Most experienced guitar instructors who are interested in providing a useful and enjoyable skill set to their students answer that question with a resounding “no”. The guitar works differently than other instruments in several key ways. First, the layout of the instrument allows for a type of notation called “tablature” (tab). Tab notation is as old and accepted a form of notation as music notation, and it is as well entrenched in the experience of every guitarist as music notation is in the experience of other instrumentalists. Music notation is important for guitarists to learn, because it allows for the reading of vocal melodies and music written for other instruments. When it comes to learning to play the instrument, however, it’s a very awkward, confusing, and ineffective system. On other instruments, each note is typically found in one unique place – “middle C” on a piano refers to a specific spot on the instrument. This isn’t true with the guitar. Middle C, and every other individual note, can be found at many duplicate places on the fretboard (this enables the instrument to play chords and to finger melodies within a small region of the fretboard). What that means is that, unlike with other instruments, a note in musical notation doesn’t tell guitarists how to perform a specific action on the instrument. Tab notation does, and because of that, it provides a much more effective means of notating how the fingers should move on the instrument. In addition, tab can be learned quickly – a beginning guitar student can learn to read tablature in one lesson. Learning to read the notes on the guitar typically takes the average beginning student 6 months to a year. Because of this, the learning curve to play even the most simple and common pieces of music in standard musical notation on the guitar is grudgingly long, and most students forced to take that route become bored and quit playing before they ever learn to play anything interesting – and well before they learn any of the common useful skills. Beyond that, reading “music” (standard notation) is simply not necessary for guitarists. Tablature is the most effective and commonly taught method of notation, and is therefore the most commonly published form of notation. Every major publication for guitar, including all reputable modern books, magazines, and Internet publications are published in tab format. Many of those publications include music notation for those who want it, but it’s typically not used by the average guitarist.

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Last night I watched one of the funniest movies I think I have ever seen. Hot Tub Time Machine was a new movie that was on my satelite tv in denver Movies on Demand feature. After watching the promo for it, I had to order it and I was not disappointed. The movie is about four people who get into a hot tub that takes them back in time to the 80’s. One of the people is only 21 years old so he was not even born during that time but it was funny watching him. He was in an environment that he knew nothing about and it made for some really funny scenes in the movie. Also in the movie was Chevy Chase playing the man trying to fix the time machine so the four men could get back to the present day. While this movie is a fun comedy movie, it should be noted that it is not one for children. I was thinking about ordering this when my little cousin came to visit and I am glad that I watched it with people in my age group. It is not exactly age appropriate for the younger crowd. It does have some mild nudity and crude language and subject matter and some sexual situations. I found it a funny movie and would watch it again.