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Here is my take on tab. As a guitarist I find I am going through 2
phases with tablature.
Phase 1: Consumer. When you don't know jack about the guitar it is
nice to be able to play stuff you like instead of Mel Bay or
whatever. When you have a tabbed out song you can concentrate on
getting your fingers and brain to work out the actual mechanics of
playing the guitar. Plus you stay excited about being able to play
music you love even if its not perfect.
Phase 2: Producer. Once you get the basics of physically playing the
guitar I have found making tablature to be a big help on my ears.
Personally I have made great strides in my listening skills if I make
myself sit down and tab out a song. Much to my surprise I am starting
to be able to figure stuff out much easier and yes, I even figured a
lick or two out without holding a guitar in my hand (doesn't happen
often yet for me!).
So in those two respects I think it helps. After a while you don't
need it so much anymore.
And we all probably know that 90% of the tab out there on the web is
at best incomplete and in all likelihood riddled with errors. You
have to take the pieces out that are right and correct the bad parts,
which is a pretty good exercise too.
I encourage people to upload tab to the files section, and maybe get
a kind of peer review process going to shake out the bugs.
BTW, recently I picked up a cool instructional surf guitar book
(still amazed one even exists). It comes with a CD that has several
Torquays tracks on it. Each track has 2 versions, one is the full
song, and the other has the lead guitar removed. The Torquays rock
too! Its called "Surf Guitar" and the author is Dave Celentano. I got
mine through Elderly Instruments ().
