Music hunger Location: Poland Joined: Oct 22 2008 |
Right, there is no objective scale, but what about additional 'difficulty rate' - users could add not only rate about how good tab is, but also how difficult is to play those piece. That's my opinion. |
Re: Tab difficulty rating
zen03y
CATFOOD Location: Lynn, MA Joined: Jun 20 2009 |
An average? Because maybe in profiles people could be able to select what (Bass, Acoustic, or Electric) they play with or like most. They rate one of * levels for a song, and the difficulties come up like: Difficulty for: ** = Picture The more *GUITARS* the more difficult for certain players? Or maybe just use (Pick or Finger) to replace all the above "*word* - difficulty" LoL I just want guitar symbol. |
Re: Tab difficulty rating
surreal
Eric: tank,godlike Location: Arizona Joined: Jan 04 2009 |
Rather than some broad rating system it would just be much more efficient and understandable if the tab creator explains the difficulties of the song and the techniques it requires. i.e. sweep picking required, tremelo picking required, etc. |
Re: Tab difficulty rating
HypomaniJoined: May 28 2009 |
I agree with SpiderTemplarius. Of course, there's no such thing as an absolute difficulty rating, but I believe archard is overcomplicating things. Who decides how hard a song is to play? Why, the users, of course. As for "there's no objective scale we can put this on"; why wouldn't a user average be sufficient? Again, I'm not saying it's possible to give all tabs an exact number representing their difficulty, but overall the community is able to distinguish between a few skill levels. Example: there's inarguably a level difference between this and this. While most beginners would be able to play the first one, the second will of course require a certain amount of training. In practice I believe the first one would easily fall into the 'easy' category, while the second one would go in 'medium' or perhaps even 'hard'. It doesn't really matter, because a newbie would be able to go directly to the first one anyway, while someone looking for more of a challenge would pick the second one, either they're an intermediate or experienced player. Furthermore, you can expect the difficulty categories to adjust by time. When people see what categories the different tabs go in they know what to expect from ie. a 'hard' tab. In my humble opinion, there's few tabs on this page that's really hard, but if I was looking extensive guitar arrangements I would go directly to 'hard' (given that I knew I was able to play most the other 'hard' arrangements). The reason I really want a system like this is because when I visit this page once in a while I have trouble finding songs I enjoy playing. There's so many tabs here that are played on one string at a time (or even just one through the whole piece) which I wouldn't need to search for a tab for anyway. The rating system doesn't really reflect the tab either, because when people find a melody they like they give it five stars anyway. My best option till now has been to look for tabs done by tabbers such as Kabukibear and Stamen47. Unfortunately, this way I'm limited to the works of three or four tabbers I already know. So what I'm really looking for is not a 'difficulty' rating, but more of a way to see how extensive arranged a tab is. By chance this also highly reflects the level of difficulty, so I don't think my idea is all stupid. |
Re: Tab difficulty rating
Tanimax
Location: In your room stealing your musics Joined: Mar 24 2009 |
To further Achards point: I would rate the second as hard definately. And that goes for anything by Kabuki bear, half of Auriplanes pieces, and alot of hlspearances. For you, this seems to be easy. I bet thats true for alot of other people. For me, it would take weeks to get the first line down to playability, and I'm sure that's the same for others. So since we would rate many of these hard you'd look for hard peices and find stuff that you find easy. Alas, there is no true way to rate difficulty, in the end, it would be more cumbersome than helpful. Edit: And after re-reading the bottom post, I present a solution right here. I'm afraid you'll still have to search for them, but it'll narrow it down quite a bit. There's also an electric arranged page somewhere, if you're interested. |
Re: Tab difficulty rating
HypomaniJoined: May 28 2009 |
That might be true, and I see what both you and archard mean, but my point still stand. Anyone looking for a more extensive arrangement would pick the one rated hardest. And again, there's the thing with difficulty categories and skill levels. I already know that the 'Far Off Promise' by takaf221 is one of the harder tabs to play on this page, so I could probably rate it hard anyway. (Also, if you look around there's actually many places that operate with the three skill levels, 'beginner' for newbies, 'intermediate' for people who've played for a year or so and 'hard' for experienced players.) |
Re: Tab difficulty rating
Tanimax
Location: In your room stealing your musics Joined: Mar 24 2009 |
I've played for over a year and I'd consider my self beginner/intermediate. Your point doesn't really stand... like I said, check out the page I just linked to. I reckon 60-70% of those tbas are what you're looking for. Maybe less, but check it out yourself. |
Re: Tab difficulty rating
Kain
What is... Gee-taar? Location: Tennessee Joined: Mar 13 2009 |
If we want to talk difficult to play, far off promise doesn't hold up to Kabuki's amazing Birth Of A God tab... But really, I kinda like finding a tab that I want to learn that is harder than what I would normally play... I usually force myself to learn it. Kinda like when I was looking for "Into The Darkness" and found it takes a little more effort to play, and it became the first tab of a somewhat classical style I learned. To tell the truth, I really don't like the idea that much. I could see little warnings like "(insert skills) are needed to play this song correctly" at the top of tabs.
