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Tab Musicians?

Squirrel

Squirrel

    • 9,528
    Posts
    13
    Years
    • Age 30
    • Seen May 11, 2023
    So a few questions to all those budding guitarists and musicians out there; do you use tab music or sheet music? Why do you use one and not the other? Do you use both? Do you find one more useful than the other? Do you find tabs easier to read than sheet? Can you understand both styles?

    Here's an example of what both styles are like if you're not sure what the questions are referring to...

    Sheet
    Spoiler:

    Tab
    Spoiler:

    Personally, I'm a big fan of tabs. They're quicker to read, easier to access, clearer to understand and quicker to produce. They aren't as detailed and can't give as precise timing as sheet music, but I find them good enough to learn 95% of songs no problem. Plus they're much quicker for writing down ideas on! Although I was never a big fan of sheet music and I didn't take the time to learn it thoroughly so sometimes it can seem pretty daunting when you need to play a sheet of music fast!
     
    I use tabs, mainly because it was the only method that I was ever taught. I wish I knew how to read sheet, but I don't really know where to start, haha.

    Overall, tab is definitely easier to read and get around, though, so i'm pretty happy using it.
     
    I use sheet music, because only sheet music can be stored on a computer for easy use any time as a digital file. Tabs can't--as far as I know anyway.
     
    I used to play guitar a lot, but haven't touched one in around six years. But when I did, I used tabs fairly exclusively.
     
    I honestly don't understand how people can use tab music... but I come from a piano background, so anything that isn't sheet music is completely incomprehensible to me. I imagine someone coming from a guitar background might be more likely to feel the opposite re: sheet music.
     
    Tab music is definitely way easier to understand for beginners than sheet music is, but really, I'd encourage anyone to use the latter. Trying to take tab music any further than practising covers in your bedroom usually ends nastily when people playing other instruments have no idea what you're on about. It's nice to start out with but totally kills musical communication. They're only really used on sites like UG which are mostly inaccurate in places anyway.
     
    I'm learning piano the classical way so I use sheet music for that but I rarely stray from my textbook anyway when it comes to reading music. If I feel like playing a song by a band I like, I'll usually try to figure it out by ear. For guitar, I usually use tab. It's an interesting system.
     
    As someone who already knows how to read sheet music and is very much interested in learning how to play the guitar, sheet music it is! I don't understand that tab at all, whereas I have absolutely no problem reading the sheet music (duh, lol).
     
    Tabs are easy, easy! They are pretty much just telling you what frets to put your fingers on.

    I think that tabs are great if you are trying to learn a song to play as a beginner, and they can be transposed anywhere... Sheet music on the other hand is a much more unified music medium, so it means that you can play many songs on guitar or whatever stringed instrument you happen to use.

    I don't have a preference for either since they both get the job done, and I know tabs much better than I know sheet music.

    When I compose music, I usually write it in instrument specific plans, like tabs for most of the stringed instruments for instance.
     
    I can see how tabs can be understandable, but I was taught sheet music only as I play the trumpet. Music lessons in school were fun, as you had about half that could understand sheet music only, and about half that couldn't understand any sheet music and could only use tabs, and a very small minority who understood both or neither.
     
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