Not only is this website completely wrong but it’s also pointless. Below are several reasons any guitarist should know how to read music.

1.) it’s easier to learn than tabs.
2.) notes appear on the fretboard many times for example:E…

e-0—————————————-
b—–5————————————
g———-9——————————-
d————–14————————–
a——————————————
E——————————————

3.) knowing notes gives you freedom to reinterpret music by changing fingerings, reharmonizing, and transposing. How many guitarists know how to reharmonize a tab… it’s hard to do isn’t it?

4.) You have much more creative freedom to play guitar in many keys with more creativity with note reading.

5.)Tabs should not be an alternative to standard notation merely another tool.

Gerry, while I appreciate your opinion, I respectfully disagree with you. I believe for most of us tabs can pretty much completely replace standard notation whether we’re playing music or composing it.

For someone who is not very serious about music, tabs are fine. You can find a tab out there online for pretty much any remotely popular song. However, if you want to go beyond that, reading standard notation is definitely required if you ask me. Here are the two main reasons I think you should learn to read standard notation over tabs.

1. Communication with other musicians. Not everyone plays guitar. If you want to play with a pianist or any other musician who doesn’t play guitar and communicate in any meaningful way, tabs aren’t going to work. However, you can communicate to any competent musician via standard notation, it is the universal language. Imagine the confusion that would result if every instrument had its own specific notation system.

2. Overall musical understanding. Memorizing numbers on a fretboard is not very musical. You will learn very little of scale structure, intervals, chord theory, and all the things required to become a competent musician who UNDERSTANDS what they are playing.

On a side note, you claim that standard notation has no markings to indicate slides, mutes, or artificial harmonics. This is well… simply not true. Slides are indicated by a straight line connecting note heads. Mutes simply replace the note head with an X. Artificial harmonics replace the note head with a diamond. As for whammy effects and note bends… well… who cares.

Zac, thanks for the input. Actually, everything you’re saying makes perfect sense to me, but I think that the point is missed here. I started this article by writing that I didn’t want to incite a riot by those who feel strongly about learning standard notation, and that this was written for the vast majority of guitar players out there that don’t need to have this level of understanding of music to enjoy it. Very few performing artists, rock bands, pop groups, folk artists, etc. can actually sight read standard notation proficiently or think about their music in the terms you’re outlining. For most of us it’s just not necessary. I’m not advocating that you know nothing about reading standard notation or understanding music theory, but for most of us to enjoy the instrument to write our own songs, it just isn’t ever necessary. I knew I’d get some flak for this so I appreciate your honesty.

I checked into your comments about standard notation having some guitar effects and indeed it can be written this way. Thanks for pointing that out.

I agree there are issues with notating guitar music, but I disagree with your assertion that it’s easier. Standard notation provides two pieces of information: the harmony and the rhythm. With tab, you have two pieces of information as well, but both relate to the harmony, making it necessary to refer to a recording in order to understand the rhythm.

I think tab provides an instant gratification approach to reading music, that is a real pitfall and actually creates a lot of problems for students wishing to move beyond it.

Respectfully, your point regarding the abundance of tab content out there is moot since the quality is generally very low.

Joel, thanks for your fair input. I agree that the rhythm of the music is not as well represented in tab, however I do feel the options and work-arounds I outlined our very reasonable for your average guitar player.

If you are looking to move far beyond tab you probably aren’t an average guitar player but someone who is looking to work in a professional situation. I would agree for example that a session guitarist will indeed need to know how to read standard notation fluently and there’s a real advantage to that.

I should have emphasized in my article that I’m speaking much more of your average guitar player and not the much smaller percentage of pros session musicians or very serious composers. For most of us we’re looking to play more accessible music, and there’s many life times of music that can be learned and played from tab without ever the need for fluency in standard notation. So I do agree with you on this point with the noted exception

Regarding the quality of tab. I also agree the free tab out there is overall a poor quality, but that’s certainly not what I had in mind either. I am speaking of the professionally published tablature books of which there are hundreds if not thousands. Music wasn’t always so well transcribed and published to prolifically, especially not in the tab format.

Joel again I really appreciate your feedback. And thanks for giving me a chance to clarify.

I agree pretty much with the article to be honest. Tabs are fine. With respect to the comment reagrading understanding scales etc, I don´t believe that this has anything to do with reading music. You can understand scales, chords etc without reading a note.

I play bass aswell as guitar and I think tabs are a great way to get started. They teach you how to play songs without having to spend hours learning to read music. I think notation has it’s place but it can easily scare of a beginner.