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One word: Thundercougarfalconbird |
Re: Tab difficulty rating
archardJoined: Jan 11 2007 |
Those are good points, Hypomani. But I still don't like the idea of a difficulty rating because of things like the fact that guitar players get better as time goes on. I might rate as a hard tab one day, I would rate as easy in a few years. So my original rating isn't really reflective of how difficult it really is. What I think is a better idea is to categorize tabs by the technical abilities required to play them. For example, I would categorize takaf21's Far Off Promise as 'Fingerstyle'. If it had a tremolo in it I might mark it with that tag as well. Or other more difficult technique elements like artificial harmonics. If the tab was meant for electric, I might categorize it as requiring alternate picking, or pinch harmonics. Things like that are objective and can be utilized in the same way as a hypothetical difficulty rating. Point is, I don't think someone looking at a tab should be swayed by a subjective scale like a difficulty rating. Rather I think they should be able to see the difficult technique elements beforehand and decide for themselves whether or not they want to play the tab. I have been thinking about reforming the 'Style' category applied to tabs for a while now, and I think what I described above would be a great way to apply it.
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DANG |
Re: Tab difficulty rating
Tanimax
Location: In your room stealing your musics Joined: Mar 24 2009 |
That'd be brilliant. Another difficutly fail: Lonlonjp rates some of his pieces as "easy". |
Re: Tab difficulty rating
Kain
What is... Gee-taar? Location: Tennessee Joined: Mar 13 2009 |
I agree with Archard, and... um... Lonlonjp gets this... http://objection.mrdictionary.net/go.php?n=3136303
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One word: Thundercougarfalconbird |
Another way to do this
Agahnim
Nostalgic Gamer Location: Antofagasta, Chile Joined: Jan 01 2009 |
I agree that determining difficulty of tabs is not something that could be quantified, A difficult system would also encourage arrangers to focus more on playability, so tabs could be playable to most users... Also there is a point that I think that should be treated first than the difficult rating issue, that is about the actual rating system sometimes mixing with rate of the "grade of popularity" of the tune, almost independent of the quality of the tab or arrangement. Greetings
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20 years of gaming |
Re: Another way to do this
Agahnim
Nostalgic Gamer Location: Antofagasta, Chile Joined: Jan 01 2009 |
Changes must be focused on encouraging people to use this site's characteristics that can make users more involved with it. Like people posting in forum, rating tabs.
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20 years of gaming |
Well it looks like the idea
ParhelionJoined: Mar 02 2009 |
Well it looks like the idea won't be implemented, but I agree with Hypomani here. Everyone won't agree with the difficulty level of a particular song, but thats inherent with any system based on averaged voting- the result works for the majority of people. And as people become more skilled, the vote will reflect that.
