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The first goal will be to learn the advantages and disadvantages of these three different methods for learning to play guitar. The method or methods that you choose to learn and use will be an important factor in determining the type of guitarist you will become.
Guitar tablature - music written for guitar in a numbered string/fret form, is the first method learned by many beginning guitarists and can be used without any ear training or traditional sight training necessary.
In no way is this lack of ear training or sight training a good or bad thing, only one characteristic of a guitar player. As with any aspect of music, no one style of music or way of playing music is better or worse than the other, the quality of the music is only the decision of the listener or musician.
Many guitarists can become very accomplished musicians by purchasing guitar tablature and learning other musician's songs. You will learn in the following chapters how to read tablature. However, using tablature as your only source for learning music limits your ability to improvise - to play without preparation and compose - to create music. Purchasing tablature every time you want to learn a song can also become expensive.
Music notation - music written in notation form for sight reading, is similar to tablature as a visual form of training that uses familiar notes placed on a staff - horizontal lines and spaces on which a series of notes are placed, therefore symbolizing the notes A, B, C, etc., and their relative musical timing.
Many guitarists can also become very accomplished musicians by purchasing music in notation form to learn other musician's songs and learning the details of music theory. By learning key signatures - a system of related notes forming a scale, chord relationships, and structured timing a thorough understanding of the relationships between notes, scales, chords, and music theory in general can be obtained. (A chord is defined as simply two or more notes played at the same time.)
Learning to sight read music in notation form can be beneficial when learned and applied in the proper perspective. However, sight reading can often be confined by the very structure that defines it. First, sight reading is inherently visual. Music is an auditory form of expression and communication - it is inherently sound meant to be heard and not seen. Second, traditional sight reading places emphasis on very strict timing. Timing is closely related with the "feel" of the music. Strict timing leads to the "stiffness" that often plagues the musical styles closely related with sight training.
In addition, if the musician depends too heavily on a theoretical approach for reading and writing music, the music often turns into a "paint by numbers" music with many rules, boundaries, and "supposed to's", either implied or recommended. The methods may give the illusion of an original piece of music, but underneath it all there is always a pre-meditated or pre-determined structure.
However, in light of all that has been said, and to repeat what was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, in no way is one method of training better or worse than another, only one characteristic of the guitar player or musician. I just prefer music that isn't stiff, enough said...
Ear training - a method for creating and writing music "with the ears only", is very different from any visual form of training and often very elusive and difficult to grasp for beginning and "experienced" guitarists alike. This is largely due to the lack of material on formal ear training and also due to the more accepted traditional sight training methods for learning to read and write music.
By reading the following chapters you will begin to understand that ear training is a developed skill available to anyone as opposed to a "you have it or you don't" skill. You will learn the simplicity of playing by ear when it is a taught using a clear, complete, step-by-step process and that ear training is the most effective method for creating and improvising music. Finally, and equally important, you will also learn to save a load of money on expensive sheet music, tablature, and lessons by learning how to learn from yourself through effective ear training.
