Tabs or Notation

Beginners learning guitar, having discovered tabs, frequently ask whether there is any point in learning musical notation as well. The answer really depends on what you want to do in terms of playing guitar.

Tabs (or tablature to use the full term) are easy to learn and can be a great help in learning to play your favourite song or piece of music. However it's also important to realise that they are very limiting. In the first place they are only used by guitarists, so giving them to other musicians is a waste of time. On the other hand, if you ask other musicians for "the tab", they'll probably hand you the bar bill!

I found that basically all tabs do is show you which frets to finger and in which order. They cannot show you time or key signatures or note length, which means that unless you already know the piece of music you intend to play, you will have no idea what it should sound like. You cannot learn an unfamiliar piece of music from tabs alone.

The other problem is the tabs themselves. They are created by guitarists (no-one else uses them, remember) and are often provided by people who cannot themselves read music and are therefore transcribing by ear alone. They are notoriously inaccurate, but if all you want to do is play and sing some well known songs around the campfire with family and friends they will do you very well.

Learn music, on the other hand, and the time will come when there is nothing you cannot play and no-one you cannot play with. All you need is the music and that's widely available in shops, music stores and online. The courses that I use as learning tools and recommend on this website teach both as well as musical theory, which is another area the budding accomplished guitarist needs to master.