One common question asked by those who are just beginning to learn the guitar is whether it's necessary to learn how to read music. Can't I just learn to play the guitar by using guitar tabs? Guitarists are divided on the issue. The position here at Learn How To Play Guitar Online is that knowing how to read music is an important part of being an accomplished musician.
"But what about [insert name of famous musician here]? He composes great songs and knows how to play the guitar like a master, and he never learned how to read music!" Well, it is true that there have been accomplished composers and guitarists who couldn't read music. But that is an exception. Your skill as a guitarist and a musician will be much greater if you can read music. It is an incredibly valuable tool that any musician will benefit from having.
Learning to play guitar is partly about understanding music. This is much easier with the ability to read music notation. It may not be entirely necessary, but I would strongly suggest that you at least become somewhat familiar with the musical language. Your ability to learn guitar playing will be much easier and your knowledge much deeper if you understand the language!
Here are a few links to get you started:
Guitar tab notation is also very useful for learning to play songs on the guitar. It does have some drawbacks, though. Tab has no indication for note duration, so if you don't know the tune you're out of luck. There are also a number of very badly tabbed songs out there, and often the fingering choices are less than ideal. It can also cause a certain amount of laziness on the part of the guitarist, providing a simple way to play a song without really understanding what's going on musically. Nonetheless, it can be very helpful, especially for someone who is starting to learn to play guitar. Even experienced guitarists like guitar tabs, and perhaps the most useful songbooks are those that contain both traditional notation and tab.
Best of all, you can understand tabs very quickly and easily, much more so than traditional notation.
Now, I know how it is to just want to learn to play guitar and not get sidetracked with other things, but theory is an important part of becoming a musician. You will be able to play guitar much better with a solid musical foundation. You want to play the guitar—that's good. But you should also understand the guitar as well, and the music you want to play on it.
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