I do both. Guitar, like alot of stringed instruments, seems to be tab heavy when learning. Even though I find alot of tab inaccurate and do use my ear to learn alot of instrumental stuff off records CD's etc.
I play saxes as well, in jazz, and recently had a teacher suggest to memorise more snd get away from reading all the time. That learning from memory helps you listen more to the band and feel the music.
Any thoughts on the benefit of either and suggestions?

Good to know how to do both. But the ear in indispensable. In my regular gigs, the guys that go by printed charts and tabs have chords wrong about 85% of the time, for whatever reason. The stuff is just inaccurate. Sometimes out of laziness I will look on youtube to tutorials. But even that is better than tabs, as you can clearly hear if the person is playing it right, or not.

Guitarist for Black Valley Moon & Down By Law

DreadInBabylon wrote:

Dick Dale's tab book, where EVERY note is accounted for -
Vol. 1: Nitro

Pierre seems to cover it well & I think you're right to get away from the 2-dimensional paper to a point where you are more feeling the musical thought to be played. From someone who was a pretty good sight-reader on piano as a kid (music, not tab), I still play by ear. (Forgot 4 yrs of HS French too as soon as I got to Germany, lol.) I will use a tab once in awhile and then out of curiosity, perhaps as to where someone is playing that on the neck; due to some mobility limits on a couple fingers it may lead to a better way around a particular passage mechanically or (better) lead me to work on something of value.

IMO most of the tabs found on the net are worthless. A few folks who give video lessons are very good about tabbing what they're doing. (Bruce Lindquist is an example; Martin Cilia's professionally done tabs of his own stuff are an example of something that blows away the typical ASCII-based download sites.) I get more from the lesson & playing along, nugging out the homework, note by note & then integrating as a whole passage, part of the song.

One of the many reasons for that integration is that some things just cannot be effectively practiced (by me anyway) at slow speed, strictly from a mechanical perspective - for example, once "locked in" for some staccato picking, a passage needs to be played that way, so the practice is the physical work to do it right. 30+ yrs ago a bunch of us had a pretty successful area band but, looking back, our craft sucked. Perhaps it's just time that has taught me "never again, do the work up front."

For me tabs are a 2D after-the-fact record of something like a blueprint (which I'm horrible at understanding); music is the 3D object that resulted in the blueprint artifact later. I've never seen a tab that, on its own, made me reach for a guitar.

Wes
SoCal ex-pat with a snow shovel

DISCLAIMER: The above is opinion/suggestion only & should not be used for mission planning/navigation, tweaking of instruments, beverage selection, or wardrobe choices.

I use tabs mostly as a time saver and guitar "GPS". Whenever possible, however, I'll look at a Youtube video or equivalent of the tune in question to see where a player fingers the notes - getting an idea of neck position, scale, string tone, etc. That often is at variance with how the tab is written. And conversely, I just wonder what a player was thinking with some fingerings used that are just plain awkward. The tab is then a better note layout reference.
So, philosophically, "One man's fingering is another man's lingering" ... or something.
Whether we realize it or not, our playing is like a fingerprint i.e. it's unique (to us).
J Mo'

Clarry wrote:

I've found, the more I've learned and played, I only need the first two or three "fingerings" on a tab and a lot of the rest falls into place for simpler songs.

On some rare occasions, I've stumbled on a well-known tune and just need to ask the key then readjust.

Yes Clarry it seems by ear is the way to go. Though there is alot of tab floating around it isn't very accurate.

After a few months going through online stuff, tab books and working of records to learn tune, I have concluded that it seems learning by ear is the major way to learn this stuff and probably how most people do it.

JakeDobner wrote:

I don't read music well, and I wish I had picked that up. Would have loved taking music theory courses, etc... I do think certain people suffer from this, but obviously people can flourish. But obviously, you aren't learning surf music from music.

Tab is worthless, never right. It can be useful to pick up the first couple notes as you develop your ear's pitch.

Learning by ear, highly recommended.

I am learning Mandolin right now, it is pretty exciting. It feels very refined, due to its being tuned to fifths. I really enjoy that about Mandolin. Anyways, back to my point. I am using music that is mixed with tab to learn music better. Also, the tab is written out like music which I fully support. I can learn the tunes without ever having heard them because of this. Also, learning scales via "tab"

Surf Mandolin? I play Mandolin and learnt it mainly via tab but can read slowly.

I think it all helps and has it's place. I learnt saxes mainly via reading and bass and guitar by ear,reading and tab. But alot of blues,jazz and rock has accurate tabs. I realize alot of surf or instrumental stuff is touch and go. I learnt some it but when I matched it with the tunes it wasn't that accurate. Hence my thoughts learning this style is probably alot of ear work.

philjudd wrote:

JakeDobner wrote:

I don't read music well, and I wish I had picked that up. Would have loved taking music theory courses, etc... I do think certain people suffer from this, but obviously people can flourish. But obviously, you aren't learning surf music from music.

Tab is worthless, never right. It can be useful to pick up the first couple notes as you develop your ear's pitch.

Learning by ear, highly recommended.

I am learning Mandolin right now, it is pretty exciting. It feels very refined, due to its being tuned to fifths. I really enjoy that about Mandolin. Anyways, back to my point. I am using music that is mixed with tab to learn music better. Also, the tab is written out like music which I fully support. I can learn the tunes without ever having heard them because of this. Also, learning scales via "tab"

Surf Mandolin? I play Mandolin and learnt it mainly via tab but can read slowly.

I think it all helps and has it's place. I learnt saxes mainly via reading and bass and guitar by ear,reading and tab. But alot of blues,jazz and rock has accurate tabs. I realize alot of surf or instrumental stuff is touch and go. I learnt some it but when I matched it with the tunes it wasn't that accurate. Hence my thoughts learning this style is probably alot of ear work.

I came to surf guitar via surf mandolin! It is great fun indeed!

Learning to read music is incredibly valuable on a number of levels:
1. You learn to read music!
2. Increased brain/eye/motor relationship development
3. Increased muscle memory command of the instrument (the fretboard and string location) because you cannot look at your fingers while reading
4. Better understanding of the relationships between notes.

I too sight-read badly - on mandolin and piano but not guitar yet - but learning to read slowly in first position is really not that difficult - it just takes a bit of time and practice. The confidence one derives from even this achievement is quite significant!

That being said - I'm not sure reading or sight-reading music has any benefit for learning specifically to play surf rock - or any other form of rock music. You gotta be able to listen to the tune, watch people on YouTube and pick it apart.

Jonathan the Reverbivore

The Reverbivores

Please check out our latest album The Reverbivores Watch TV!

www.thereverbivores.com
Facebook
YouTube

Last edited: Jan 27, 2017 10:52:01