Sorry, M. B., It's not about you!
I was in the magazine section of Wal Mart when I saw it, a magazine called Guitar Legends. Gracing the cover of said magazine were the members of Led Zeppelin. I picked it up, and remarked how it seems that there are so many great guitarists out there whose images never grace the covers of magazines such as these, but that's another rant entirely! As I finished my rant and was putting the magazine back on the shelf, something on the cover caught my eye. It said that it contained the guitar lines for Stairway to Heaven. I was excited. I used to have a songbook that cotained the music for this song, but it has long since disappeared. With it having been many years since I had last played those lines, all I could remember was that each of the lines in the intro ended with the notes G A A. Needless to say, I blew eight bucks on the stupid magazine just to get that song!
I arrive at home, eager to play the intro to that song once more. I grab "Rudolf" and open the magazine to the pages where the song is located. ARRGH! What is this?! It most certainly isn't music (You know, the kind with notes on a staff). It's guitar tabs. I DON'T DO GUITAR TABS! Guitar tabs are for idiots who don't know how to read music, but still want to play. I do not fall into that category. This means more work for me. I now need to transpose all of those stupid little diagram things into honest to goodness musical notes.
Why do I want to do this when I have these diagrams which tell me precisely how to play each note? The answer is quite simple. On a guitar, there are several different ways to play any given note. I don't want to play the song like a Jimmy Page clone. I want to play it in my own style and you can't do that from tabs!
Really, the people who use these things should take the time to learn to read music. It is a much more enriching experience to play from REAL music. You also get to develop your own style, and you just can't do that from tabs.
End of rant...
