You do get varying degrees of clue on notation. Example.... seeing the word 'legato' over a piece.... means to 'play smoothy' so you could think of playing with hammers and pulls.

The octaves are shown with leger lines, or if they are too far away, with a '8va' symbol. TAB is definitely easier, but as Benoit points out, it's major limitation is that it gives no indication of time, only where to put your fingers.