Knowledge and ability are two different things. Knowing is not doing. The trying, failing, testing and experimenting is where the improvement actually lives — and every minute spent looking something up is a minute you are not playing. Not wasted by any means, but easily misspent.
I wrote that in my book, and then went about designing harmonica software — sounds like I might be contradicting myself.
A time machine
Saving time is what Fab Tabs was built to do. You play the lick; it writes the harmonica tabs as you go. No typing, no hand-written notation. Work something out by ear the way you should, and have it written down automatically.
More playing, less stopping to document — that was the whole point, initially at least.
Seeing what I could only hear
There’s a secondary purpose that emerged in Fab Tabs, and this one stems from my own limitations. I don’t read music. Never learned. I’ve done okay in spite of that, but there’s no doubt it leaves me playing things without ever really seeing or understanding what I was playing — how scale degrees laid out on harp, how all things are logically related to everything else. It’s limiting.
So I wanted Fab Tabs to show some of that information — the scale degrees and notes alongside the tabs, the same lick mapped out in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th or 12th position. Not to replace your ears — to help explain to your head what your ears already know. Seeing these musical elements sit underneath a lick you just played tends to shorten the absorption process considerably.
They end up working as learning aids without taking centre stage. The visual sits alongside the audio, and you absorb it at your own pace — simply by using the program.
Still ears first. The screen is just informing.
Awkward statements
In that same book I take a fairly firm line on harmonica players who learn their bends by staring at a tuner. My exact words were that while we’re busy wining and dining our eyes, our ears are relaxing on a beach in Cancun, sipping a cocktail.
I stand by that. My defence is that a tuner is a fine tool for checking and a poor one for learning. Which makes it a touch strange that I’ve built a harmonica-friendly tuner into this program.
First, let me be clear about what I was objecting to, because it isn’t screens. It’s that a tuner might answer the question before your ear gets a chance to. You’re not so much hearing what a flat 3-draw sounds like as focusing on what the needle says. Use it to confirm where a bend actually sits on a particular harp, then put it away and match the note by ear against a keyboard. Check with your eyes, learn with your ears.
Nothing in Fab Tabs is trying to change that statement. It isn’t listening while you play and telling you you’re a shade flat. It writes down what you played, after you played it — which is what a tape recorder has done for players since long before any of us were arguing about screens.
What none of this can give you is feel. Feel only comes from playing — and you don’t need anything fancy for that. Just play to tracks. Full band mixes, backing tracks, and live on stage wherever you can.
Try it on your own playing
Fab Tabs runs in your browser — nothing to install, one-time licence, no subscription. It writes your harmonica tabs in real time, marks blows, draws, bends and overblows, plays your own recording back in sync, shows the scale degrees, transposes between positions, and comes pre-calibrated for all 12 keys.
There’s a full 5-day free trial. Play something into it that you already know well — that’s the fairest test. And time your next practice session honestly. That number is the argument.
Want the lick off a record rather than out of your own head? Tab-Grabber lifts a harmonica, sax or trumpet solo straight off a track and writes the tabs, then hands them to Fab Tabs with a click. There’s a bundle if you want both.
