Tablature allows us to convey techniques that are cumbersome to try to convey through standard notation and harder to read. Tablature focuses on the act of playing the guitar. It is more about how to play than what to play.

Standard notation is about communicating music. The particulars of the technique used to perform that music is left up to the musician with (ideally) only a few hints towards technique. Standard notation focuses on the musical ideas. It is more about what to play than how to play.

A big concern is that any idiot can upload a guitar tab, even when they have no clue what key the song is in. Many online guitar tabs are a waste of bandwidth.

@Steve – glad to hear of those success stories. I think tab is like a gateway to get people hooked.

@HowlingWolf – I agree. What ever it takes to get someone learning the guitar is the approach that person should take.

The first, my niece, played piano using standard notation for years. She picked up the guitar and taught herself using tab. Hooking up her guitar playing with standard notation later shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

The second, a friend’s daughter, tried for six months the standard notation way and just couldn’t get it. She then went to tab and is having a fun time actually playing instead of struggling. It is my hope that later she’ll work through standard notation.

Both are Tab success stories that have changed my thinking.

It’s a good way to get students playing things they like from the start. I always edit my tab into chord chart things as soon as the student can handle it, though. I will never give a student a tab of power chords. I’ll make them read it from a chord chart, etc.

I do try to tell my students about the limitations of tab, though good powertab type stuff makes those objections smaller. My big thing is the shear lack of information that tab conveys vs. how much info can be put on a staff.

Tom,

Standard notation can use the same symbols as nicer tab for bends and slides. Bends usually use those arrow things. Hammer-ons and pull-offs are written as slurs, and slides are usually written with a little line–glissando. Where to play a note is often up to the player, but there’s notation to handle that too. Numbers in circles are strings, otherwise some notation will include roman numerals above the staff which are meant to be position markers.

I like tab myself. I see the value of standard notation, but as with you, I probably wouldn’t have stuck with guitar without tab.

And how do you handle the fact that a given note is present in several places on the guitar? Take whichever is most convenient?