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Friend of the pag. |
Re: Tab difficulty rating
natenmn
I haven't had a chance to trim my hedges recently. Thanks for visiting anyway... Location: United States Joined: Jul 17 2009 |
archard said
I had never seen this thread before, but this is a BRILLIANT idea. Though I guess it would be useful for determining difficulty to an extent, I think this idea would really shine if you add it to the "sort tabs by" function. Finding tabs with certain techniques you wish to practice would be pretty damn awesome. For example Spirit of the Night when you search for artificial harmonics, or Innocent Sea when looking for tremolo stuff to practice. I'd definitely go back through all of my tabs and add tags to them if they have certain techniques in them XD. Off the top of my head a list of things to possibly include: -Strumming (like actually strumming parts, not just a single chords here and there... it's a bit hard to find songs on here with a lot of strumming throughout) I'm sure there are quite a few others. Also some bass ones would be nice, but I think Auri would need to help list some of those XD |
Re: Tab difficulty rating
archardJoined: Jan 11 2007 |
natenmn said
I had been meaning to start doing the work to implement this system recently. I was gonna make a post asking for suggestions of tags. So, keep them coming. The tags will be added to the 'Style' category.
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DANG |
Even though it's not a skill,
Kain
What is... Gee-taar? Location: Tennessee Joined: Mar 13 2009 |
Even though it's not a skill, maybe we could filter out songs on whether or not they have a capo?
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One word: Thundercougarfalconbird |
Re: Even though it's not a skill,
TrangOul
Insomaniac Location: Germany Joined: Feb 24 2008 |
You can just play without the capo. The song will just sound a few steps lower than supposed to. No biggie. :o |
Yeah, but some people don't
Kain
What is... Gee-taar? Location: Tennessee Joined: Mar 13 2009 |
Yeah, but some people don't know that. We do have beginners on here, y'know.
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One word: Thundercougarfalconbird |
Re: Even though it's not a skill,
archardJoined: Jan 11 2007 |
Kain said
Capos don't really have anything to do with technique or skill, so I don't think they should be included. I agree with TrangOul.
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DANG |
Hopefully this doesn't come
natenmn
I haven't had a chance to trim my hedges recently. Thanks for visiting anyway... Location: United States Joined: Jul 17 2009 |
Hopefully this doesn't come off as rude, as that isn't my intention whatsoever, but if someone is avoiding capo songs because they don't have a capo, the solution is to simply plunk a bit of cash down and buy one. The funny thing is that I used to do this exact thing. Though I knew I could play without the capo in a different key, I still shied away from tabs that made use of it. I regret that decision, as once I got my capo I fell in love with it. In fact, I would say that making a filter for capo usage would be bad for beginners because it could help dissuade their decision to buy one. If they filter out all the tabs with a capo, how are they going to know what they are potentially missing out on? The way I see it is like this: A capo, just like an amp, is a piece of hardware. Without a capo you will not get as much out of your guitar and the sound may suffer, just like if you do not have an amp for your electric guitar. In this way I view a capo as being just as important as an amp is as an accessory -- though not absolutely necessary, it is almost a requirement. tl;dr Beginners should buy a capo. |
Yep, you've got a point. Just
Kain
What is... Gee-taar? Location: Tennessee Joined: Mar 13 2009 |
Yep, you've got a point. Just throwing that out there.
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One word: Thundercougarfalconbird |
Actually, I think it was a
natenmn
I haven't had a chance to trim my hedges recently. Thanks for visiting anyway... Location: United States Joined: Jul 17 2009 |
Actually, I think it was a great suggestion and would be kinda cool, just that maybe some of the cons outweigh the pros. I was thinking of something similar for different tunings... it would help with trying to find something in dropped d or half a step down tuning for example. However, just like the capo situation, I think that some beginners would use that to filter out anything but standard because they don't want to learn to tune by ear or buy an electric tuner. It would be unfortunate for someone to miss out on a great tab that happens to be in an odd tuning. Again, this is a mentality that I used to have and now regret... I never wanted to play in anything but standard even though I had a tuner :(... very silly lol tl;dr again: A tuning filter could possibly be detrimental to beginners as well. |
Preach, Nate!
