It amazes me that the over use of the tab system for playing



guitar has never before, that I know of anyway, been equated

to painting by numbers. While it's fine for the amateur player

and garage band hack, it has increasingly been brought into

the real world of music. Some of you may remember all those

tad polls and squiggly lines, clefs, staffs and bars, Italian

words like legato, staccato and all those other ato's. They

were fine for us and with the right teacher, (which is

increasingly hard to find, but that's another article), they

were even fun. It seems to me that this wonderful teaching

tool called tablature has been abused in this immediate

satisfaction world that now seems to exist. Not to mention

the spitting in the face of Segovia, Chet Atkins, Wes

Montgomery, Joe Pass, Tal Farlow, B.B. King, Eric Clapton,

have I made my point yet. Tab hackers cannot be compared

with us, the true musicians.

It is the responsibility of us as teachers to not give in to

the pressures of easy play guitar or any instrument for that

matter. The guitar and piano have become the most abused of

these systems due to the numerical and patterned designs of

the instrument. True professionals should be insulted by the

rash of infection within our craft of ineptly trained players

who in times of old would have been confined to play only at

family gatherings and high school summer bashes of drunken

teenagers who copped some beer and weed. It's not to say that

it's not nice for them to play that way. I'll even give them

an occasional an "how cute." Heck, I've been told by well-

meaning but misinformed parents to "just let them play and

have fun, they don't need to learn theory". Personally I

think it's fine that some learn and play this way, as long

as you confine it to old aunt Bessie and grandma or even some

bucket of blood in the Keys, but kindly do not include yourself

as one of us. You are not. If you can't read music, know little

to nothing about theory, then you are not a musician.

I'm not trying to be harsh here, I'm only trying to protect

the craft I've struggled to perfect, both playing and especially

teaching. I've found that the ones that don't care or are just

lazy simply will not learn any faster, with or without the tabs.

The real tragedies are the ones who do care or come to care

later on and then it's even harder to learn theory. You go from

this easy paint by numbers format and learning cool songs like

Sweet Home Alabama, Smoke on the Water to Twinkle, Twinkle

Little Star. Yea, that'll work. Guess what? You've just ruined

what could have become a fine musician, amateur or not, and

wasted all the money in lessons up to that point. Not to mention

the cost of the dust-gathering instrument which, by the way,

does not make a good clothes line like exercise machines. Most

importantly, you've given another blow to the true craftsmen,

the musician.

Kindly do not succumb to this practice, hire a real professional

with a lot of great references and pay him the extra bucks, it's

worth it.

Article written by John Marchionne.