Comment by beepbooptheory
8 hours ago
I guess I am maybe not coming from the same place you are here, but, fwiw, scores for classical guitar will often mark bare positions (basically, what fret your 1 finger is around) at certain points with Roman numerals, which then communicates, or at least implies, which string you are playing which note (for that part, until you see a new roman numeral). Also common to see simply a number on a specific note indicating a finger, as you do for a note+finger combo with piano scores, which then implies how to play the rest of the notes in that phrase or whatever. I don't think you need much more than that and it seems elegant enough to me!
But also, really, I was always taught that unless the composer specifies something specific, you are free to figure it on your own. Like there are only so many contexts where the timbral differences between two unison, fretted notes is going to matter probably, right? Also, how you play some part might be informed by where you are after the preceding part etc.
Tuning point though is kinda interesting and not all my wheel house. But they do call the default one standard for a reason!
Yes. I am thinking about rock, jazz, and fingerstyle playing. They're hardly edge cases and haven't been for decades. They're so popular and modern enough to prove the original point.
With regards to tuning, fingerstyle will often feature an arbitrary tuning unique to only a handful of songs. Timbre absolutely matters because you're playing multiple parts on one fretboard simultaneously.
Here's an example of all three genres in one performance! Kent Nishimura covering Steely Dan's "Peg" in fingerstyle. He does have a book available. It combines ordinary sheet music with tablature.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=x4sadPd661s