I read that professional musicians read notes on the staff instead of reading tab.
I read notes on the staff. I don't want to plow thru reading tabs if I don't have to.
I have yet to master chords but will begin.
Is there any benefit to reading tab?
If you can read standard notation, then you don't necessarily have to use tab. But since tab doesn't have a huge learning curve it's not difficult to parse.
Tablature has two benefits: it's perceptually easy & it's a precise location map. Since many guitarists are self-learners it's an easy way to get the information about which notes to play.
It also has disadvantages: doesn't label musical notes, typically doesn't indicate rhythm & it's only applicable to specific stringed instruments.
In my experience, the biggest benefit is the precise location. For many instruments a note on the staff has one unique physical location on the instrument. But the same note can often be played in more than one place on the guitar. Standard music notation doesn't typical contain the info. It can be added (and often is in notation for classical guitar). But it's another layer of info to parse. Whereas it's directly indicated in tab.
For example, this tutorial covers how to play the major scale in various patterns & locations. You can see the same notation is used in each of the 3 primary patterns!
https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial/453/
They both have benefits and are both used for guitar. That's why GT uses the standard guitar notation model of including both!
But if you can read standard, then just do that & don't worry about tab unles you need it in some situation.
Hope that helps!
