Some comments on another post made me curious: How many of you as guitar players read sheet music and how many of you use Tablature, or both?
I can't sight read. I've been trying to read standard since I was 6, tried again as a teen and several times as an adult (piano, guitar/bass, viola/mandola) and I just can't make it work. The upside is, I learned to play by ear very early.
Tab, otoh, is self-explanatory, simple to learn and better still, can indicate the actual techniques for lead guitar passages. At best, Standard is an uncomfortable fit for transcribing anything beyond Classical guitar. Standard works well for some instruments such as horns, keyboards, etc, but is a poor choice for guitar or bass.
To my mind Tab for guitar beats Standard Notation hands down, but that's just my opinion. What's yours?
?2016-02-29T15:15:40Z
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You got answers from some heavy hitters here, all good.
You left out one thing - players who use neither, like me. A few thousand happy people in audiences and a few dozen band bros over the years suggested I knew how to play enough of whatever I was doing, but that's a different matter. I'm just an old man, with a few tricks that sounded OK. Would have been way better if I had learned more about how to learn, or maybe I just would have quit. Still reading the NYT.
I also remember being able to just jump in on a drummer's count, "click click click POP", given a key and a metre, while another far-better trained player was still scared of improvising.
My path was crazy, so you find your own, Justin. All good.
a competent guitarist should be able to read both.
tab is easier for the impatient.
standard notation is more accurate and more flexible.
tab is lacking in notating complex rhythms and frequently assumes the player already knows how the song goes. this certainly makes it a bad choice for a composer sharing new music that has not been recorded yet.
it's incorrect to say that standard notation cannot show "technique" (it's fingerings and string choices really, not actually technique.) it can be included in that notation.
only reading tab also cuts you off from being able to use lead sheets, as they are written in standard notation with no specified instrument.
with standard notation, you know what the notes you are playing are, and you can hear it more easily in your head before you play, and you can communicate better with the other players. its not useful to tell your flute player you are playing "11th fret on your D string" when they need to know you are playing a C#. slows everything down if you are that tied to your own instruments special notation.
there's no reason to pick one as better and cast off the other. you are choosing to be 3/4 illiterate. its not a win.
I took guitar lessons as a child, and learned the notes on each string and fret of the guitar, one by one. If you have only tried to learn how to read and play standard notation by yourself, it's time for a teacher...at least to get you started. Since you are already somewhat familiar with the guitar, you should be able to pick it up quickly. There are plenty of good guitar instruction books that start out with learning how to read regular notes, but most of those are written with the expectation that the beginner will be learning with a teacher (a lot of student-teacher duets for example).
Once you get used to reading the notes, it becomes pretty automatic. You probably could read through a tab faster than I could because that's what you are used to. Muscle memory helps in automatically putting your fingers where they need to go on the fret so you don't have to look at the neck while reading the music in front of you.
Don't listen to James. Any "ladies" that impressed by someone who can read music are not going to be the kind of ladies that know anything about music in the first place. You could play the standard vi-IV-I-V chord progression over and over, and tell them it's a song you wrote just for them, and they would be impressed. UGH! Really! Just read music because there are certain pieces out there that are not available in tab, and tabs are only useful for things you already know. The more advanced the music, the more necessary it is to be able to read some standard music. Regardless of what most people might think, many jazz musicians are highly trained musicians who are completely capable of reading AND writing in standard notation--being able to read sheet music does not cripple your ability to do things like improvise or play with expression.
Very few people can sight read - it's a skill that comes after years of reading standard notation and one that most people just don't need to have. I don't think that most people can sight read tab either.
I think it's very odd though that a person would learn to play an instrument and miss out learning something as basic as reading music. I am self-taught and a very poor reader (I don't do it often enough) but I've found it an invaluable skill and I've learnt lots of things from music. Years ago it was very rare to come across tab.
As you say, with tab, there is no skill in being able to read it - you just put your fingers where it tells you to. It gives no musical information at all though - you don't even know what notes you're playing and you can't learn anything from tab unless you have heard it and you know "how it goes". If all you can "read" is tab, then you won't be able to learn anything, however simple, written for another instrument. You won't be able to communicate your musical ideas to anyone else or to have someone play the same thing with you on another instrument.
Tab is VERY limited and limiting. It's like having another guitarist show you how to play somethng - it can be very useful but no substitute for standard music.
I disagree completely with what you say about standard notation being, "a poor choice for guitar or bass" - it is the ONLY choice for any instrument where transcribing musical information is the intention.
Obviously, if you haven't learnt to read standard notation then you will find tab "better". In the same way, a person who hasn't learn to play the piano will find it "better" just to pick tunes out with one finger.
Standard notation is better. It is the ONLY way to learn a piece of music you've never heard before.
Tell me, how could you find work as a session musician when you are expected to play songs written by someone who does not play guitar themselves? That's why they hired you to play guitar for them in the first place, because they can't do it themselves. If they could, there would be no reason to hire you.
Tab is intended to be a shortcut for people who 1 - Already know how to play guitar and 2 - Are familiar with the song to be played.
I'm terrible at sight reading, but if you give me some time with the music and no interruptions I can figure it out. Eventually.
If your comment to Birdgirl's answer is true and you have no trouble reading the notes but issues translating it to the fretboard, try working out "zones" on the fretboard that contain all the notes you need for a given piece of music. The reason guitar is so hard to sight read for is that there are multiple places on the neck you can find the exact same pitch. If you have a 24 fret guitar, you can find the same pitch as your open high E on every string. Understandable that it would be confusing.
A good way to work it out is to figure out the lowest and highest note you need to play, and play the piece in a position that requires you to move your hand as little as possible. Example: If you need to sound the high E's pitch, but also need to sound the B located at the 7th fret of the low E, you would want to play in the 7th fret position and sound the high E note on the 9th fret of the G string. You could also use the 2nd fret of the A string to sound that B note, but then you'd have to play the E at the 5th fret of the B string, and that is an uncomfortable stretch for some people.