MassTheMono
Feast With Me Location: St. Louis, MO Joined: Feb 10 2008 |
I like the path this topic has taken, and I'll get to work thinking up some different tags. As for nate's comments on capos and alternate tunings, I think you've got it just right, man. People shouldn't avoid buying a capo anymore than they should avoid playing the guitar in the first place. I mean, we all suck to begin with, so I've never understood why people would care if they had to get used to something else. In most cases of learning a skill, nothing is harder than learning the basics; once you have those in place, things tend to roll pretty smoothly, even if you change things a little bit (like picking up a capo). As far as tuners go....just get one. You'll thank yourself later. =) MTM (Brandon) |
I agree that both things like
archardJoined: Jan 11 2007 |
I agree that things like capos and different tunings shouldn't be listed. Both have nothing to do with technique, and tabs with both capos and different tunings can be played by anyone without any special equipment or knowledge. Let's try to keep the classifications based on something that would alter the style or technique needed to play the song.
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DANG |
In addition to adding these
archardJoined: Jan 11 2007 |
In addition to adding these new categories, what I think I'm going to do is reduce the categories Electric > Transcribed to just 'Transcription' and 'Arrangement'. With the addition of these new tags, the electric and acoustic part become obsolete. And I never really liked them anyway. Sound good to everyone?
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DANG |
Sounds good to me.
TrangOul
Insomaniac Location: Germany Joined: Feb 24 2008 |
Sounds good to me. |
I think that a man searching
kenor
The Cardsharp Location: Czech Republic Joined: Jun 04 2009 |
I think that a man searching for a certain song would be more interested whether the arrangement is for accoustic or electric guitar (because in my opinion electric tabs are often just the melody lines) than whether its author transcribed or arranged it. That's just my opinion.
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The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth - it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true. |
Re: I think that a man searching
archardJoined: Jan 11 2007 |
kenor said
What do you mean when you say you want a tab for acoustic, or for electric, anyway? It's a really vague way to categorize, because any tab can technically be played on any guitar. There are a lot of tabs on this site that can, and are, categorized both ways. The addition of these tags takes away any of the vagueness. If you're looking for an arrangement that isn't melody only, you would search for the tags 'Arrangement' and 'Fingerpicking'. We could introduce a tag called 'Melody only', or something that indicates that it's just the melody line. Or I could let you filter out tabs based on what they're NOT categorized by. For example, if you wanted a melody only transcription, you could search for 'Transcription' and NOT 'Fingerpicking'. With the use of specific tags like this, rather than lumping everything up into Acoustic/Electric and Arranged/Transcribed, you will be able to find what you're looking for much quicker and more effectively, AND determine whether or not it's too difficult to play.
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DANG |
OK then, I haven't known
kenor
The Cardsharp Location: Czech Republic Joined: Jun 04 2009 |
OK then, I haven't known you're going to implement Fingerpicking / Only melody tags, that is much better than vague acoustic/electric, so pardon me, I haven't read the beginning of this thread when I posted the comment :)
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The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth - it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true. |
Ok. I have lumped all * >
archardJoined: Jan 11 2007 |
Ok. I have lumped all * > Transcribed and * > Arranged categories into Transcription/Arrangement. As usual, I probably fucked something up along the way, so please let me know if you find anything unusual. I have also added the categories that nate suggested, along with alternate picking, and fingerpicking. Feel free to suggest any more.
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DANG |
Are tabs even tagged yet? I
Kain
What is... Gee-taar? Location: Tennessee Joined: Mar 13 2009 |
Are tabs even tagged yet? I randomly searched styles on ff7's tabs and only got results for 2+ instruments, arrangements, and transcriptions. Also, searching for tremelo on Illusion of Gaia's tabs doesn't yield Start a Journey as a result, so, I dunno. The styles look good though. Reading your last post, I guess not, so thus begins that painstaking labor. I wouldn't mind helping, but I'm on the wii, so i'll leave it to the mods.
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One word: Thundercougarfalconbird |
Re: Are tabs even tagged yet? I
archardJoined: Jan 11 2007 |
Kain said
Heh, you just brought up the big problem with this whole thing. All the tabs have to be retroactively tagged, manually. It's going to take awhile. I'm currently recruiting people to help out, but in the meantime we're just gonna have to be patient. By the way, I got rid of some of the categories nate suggested.. slides, bends and strumming. IMO these aren't significant technique elements. They're on par with hammer-ons and pull-offs. I think we should only use technique elements that are 'exotic', like tremolo and artificial harmonics.
