Tunefox
The Future of Tablature
Photo by Ryan Leach
Learning to read music outside of the realm of classical or jazz music on instruments such as guitar, mandolin, banjo and Dobro, more often than not, involves learning how to read tablature. Tablature is a written notation where the lines on the page represent the strings of a given instrument and the music notation is presented as a number based on the player’s finger position on the instrument’s frets. While many aspiring musicians may assume that written music in the form of tablature is a relatively modern invention, the use of tablature to notate music can be traced back to the fifteenth century where it was used for the lute and Baroque guitar.
Although the exact method for representing music in the form of tablature has changed and been modified slightly over the centuries, the basic idea has remained fairly consistent. However, when new technologies arise, so do new innovations. In the 1980s, when video instruction began to emerge, video producers learned how to scroll the tablature on the video screen in real time along with the music being played. When computer-based lessons came along, the same scrolling feature was added to both audio and video lessons. Today, with the explosion of innovative ways to learn music on the internet, web sites and music learning apps are reinventing the use of music tablature. From what I’ve seen, the leader of the learning to play music by tablature pack is a program called Tunefox.
Tunefox
Tunefox is a music learning website (and mobile app), primarily focused on learning music by tablature for bluegrass banjo, guitar, mandolin, bass and clawhammer banjo. But, this is definitely not your grandpa’s tablature. The options, variations, and innovations here are impressive. Let’s take a look at the Tunefox features. For efficiency, I’ll focus on the presentation of the banjo tunes, but the main features carry over to the other instruments as well.
First, the tunes are listed alphabetically, making it easy to find any given tune. In addition to the alphabetical listing, there are listings by artist and by “Jam Packs” where songs and lessons are organized by topic. For the banjo, jam pack titles include “Beginner’s Corner,” “Fiddle Tune Favorites,” “Holiday Favorites,” “Scales and Exercises,” “Scruggs Style Workout,” “Starter Series,” “Up The Neck,” and “Vocal Jams Volume 1 and 2.”
The number of tunes that have been posted to date is also impressive. I counted nearly 250 tunes that have been posted to the bluegrass banjo list, with more are being added every month. So, if you are looking to learn a particular standard bluegrass tune, it is probably going to be there on Tunefox. Some of the tabs provided are unique arrangements put together by Tunefox, others are direct transcriptions from recordings of famous players.
When you select the tune that you want to learn, you are then presented with a lot of options. For banjo, for example, these options might include selecting between Scruggs style 1 (down-the-neck arrangement), Scruggs style 2 (up-the-neck arrangement), a melodic style arrangement, or a single-string style arrangement. Various back-up arrangements are also provided, which you don’t often get unless you are learning from a book that is devoted to backup or accompaniment. For many tunes, a brief history of the song is included and a list of bands that may have recorded the tune are given. For vocal tunes, lyrics are included. For many of the tunes, a link to Spotify and/or Apple music is also provided so that you can click on a link and listen to the most popular or prominent recording of the tune by a major bluegrass artist.
Once you select the style that you would like to learn, say Scruggs style #1 for banjo, the tab screen pops up and shows you the tab arrangement. But this is only the beginning. At the bottom of the page, you can select the tempo that you desire, and there is a slider that allows you to also select the level of difficulty! Slide to the “easy” end of the slider and the basic melody will show up. As you take the slider and move it towards the “hard” end of the slider bar, the tablature changes to provide you with progressively more difficult arrangements. When changing from the easy arrangement to the more difficult arrangements, the melody notes stay in place and gradually more notes are added to fill in between those notes.
The next feature is called “Tutor.” Here you are guided through the song at a slow tempo. When you push the play button, the program steps through the tablature beat-by-beat, note-by-note. The note that the program is playing at any given time is highlighted to make it easy to follow. You hear the notes being played on the banjo and you also hear a backup band and a metronome click (you can change the relative volume of each of these). You are then asked if that arrangement was too hard, or too easy for you. Based on your answer, the program will adjust the tempo and the level of difficulty for your next pass of the song. If you indicate that you had a hard time, the program will slow things down for you on the next pass and/or remove some of the notes to simplify things. If the original arrangement was too easy, the program will again modify the arrangement and tempo to better suit your ability.
Another great feature is titled “Arrange.” Here you are presented with another slider bar that allows you to set variations of the arrangement each time you play through it. If the bar is set to the left, the program doesn’t vary the arrangement at all. As the bar slides farther to the right, the program adds variations to the original arrangement each time you play through the tune. You can also choose to ‘shuffle licks,” which will switch some of the prominent licks around during each pass.
The next set of features are found under the “Playback” menu. Here you are able to change the playback volume of your instrument, the full band, or the metronome. If you don’t want to hear a metronome, you can take that level to zero. Similarly, if you don’t want to hear the backup band, you can fade that out. If you only want to hear the backup band so that you can play along with only the band, you can fade out your instrument. Volume levels between zero and 100 can be set for each. In the “Playback” menu, you can also select for the playback to provide a straight feel (default) or a swing feel. Additionally, you can select the playback to have a count-in or not. Finally, under this menu, you can change the capo position, and thus change the key of the playback!
