Here's a common question that I receive a lot.

Why do you teach music reading? Can't Tab give you all of the information you need anyway? Besides, my friend told me that this famous guitarist ______ (you can fill in the name of any famous guitarist here) doesn't read music.

Let me first say this TAB vs. Music Reading debate is about as fundamental as it gets in guitar discussions. Often times the debate gets polarized - us vs. them, TAB readers vs. Music Readers - which I have always found a bit perplexing. It would be the equivalent of someone shouting across the shop floor saying "I am a hammer man and all of you wrench guys are dumb". They are both just tools - each with unique advantages and limitations.

I have nothing wrong with TAB and learning by TAB. As long as you realize what TAB can and can't do for you. TAB is a physical representation of how to make music. TAB says "Put your finger here on this fret and the right note and sound will be made". The advantages are that you can make music quickly without going through the laborious task of understanding why these notes sound good together. If all that you are looking to accomplish is to learn how to play the intro or riff to your favorite song then TAB generally works fine.

Here are some of the limitations of TAB. It generally doesn't indicate rhythm. Some TAB have some cues for rhythmic indications but much of it gives no indication to which notes are long and which are short. Another drawback is that TAB on the internet is notoriously inaccurate in all but rare cases. So, while it may have most of the notes to the riff you are looking to learn it leaves out some pretty wide gaps in the full knowledge of what was actually played. And while TAB leaves no indication for a host of other musical nuances like dynamics (loud or soft) or musical form, it's biggest drawback is that it doesn't tell you the "why" of music. Why these notes sound good together? Why does this pattern work over this chord and something else doesn't? If I see this chord in the future and want to solo over the top of it, what should I play? TAB is just not able to answer these types of questions. If these more complex musical questions are of no concern to you and your goal in playing and learning guitar is just to play a few intros and riffs then TAB will do fine for you.

When I am wanting to learn a specific solo or to understand how somebody fingered a particular passage, then the notes on the music reading page doesn't give me this information, but TAB can tell me (if it's accurate) where the guitarist played and how they played this or that. So TAB has it's place in your learning.

But music reading has some advantages that TAB can't give you on your way to becoming a great guitarist. Music reading can tell you information about HOW the notes fit together and WHY they work together. How they are functioning and how I can use them in the future if I have a similar playing situation. While TAB can tell me to play this series of notes, music reading can tell me that this is a pentatonic scale with an added blues note. I can then use that knowledge to recreate that scale and sound in a different key or when I want to get that sound in the future. Music reading is more complex and it takes generally a bit longer to learn. You will spend some time playing simple "Yankee Doodle" type songs and your mind will start saying to you "What are you doing wasting your time doing this? What you really want to do is learn how to play this? This is a huge waste of your time and, plus, it takes an incredible amount of effort for you to just end up playing some dumb little song".

This hurdle of music reading is exactly the point where many learners just stop and quit. It's too hard, it's irrelevant, it's frustrating and for a host of other reasons many just give up, content to download some TAB off of the internet and to mess around trying to play their favorite guitar lick. Often times they will find themselves a few years later, still playing the same downloaded TAB sheets and wondering why real understanding of the instrument and significant progress seems to elude them.

Many were trying to use TAB for what it wasn't designed for - that being to help you understand what music was about - the "why" of music.

If you are already familiar with TAB, sometimes taking the steps to read the notes can get quite frustrating. The reason that I teach music reading is because I feel that learning to read music is the key that will open up a world of guitar concepts to you.

It's within the realm of music reading that we can begin to understand what notes make up scales and chords and how to improvise from a position of knowledge and educated guesses as opposed to just trial and error. TAB is a wonderful tool to help guitarists learn to play music easily by just telling them what fret to hit. But it is very limiting when you start asking questions about why these notes function the way that they do.

Part II of Steve Krenz's advice on music reading vs. tabs to come!