Guitar Tab vs. Standard Notation

" ...Truth is, as a professional guitarist, I have never been in a situation that required reading [music] for a performance either in the studio or live." - Dave Eichenberg, professional musician, composer, and contributor to the official Seymour Duncan blog at www.seymourduncan.com/blog

 For guitarists the question of whether of not to learn to read standard notation, or 'sheet music' depends largely on what kind of guitar player you want to be. 

If you want to be a classical guitarist, or do any kind of work with an orchestra or in the theater then definitely yes. But if you want to be in a band with your friends or just want to learn to play your favorite songs then you may be far better off just learning tab.

  To play a piece of music in standard notation on guitar can take some time. Standard notation only gives you the names of the notes to be played. Which strings to play, what frets and what fingerings are left for you to figure out on your own. 

 Guitar tab tells you 'where' to play the notes, which strings and which frets, and assuming the tab is correct, you can play a song in the same way the original artist played it. It's great for learning guitar as it's easier and faster to learn as opposed to standard notation. While guitar tab does not give you the fingerings to use. Knowing which frets and which strings to use gives you more than enough information to be able to figure it out. It gives you a headstart on the fingerings as opposed to just having the names of the notes.

 Standard notation does have an advantage over tab in that the rhythms and timings are not built into the guitar tabs. Unless you already know the song very well, you have to listen to the song while you're reading the tab. In standard notation, the timing is built into the notes themselves. With time and practice you can eventually play songs you've never heard of and even play songs from non-guitar sheet music.

 

 

 Music is a language that can be spoken (played), written or read. Some people say that musicians read music and guitar players read tabs. I don't find this entirely true all the time. There are plenty of famous musicians like Paul McCartney, who can't read music. And I have never seen or heard of someone in a band walking into practice with a page of sheet music expecting everyone else to immediately be able to read and play this song they just wrote. Conversely, I've also never seen or heard of someone in a band writing a song, then taking the time to painstakingly transcribe it onto tab for everyone else to learn either. That doesn't happen.

 

 From my experiences the main way music is communicated is mostly by ear. Meaning you come up with a riff, a lick or a chord progression, you bring it to the rest of the band and the others contribute and build around that. It's a collaborative process with the occasional, "What chord was that you just played?", type questions here and there, and thats it. 

Learning standard notation will give you a more complete understanding of music, and broadening you're knowledge is a good thing. If you're learning guitar on your own, then tab is the most widely available and easiest to understand. Unfortunately, most of the tabs available on the internet are incomplete or just plain wrong. So you ultimately have to end up relying on your own ears, or your own eyes if you're into watching Youtube for lessons or performances. 

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