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DANG |
Yeah, I agree with those
Kain
What is... Gee-taar? Location: Tennessee Joined: Mar 13 2009 |
Yeah, I agree with those being deleted. I didn't say I wouldn't help tag, hint hint. We need to start enforcing the rule that people tag their submissions, too.
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One word: Thundercougarfalconbird |
add High Frets to the style
Vic9mm
The Fingerstyle Mechanic Location: Dallas Texas Joined: Aug 27 2008 |
add High Frets to the style list I would hate to start an arrangement then come to find out half way through the frets go pass 19.
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Watch me: http://www.youtube.com/user/Vic9mm |
Haha... Like Spaded's megaman
Kain
What is... Gee-taar? Location: Tennessee Joined: Mar 13 2009 |
Haha... Like Spaded's megaman 2 tabs... 24th fret? WTF?!
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One word: Thundercougarfalconbird |
Re: Haha... Like Spaded's megaman
Vic9mm
The Fingerstyle Mechanic Location: Dallas Texas Joined: Aug 27 2008 |
Kain said
exactly Kain Im glad i got some backup on this issue.
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Watch me: http://www.youtube.com/user/Vic9mm |
At least Spaded posted low
Kain
What is... Gee-taar? Location: Tennessee Joined: Mar 13 2009 |
At least Spaded posted low octave versions of them, unlike some tabbers. I know how to do it myself, but it oughta be common courtesy.
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One word: Thundercougarfalconbird |
When I filter 'Transcription'
kenor
The Cardsharp Location: Czech Republic Joined: Jun 04 2009 |
When I filter 'Transcription' out of my tabs, all of them are correctly filtered but if I click any of them, on its page the tab is tagged 'Arrangement'. I have looked other users tabs and found some more similar category mismatch.
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The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth - it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true. |
Re: When I filter 'Transcription'
archardJoined: Jan 11 2007 |
kenor said
Can you give me some examples of other tabs that are like that? It looks like I screwed up a little when I did the conversion, but I'm trying to figure out if the mistake only affected a few tabs, and therefore it would be easier to fix everything manually.
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DANG |
Here is something I noticed
natenmn
I haven't had a chance to trim my hedges recently. Thanks for visiting anyway... Location: United States Joined: Jul 17 2009 |
Here is something I noticed when I added tags to half of my tabs... For the lonlonjp tabs, they have been marked as both transcription and arrangement in the past (they are the user's transcription of lonlonjp's arrangement). However, only arrangement was showing up on the tab's page. When I went to edit the tags, though, transcription was also selected even though it hadn't been displaying properly. Then I noticed that if I edited a tab, but didn't change anything and pressed update, it would display both transcription and arrangement correctly. Interesting, but weird o_O. |
Re: When I filter 'Transcription'
kenor
The Cardsharp Location: Czech Republic Joined: Jun 04 2009 |
archard said
http://www.gametabs.net/shin-megami-tensei-persona-3/poem-for-everyones-... Just a few of them... all those are marked 'Transcription', but it misses on the tab page. I think it's the same problem Nathan is talking about.
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The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth - it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true. |
Alright, I think I know what
archardJoined: Jan 11 2007 |
Alright, I think I know what happened now. Will fix when time allows.
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DANG |
Hypomani
Joined: May 28 2009
Yeah, so I tried searching around and found out this had been mentioned at couple of times before. Couldn't access the topic from the search though, so I only got to read a small part of the dialogue.
And well, why rate difficulty? Because beginners as well as experienced players wouldn't have to search through several tabs or games to find a tab matching their level.
Either way, my suggestion is putting up a rating system similar to the current fancy golden star awards, only for rating the tab difficulty. The way I see it could be implemented would be to rate tabs as 'easy', 'medium' or 'hard'. Or simply a difficulty level from 1-5 if admin just want to copy the tab rating system ;)
Presentation of the system: allowing users to set their difficulty preference (ie. browsing hard tabs only), list all hard/easy tabs, etc.
As a web developer I believe this shouldn't require more than a couple of hours to implement, so it's not much of a risk.