Most people that say they play guitar don’t read music. If this surprises you then where have you been living? I might be inclined to take this a step further by saying that many people that say they play guitar don’t know that tablature (TAB) is different than reading music. So do guitar players really need to read music? This article will discuss the pros and cons of reading music versus TAB.
Music Notation
Reading music is not a difficult thing to do. It was created to be a simple representation of sound that can be learned by people even with no education. But just like reading a book it requires practice. Music notation not only shows the pitches of notes but also the key signature, time signature, speed and duration of each note.
Limitations of Notation for Guitarist
The biggest problem with notation for guitarists has to do with the fact that the exact same musical lines can be played in many different positions. This is not the same for instruments like the piano where a note like middle C is only on a one single place on the keyboard. And for guitarists, certain musical phrases are easier to play in particular places on the fretboard.
Expanded Music Notation for Guitar
Especially prevalent in classical guitar notation, the standard musical notation has been expanded to assist the guitarist by additional information written directly into the notation. Right and left hand notation as well as string numbers have been added to help suggest how to better play the piece of music.
Guitar Tablature
TAB was introduced as a helper to show where on the fretboard a note should be played. This is a great tool to help the practicing guitarist learn to play a song. Originally TAB was written underneath the original music notation as a guide of where to place your fingers. Over the past few years, guitar magazines started to omit the music notation and just show the TAB.
Now guitar players are very used to seeing and learning from TAB and are not even aware of real musical notation. Is this a bad thing? Maybe not…
So Do Guitarists need to Read Music?
Music notation is really a visual representation of what a piece of music should sound like. Isn’t TAB also a visual representation of a piece of music? In my opinion, becoming the best musician involves using all the tools at your fingertips. I recommend all my students learn to read music as well as learn from TAB. All pieces of music I teach always include both musical notation as well as TAB.