It’s interesting reading this thread. In reality, most gigs would only give you a lead sheet, not a full score by instrument or a lot of professionals use Nashville Numbering System. For those notation challenged, check out the book by Chas Williams. https://www.amazon.com/Nashville-Number-System-Chas-Williams/dp/0963090674
I’ve been studying NNS with my teacher and it works for me…
I absolutely love playing from lead sheets. I wish there were more of them out there.
I’ve seen that book before, I think either Josh or Mark (Smith) mentioned it at some point.
Assuming I’m already familiar with the NNS, what does this book bring to the party @Sully
It’s a whole different way of working with a piece of music, similar to a leadsheet, as it will contain details such as accents, sustains, etc. It leaves you as the musician/artist the latitude to create a line as you see fit. It’s different if you are trying to do an exact cover, as the NNS won’t necessarily tell you exactly how the recording artist played the line. For me it just makes sense and clicks. You do need to understand some theory, things like diatonic chords though.
it’s really about understanding chord progressions for a song and figuring out how you, as the bassist fit into that.
Yeah, I’m pretty much schooled on theory, so perhaps this book will be helpful. I ordered a “Used/like new” one from Amazon. Thanks
You are right but at least they are given ahead of time so you do have time to study them.
The fun comes in after you practice a song list for a week and some smartass wants to change the key on the day of the performance of a song. The NNS makes this easy to do.
The Nashville Numbering System is something you do not see mentioned very often on the forum.
I use it and it does make memorizing a song easier, and of course when you know the chord progressions and and a singer wants the song transposed to a different key, usually because of their voice range, it is easy to do on the fly.
Take a look at the 12 Bar Blues.
It doesn’t get much easier than that. 3 Chords I IV V (typically dominant 7ths), over 12 bars (usually), in a preordained format played over and over and over. Although the second bar and turnaround can vary somewhat.
In a song with an Intro, Verse, Chorus, and Outro the chord progressions for each verse and the chorus are usually the same. But as with most things in music you can have variations, such as a key change thrown in just to keep it interesting. 
Just so we don’t get sidetracked into the NNS here I started a new topic on it.
Here is a link if you are interested. Nashville Numbering System
Please pose any questions, advice, suggestions etc regarding the NNS there.
Thank you 
You are right about that, which surprises me since I believe it’s covered somewhere in the B2B course (am I thinking of a different course maybe?).
Thanks for starting that thread, it’s an interesting topic.
It’s definitely covered in the course.
It’s pretty fundamental to describing chord progressions.
And therein lies the fault in your logic… thinking that people would not use tabs or even favour tabs in some instances, if they could read music.
My logic is, why would anyone even want to play from tab if they can read music? Playing from the sheet music is so much easier than playing from tab IMO. In my experience, playing from tab just slows me down, whereas playing from the sheet music: I just read the notes and play them without thinking about which fret or string I’m playing.
Whatever everyone else does is not my concern, I was just trying to offer some advice.
You’re like people who can’t understand why i would ride a bike everywhere if i could drive a car.
@PamPurrs , I have always admired your determination and tenacity to learn to read music! 
Music theory and notation seems so confusing and overwhelming to me . . . if I wasn’t so damned lazy, I would’ve tried to learn myself 
Cheers and wishing you continued success,
Joe
LOL that makes no sense in the context of this conversation, but whatever 
Thanks Joe @Jazzbass19 . I try to stay on top of my game, and try to help as many others as I can.
Actually it totally does. You’re just missing his point.
You’re choosing to avoid using a tool that offers access to far larger selection of music than the one you have decided to focus on exclusively.
That’s your choice, but really it’s a good thing that few others would feel this way, because it seems extremely self limiting to me.
There is no reason to “abandon tab” once you know sheet music. I could read sheet music for a hell of a lot longer than I have been using tab, and yet I am glad for the huge number of tabs out there. It’s just another resource for learning songs.
Would it be nice if there were the same amount of sheet music available across genres as there is tablature? Sure. But there isn’t for bass, not by orders of magnitude.
@howard, all I’m saying is it’s a lot easier to play a score off a sheet of music than it is by tab. At least it is for me.
As far as the availability of tab sheets as opposed to standard notation, probably so. However, there are plenty of chord charts for just about any song you can think of, and once you understand the chord tones within those chords, it’s not that difficult to devise a bassline. There are also multitudes of piano scores available written in Grand Staff, and it’s not difficult to distill the bassline out of those. Not to mention, learning songs by ear and composing a bassline. This is a vital skill that all of us have within us, and just needs to be nurtured and developed.
With all that said, I will state once again, if you choose to play by tab for life, that’s not my concern. All I’m doing is presenting the alternatives, which I personally believe are better options than tab. I’m not here to argue, I’m here to help people.
You do what you want.
@PamPurrs , I have verified (and re-discovered) the truism that tabs alone DON’T work unless you know how a song is supposed to sound with speed, tempo, accents, etc.
That’s why being able to read sheet music has got to be the way to go! It’s just that it has a huge learning curve behind it. Looking back over the past 2-3 years, I really should have put some effort into at least TRYING to learn to read, though. 
Not everything works for all people all the time. In my own case, I was only interested in learning more of John Entwistle’s basslines, so I could get away with tabs only. Even though I am familiar with how they should sound, I often found that online tabs were still wrong or inaccurate.
You made it through that learning curve, and it will pay off the longer you play, especially for learning unfamiliar tracks, so good for you!
No wonder you’re our Bad Ass Bass Gal
Cheers
Joe
To me, tabs enable me to play music. Tabs use numbers which my mind doesn’t jumble because I’m dyslexic.
Notation may or may not get jumbled, I don’t know yet, but a book on music theory and notation will. So learning it is a huge challenge for me.
Danny Kaye, the actor, was also dyslexic and couldn’t read music. Besides acting he was a conductor of symphonies and orchestras. He also composed.
Reading music is a great skill, indeed my dad read orchestral scores like a novel. I have a great respect and some envy for it. But it’s by no means necessary to play or create.
Do what works for you
There are 3 main types of tabs:
#3 Combination of both standard notation and tab. This gives you the best of both worlds and allows you to communicate exactly which notes should be played and where but takes up at least twice as much space as both #1 and #2. This is pretty much the only one i use if i’m using tab for anything.
I have actually come across a few sheets like that (Mostly in sheet music books), and I guess it’s helpful, especially for people who may have a desire to learn to read. I think that type of sheet is a good way to go, and I agree with your thinking.
My only objection to those is, as you pointed out, they take up too much space. Also, for me the tab line is a distraction.
What I normally do when I come across one of those is sit at my computer and re-write it in Crescendo, sans the tab line. This way I’m able to get more lines on a page, with the added benefit of eliminating the distraction of the tab line.
BONUS: Rewriting it gives me a head start in memorizing the bassline.
Thanks for posting that one @sshoihet