Stevo123 wrote:It's funny to me that there's this convention that we talk about learning "scales" as if there's more than one scale to learn!
of course, you're right but that's also like saying that a dictionary is the only book you ever need you just need to read it in the right order.
You're also right, that if you're looking to develop your musicianship then developing your ear and mind is what you want to be doing and tabs are probably something to shy away from. But, it depends on your goal as a guitar player. If your goal is to be a working musician and to play out and make money doing it then you're advice is right on target. If your goal is to learn a few songs and have fun playing at home and with friends then it's still a good idea but might be more of a time and effort investment than someone is willing to put in and then learning some songs from tabs is fine. If this sparks interest in someone to then push further and learn more, great. If they are happy with where they are and don't want to push further, great. Everyone should find the path that makes them happy.
When I was managing the music store we had a guitar instructor who was a fantastic player, went the Berkeley School of Music, had some serious chops and was a really smart. For serious players he was a great teacher. For kids just wanting to have some fun and make some raucous noise he beat the fun out of playing for those kids. A lot of them gave up music which I think is a shame. Some of those kids could have gone on to become good players if they had not had the fun beaten out of playing.
I sometimes use tabs to learn or re-learn songs because it's fast, I have 2 small kids, a dissertation, and classes to grade so sitting with guitar and mp3 and working through tunes isn't practical. Though I force myself to sit down with the Fake Book every week or so and practice reading melody just to keep my mind sharp.
vwjodyme - there's some great advice here and if you're up for the journey I wholeheartedly encourage you to jump in. If you want to keep it fun and light then there is nothing wrong with that. As one of my dissertation committee members always tells me - "Tom, remember, how you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." Take small steps and before you know it, you've traveled some serious distance.