Some guitarists decry guitar tablature as a cheat or, at best, a crutch, instead telling guitarists to learn standard notation. I can understand this position, although I don’t hold it myself. (If you don’t know what guitar tablature is, read this.)

I think guitar tablature has made the guitar a much more accessible instrument, almost a paint-by-numbers introduction to the instrument. Looking at a page of sheet music with notes seemingly randomly scattered across the page can be daunting and, I suspect, off-putting to someone new to the instrument.

There is certainly a place for standard notation for guitarists, and I highly recommend that any guitarist learn standard notation. In fact, it’s essential for many styles of music, such as jazz and classical. And, although I think teaching standard notation should be a part of any guitar instruction program, I don’t think it’s helpful to hold a dogmatic approach that only standard notation should be taught as part of guitar instruction. There are many different ways to learn the guitar.

A little background about me and why I feel the way I do. I started playing guitar at the age of 15. Like many teenagers, I didn’t have much of an attention span, and guitar tablature provided a quick approach to playing actual music. I think if I had tried to learn standard notation first, I would have been more likely to put aside the guitar and never return to it. As it turned out, I got hooked fairly early on because, thanks in large part to guitar tablature, I was able to play real music quickly. And, several years later when I started college, I decided to get a minor in music and took up classical guitar. As part of my classical guitar studies, I honed my sight-reading skills. But, as I mentioned earlier, I may have never made it to the classical guitar if I hadn’t first discovered tablature.

Of course, the flip side of the debate is that it’s easy to bypass important musical learning points by using tablature, which results in guitarists who do not have many of the basic skills that other musicians learned as a result of studying music theory. Additionally, sometimes the nuance of the music gets lost if all you’re doing is connecting numbers together. In cases like this, it does become a bit of a cheat.

I’m wondering what others think. Do you think guitar tablature is evil, great, or somewhere in between? In my opinion, I think the benefits of guitar tablature outweigh the negatives, but I think it’s important that guitarists expand beyond tablature at some point in their learning.

MONO CASES is a company that makes high-quality guitar gig bags as well as guitar straps and gig bags for bassists, producers and drummers. In addition to great looks, MONO’s guitar bags provide a neck-stabilizing support, which provides additional protection for the neck of the guitar. As touring musician Randy Williams says:

The best feature, however, to me is definitely the neck brace. Now, I won’t have to be scared to check it. As long as the neck isn’t moving around, I can hand the case to the burly baggage beast with confidence.

MONO has both single- and double-guitar cases, so if you need to carry more than one guitar, it looks like MONO’s got you covered.

My friend and classical guitar blogger Chris Davis recently created a free eBook for learning the notes on the guitar fretboard. If you’ve been visiting this site for any length of time, you know how important I feel learning the notes on the fretboard is for any guitarist.

At 15 pages, it’s a relatively short book, but it’s not short on content. Chris provides relational maps on how the notes fit together, which can help you better visualize the fretboard. I recommend checking out Chris’s book if you’re trying to learn the guitar.

I’m an impatient person. When I get my mind on something, I want to do it now. For anyone who’s played a musical instrument, you know that you’re not going to be able to play anything up to speed the first try. You must first slow down in order to play fast. This is something I’ve struggled with since I started playing guitar. Enter the Capo app from SuperMegaUltraGroovy. Put simply, Capo is software to slow down music.

There are other software applications to slow down music, some of which are quite good, but the thing I really like about Capo is its simplicity. Capo was seemingly created with a single purpose in mind: to help musicians slow down music to ease the learning process. I was up and running within seconds of installing Capo. Getting started was as simple as dragging a song onto the interface. And, the controls are intuitive and easy to use.

Capo has the ability to loop sections of songs to help you focus on just that section of music. Additionally, Capo supports markers, where you can place markers at important parts of a song. After marking a section of a song, you can jump directly to that section at a later time. You can even adjust the pitch of a song if needed.

Not surprisingly, Capo cannot play DRM-protected music, but since Apple lifted the DRM from songs in iTunes, that’s less of an issue now than it was a year ago. Additionally, Capo is Mac-only, so Windows users will need to use one of the alternatives, such as Transcribe! or the Amazing Slow Downer (both of which are cross platform).

Capo currently has an introductory price of $39, but the price will eventually be raised to $49. I can see Capo becoming an invaluable part of my practice routine. Highly recommended.

(Also see Jon’s review of Capo at Guitar Noize.)