Tablature vs. classical notation--Which is better?

So what is fiddle tablature anyway? It is a method of writing down a tune that tells you at least three things: (1) which string to play, (2) which left hand finger to use on that string, and (3) how long the note lasts. The method does not rely on "notes." By that I mean you won't see lots of dots with stems running up and down, some with little curly flags at the ends; and there is no "staff". The lines you see in tablature instead represent the fiddle strings themselves (though some prefer to use five lines and have the spaces between the lines represent the fiddle strings). Either way, when you see a number on a line (or in a space between two lines), you know what string you should be playing, and the number itself tells you which finger to press down on it. The problem with classical notation is that it is a great deal more complicated than tablature, but for all that complexity, it fails to convey what the fiddler really wants to know: Which string? Which finger? Classical notation does do an excellent job of passing along the third piece of information (how long the note lasts), but even that is not simple and takes a long time to learn.

In my case, I learned classical notation as a very small child, and so it seems to me that I have always understood it, Even so, I think most fiddlers are better off with tablature, especially if they are in the beginner or intermediate stages of learning.

There is one shortcoming that tablature usually shares with classical notation--neither tells the player how to bow the tune. Bowing, of course, is the essence of fiddling (and violin playing for that matter), so this seems like a pretty glaring omission. NOT TO WORRY. I have developed a simple way of adding this ingredient to tablature, and it can make all the difference. Using this method, even the beginner can learn to bow a tune so that it sounds like fiddle music instead of just a series of notes played with the so-called saw stroke. More on that in another post.