Comments on: Guitar for Dummies

By: Matt Helm

Matt Helm — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:17:08 +0000

Both my younger and older brothers learned to play guitar by ear. Neither can read sheet music, nor ever bothered with the tabulature books. They can just listen to a song and play it. My best friend is like that too, with his acoustic picking style of playing.

I can play the bass if I look at the tabs, but I got the visual arts end of the talent stick in our family. I’m best seen and not heard.

By: CFKane

CFKane — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 03:25:37 +0000

Yes they could. But to put it in economic terms rather than what’s just, guitar players buy a lot more sheet music than trombone players. So if the chord diagrams (not tab, that’s a different animal) make it easier for them and that moves more music, well you of all people know the rest.

By: Rufus

Rufus — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 02:25:55 +0000

I am willing to believe there is something I’m missing, but when I play trombone there are quite a few notes I can play in different positions, as long as I vary my lip vibration speed. When I’m playing a song I choose the combination that best suits the note I’m coming from and going to. Wouldn’t guitarists just do the same thing?

By: CFKane

CFKane — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:53:30 +0000

cqness nailed it, saying much better and more eloquently what I have been trying to explain to Rufus old boy for lo these many years. Bless you.

By: John Milton

John Milton — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:57:04 +0000

Not elitists…just not rockstars. Little Richard is no rockstar. Jerry Lee Lewis was, I guess, but not no mo.

By: cqness

cqness — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:14:49 +0000

I think it’s because the same note can be played in four or maybe more different places or positions on the guitar whereas on the piano and brass/wind instruments there is one best or only place to play a given note. Other string instruments like the violin have more limited range so generally there is one or at most two places to play a given note. I guess a chord can be in several different positions on a piano but if the notes of the chord are shown in the music then it is explicitly placed in one position only. The second reason for tab vs music has already been hinted and that is that the guitar is the one instrument that almost everybody has played around with at one time or another and a lot of these people won’t or can’t learn to read music.

By: Rufus

Rufus — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:29:55 +0000

So it’s not that the guitarists are dummies, it’s that the non-guitarists are elitists? Well, maybe with Chopin you’ve got a point, but Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis?

By: John Milton

John Milton — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:55:28 +0000

Because, Rufus, in our modern world unlike trumpets, pianos, flutes and violins everyone can play guitar. Everyone does play guitar or has in the past or is learning(I’m lumping Bass guitar in here as well). It’s a market thing. Nobody (cool anyway) plays trumpet (except in highs school bands), same goes for flutes, and pianos and violins are something you are forced to learn to play as a child.

Now guitar on the the other hand has a rockstar image….and everybody wants to be a rockstar. Or James Taylor.

Tabs help facilitate and expedite that process. Rockstar by numbers if you will.

By: Rufus

Rufus — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:10:34 +0000

O.K., but why didn’t your trumpet book show pictures of the three valves with dots over the ones you depress to make a note? Every other instrument uses the same, staff based notation to represent music, and that same notation works swimmingly for the chords on the guitar. Images like tabulature would make life easier for trumpet players and pianists, flautists and violinists. Why don’t they get the visual crutch of tabulature, but guitarists do?

By: JohnFN

JohnFN — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:07:17 +0000

It goes back to people wanting to learn quickly. It’s much easier to grab a tab, which shows you where every finger is supposed to go, versus having to learn to read music, as well as every note on every string and fret. It’s all about usability.

I used to read music playing the trumpet in school. Been playing the guitar 14 years since, and haven’t read music once since then. It’s just easier to use tab.