I’m a professional musician in New York. Commercials, concerts, plays etc.. No arranger, composer or lyricist has ever given me TAB. If you plan to do this for a living, learn to read.

Ive never seen a rock guitarist on stage reading sheet music most people that are starting out playing the guitar are playing rock music. You write and play music from the heart. In a fact most great musicians(rock,blues,country,ect)Dont ever read music of any kind. Maybe when they were 9 years old and mom made them take piano lessons. They learn songs by ear!! Music is not something that is on paper. It is sound. It is expression. All you need to know is a few simple chords and your in business.Tab is an excellent guide for starting out and reading sheet music is barking up the wrong tree.Maybe learn sheet music after you have an understanding of chords,scales, and music in general.Still a waste of time in my opinion.I am not talking about about classical composers or guitarist playing with an orchestra.Jimi Hendrix was a professional musician. He probably lit his sheet music on fire!

wow. this issue is very hot IN MY HEAD. i’m very interested in guitar…and yes somebody said about notesheet and notes scare beginners. i so agree to that because im a beginner myself. and tabs are the simplest way to follow and understand the nature of guitar playing.

i learnt quite a lot in tabs. i learnt new terms such as bending, tremolo. then i go about searching those words in the internet. ive never really take a look at notesheet (is that what they are called?) but have took a glance and woo, made me blur.

though yeah i too believe in notes being the universal language. u cant give tabs to pianists. and yeah in the long run, notes will prove useful for musicians.

I can read standard notation as well as tabs, and I see them both as useful means to learn things about guitar and music.

tabs are a good way to get scale patterns and chord patterns under your hands specifically for guitarists. I hate musicians that are snooty about what “real” musicians are supposed to do.

A persons lack of skill with notation says nothing about their understanding of harmony. It only shows that they cannot express music through that single specific system.

Things were heard before they were ever written down.

I think one thing that’s been entirely missed is the distinction between sight-reading, and learning songs. I could sit down and decode staff music with no prior knowledge as long as I had a reference to learn from. From that perspective, tabs are definitely easier to learn from. However, if you want to look at a piece of paper and play it, tabs are the wrong way to go. Any sight-reading guitarist would be an idiot not to sacrifice fingerings for detailed rhythm, key signature, and most of all versatility. Tabs may help you find notes on a neck, they say nothing about MUSIC

Tab and standard notation serve different purposes and communicate different things. Tab is an excellent way to describe exactly how to play a specific song on guitar.

Unfortunately, most folks that are serious about guitar hope to get past learning how to play a bunch of songs. While most guitarists don’t spend a lot of time reading standard notation while playing, a knowledge of it helps them learn about keys and theory Most folks that are serious about guitar want to be able to jam and solo with others. You need to know some theory to change keys or solo.

what a crock !

The rest of the musical world speaks the same language, standard notation. If you want to remain unable to communicate with other instrumentalists then keep on with your tab. Be a musician 1st, and a guitarist 2nd ! Any argument for the alleged superiority of tab is merely rationalizing laziness and ignorance. When the pianist or sax player writes a song, he’s not going to give you tab, what are you going to do? When you try to land a studio gig or any other proffessional gig, whatever charts you get will be standard notation.

Sorry to bust the bubble.

by the way… someone upstream mentioned Hendrix… late in his life he was approached by Miles Dave to do some collaborating, Hendrix was given some charts to look at and had to say he couldn’t read. What a missed opportunity. It’s well known that Hendrix had expressed that he was in a creative rut toward the end, that he felt he was going in circles. I think it’s fair to assume he probably wished he COULD have read Miles’ charts.

Just got my guitar, and trying to learn, don’t know where to get started, Thought I would probably go with learning Tabs. Will I also need to learn Scales?
Thanks I need a lot of help.

Hey Monk, thanks for the question. When you’re starting to play guitar I think learning scales is good because it gets your fingers conditioned and strengthened. Later on the scale patterns you learned will help you to construct and improvise music, they even make it easier to figure out how to play music your listening to. My best recommendation is to pick up a copy of this book: Guitar Made Easy which I actually named this site after. See if that’s something for you. The other thing that you might find useful is this post Four Skills a Beginner Guitarist Must Learn First

I found this web site http://www.spytunes.co.uk Going through their self-eliminating practise routing makes tabs and sheet music redundant. I started a few weeks ago and it’s wicked. You get to learn how to use the guitar like a part of yourself. Like a singer uses his voice. You never really have to think about what you’re playing anymore.

Great stuff!

/klaban