Tablature is not a dumbed down version of “real” musical notation. It has been a real help to the many people who have taken up the electric guitar and who wanted to get down to the business of playing as quickly as possible.
Tablature as a means of writing music down has been with us for hundreds of years, but many people today look down on tabs as a third rate method of musical communication. Conventional music notation has much more to communicate than tabs, but if you already know more or less how the song sounds, and are prepared to work at your own interpretation, then there’s nothing wrong with using tablature.
Guitarists contributing their tabs to websites have brought a wider range of music within reach of amateur musicians who never learnt musical notation.
Electric guitar tablature introduces an amateur guitar player to a range of music without asking him to learn musical theory that he may feel he can do without. Tablature allows the guitarist to get to know the music in his own time. For that reason tabs are a boon to the electric guitar player.
You can find electric guitar tabs in music stores along with conventional written music, but the simplest and best place to look for electric guitar tabs is on the internet. Many tabs are still available for free, but you need to be able to exercise your discernment when making use of tablature produced by amateur guitarists. You may need to change things around a little if they don’t sound right.
Tablature also allows the guitarist to learn new scales or modes very quickly.
Using electric guitar tabs to learn new material is not a walk in the park – you need to supply some of the information which is written into sheet music. You need to have some idea of the note values and a basic understanding of time signatures and tempo. What that boils down to is that you can hear the music in your head, and you just want to know where to put your fingers on the fret board. That is where guitar tablature can help you.