The next menu provided is the “Tools” menu. Here you are given a lot of great learning tools. The first feature is called “hide notes.” Here you are given a slider that helps you begin to start learning music by ear. The program accomplishes this by hiding a few, or many, notes by blurring out the written tab. The farther the slider is to the right, the more notes the program hides from you. When you play back, you can then try to figure out by ear the notes that are missing. At any point during playback you can playback the entire tune, or you can click on a given measure and the program will only play back that measure. You can even click on just one of the hidden notes and the program will only play back that note for you until you can find it on your instrument. This is a wonderful tool to use in order to train your ear.
The next feature under the “Tools” menu is titled “speed-up.” You can set this feature at 2 bpm, 4 bpm, or 6 bpm and the program will speed up the playback each time through by the number of beats per minute that you have selected. This is a great feature that allows you to slowly increase your speed. Another way to increase the difficulty of the playback is the “level gainer.” With this feature turned on, the program adds a few more notes to the arrangement each time you play through the song. The speed up and the level gainer features are great ways to challenge yourself and improve your skills.
The next “Tools” menu feature is the “memory train.” This feature is designed to help you move away from the tablature faster. With this turned on, the program will gradually hide notes with each pass, which allows you to slowly work to memorize the song and engage your ears. The final feature under the “Tools” menu is the “vary” selection. If you turn on this feature the program will make small variations to the tablature every time you play through the tune.
Before moving to the last set of features, one thing to mention is that for any given tab arrangement that you might be working through, you can click on any measure of that arrangement and change the difficulty level of just that measure, or you can select the program to vary that measure for you. Additionally, for select measures (indicated with a small dot above the measure), you can “pick a lick.” Don’t like the lick that is in that measure? Then, you can select a different one and are given choices between a variety of Scruggs, melodic, or single string licks to put into that measure as an variation of the original lick. Click the “focus” button and the program will only play that measure in a loop so that you can focus on learning it. This is a wonderful feature because it allows you to work on those measure that may be harder for you. Or, if the measure is too hard for you at this time, you can vary just that measure to replace it with one that might be easier for you.
The final set of features are provided under the “Settings” menu. Here you are able to change the look and feel of your screen by changing the number of measures per row, set automatic scrolling on or off, or change the background of the screen to light mode or dark mode.
With all of the various features that Tunefox provides the student, anyone who wants to learn how to play any of these instruments has the ability to really take a deep dive into any tune. Typically, with tablature, you may get a few variations of the tune on a given presentation. With Tunefox, you get dozens of arrangements, can vary them as you wish, or allow the program to vary them for you, set the tempo, set the key, have a band to practice along with, learn different technical styles, train your ear and your musical memory, focus on selected measures and much more.
If you want to check out the program, you can go to Tunefox.com (or download the Tunefox mobile app) and browse through the song lists and select a few tunes to play with that are provided for free. Full access to all of songs and features requires a subscription fee.
The amount of innovative work that went into creating this learning platform is remarkable. The primary innovators are two musicians/computer programmers who live in the Czech Republic (Jiri Markalous and Jakub Prokopec). The person who provides the majority of the musical content is Jordan Riehm, a multi-instrumentalist from Kentucky who performs and records with the band Kentucky Shine.
Jordan Riehm
The man behind the arrangements of the majority of the tunes provided at Tunefox is Jordan Riehm. Jordan grew up in Kentucky playing southern rock on the electric guitar. In 2012, he was given tickets to the ROMP festival in Owensboro and was inspired to learn how to play the banjo after hearing Sammy Shelor with the Lonesome River Band. He bought a banjo and started taking lessons in Bowling Green and working out of the Earl Scruggs banjo book. He also started listening to a lot of banjo players and worked to transcribe their solos by ear. He had learned to play the guitar by ear, so he was familiar with the process. He lists Earl Scruggs, Sammy Shelor, Ralph Stanley, J.D. Crowe, and Jim Mills among his favorite banjo players.
Not long after starting to learn how to play the banjo, Jordan picked up the mandolin. He was already an accomplished guitar player who had studied both rock and classical guitar and so learning how to flatpick bluegrass style was not difficult for him.
As each year progressed in his bluegrass journey, Jordan added a new instrument to his repertoire. He learned the fiddle using Brian Wicklund’s “American Fiddle Method” and he learned the Dobro by ear. He attended a lot of jam sessions and by 2019 he was in the band Kentucky Shine playing the mandolin. In 2020 he moved over to fill the banjo spot in the band. Jordan was the 2022 Kentucky state banjo champion.
Regarding his relationship with Tunefox, Jordan said that he had taken some lessons with Bennett Sullivan, the site’s co-founder and was friends with him on Facebook. When Sullivan put out a call on Facebook looking for transcribers to help populate the website with tunes, Jordan sent in some of his transcriptions and arrangements. Impressed with Jordan’s arrangements, Tunefox brought him on board in 2016 and in 2020 he was designated the “head of content” for all of the instruments. Sullivan is no longer with the company, so Jordan now works directly with the programmers in the Czech Republic. Regarding the tunes that he adds to the site each month, Jordan said, “Users can request songs and lessons. The majority of tunes being added each month are user requested.”
Jordan says that, looking towards the future, in addition to adding more songs, the site is also going to add a fingerpicking blues guitar section. The site also currently includes a video lesson library and in addition to tunes, various technical tabs and lessons (such as the use of various scales) are included.
Tunefox has set a new standard in learning to play music by reading tablature. The innovations that they have made in allowing so many variations in the learning process are remarkable. Hopefully, they will take this centuries-old music learning tool and continue to blend it with modern technology to make it easier for musicians to learn to play. This program/app is highly recommended.
