Man, is it ever frustrating to look online for the chords fr a song you want to play and there’s all this tab BS? WTF? I mean, if it were somehow easier, I’d understand, but it’s just a f’ing bunch of gibberish! Why would someone think it’s easier to draw out a bunch of lines of dashes with numbers in them than just typing D7 or whatever?
Death to tabs!
Umm… Because people play more than chords? Licks, riffs, anything that uses less than six strings simultaneously? I’m not sure there’s anything more to it than that.
Ideally, the tab has the chord designation printed above it.
Well then you’re not going to like my answer.
Because it’s easier.
It’s a very simple language that one can pick up in about 5-10 min. compared to the many weeks/months it takes to learn to read music by sight.
I love tabs…
Which D7 did you have in mind, the one where the harmony goes A-D-A-C-F# or the one that goes A-D-A-C-A-F# or the one that goes D-F#-C-A?
The first one has an open harmony with an augmented fourth as its top interval which gives the chord a nice emphasis on the missing D. The second has a good flavor of perfect fourths and fifths in the bass range which harmonize well and can be given a good powerful strum without sounding muddy, while giving a nice clean major sixth as its top interval. The last is a pretty simple four-note chord with no repeats, and therefore no special emphasis on any one note.
It’s not like a piano, where you could play any of up to ten notes of a D7 harmony with both hands depending on how you wanted the chord voiced. In that first example (A-D-A-C-F#) that fifth string can either be a C or a D but not both.
Agreed. If it’s a song with strictly chord playing, I’d rather just read that and look up the chords if I absolutely have to. But if there’s something more involved - well, like a lot of guitarists, I can barely read music. I vaguely remember a little of it, but it’s far less effort to just look at the numbers. We’re talking about the electric guitar here, not the violin: most people who play the instrument do not have serious training.
Tabs really have opened up music for me. Yep, they make it easy, least resistance and all that.
When a band’s up on stage playing covers, no one can tell if they read music or use tabs.
Really? I’ve been playing for 36 years, and I haven’t been able to “pick up” either.
Are you goofing with me?
If I was in Fla. I’d go meet you at a Starbucks right now and you would go home reading tab. 
Yeah, tab is really easy to read, but I have found that you really need someone to show you in real life how – that’s how I learnt, anyway.
No, seriously! I had two piano teachers give up on trying to teach me to play by reading because I just could not get it. But I could play stuff 'way out of the method books by ear. (I’ve played piano eight more years than guitar.) I played drums in high school Instrumental Music and sang baritone in Vocal Music classes for nearly four years, and faked it every day. I got 80s and 90s. I taught myself bass and guitar, too. So help me, beyond knowing the names of the notes, sheet music might as well be hieroglyphics. I do it all by memory and feel.
Thanks for offering, but really, nah. I don’t think I would. Besides, I don’t need to. If I hear it, and it’s within my ability, I’ll play it back to you. That’s why people liked to have me on their sessions.
They’re not all that hard to make if you have the software. Shoot, I do stuff similar to tabs all the time in Vi (a text editor).
And they are quite easy to learn for many (but clearly not all) people. I have near zip musical talent and no training. But I figured out tabs in no time without help.
Plus there’s the “what an idiot!” fun side of seeing someone who did a tab for a song that is clearly clueless. Can’t these people even count notes let alone beats?
The Internet, providing fun and misinformation since 1969.
I’m not great at guitar. I can pick out a few notes from a few songs here and there. But the songs I know best, I picked up by studying tabs. I’m sure my fingering is crap, but I can make the music sound like it’s meant to and that’s all I care about.
It’s about as bad as searching for lyrics, at times. The downside is that so few people go to the trouble of making a tablature for a song that you’re likely to see the same one or two repeated at every music site on the 'net. 
One more “can’t read music” vote, except that I can read music for piano (and saxamaphone), but guitar just confuses me. It’s easier if I can see the actual strings first, and then relate it to a chord I’m familiar with.
I learned to play with “regular” sheet music - notes and chord names. To me, after learning that way, tabs are not as comfortable. BUT, when you are not exactly sure how to play a particular passage, tabs can be a nice bit of help. You start playing by sight reading, and some parts are awkward or impossible, then you look at the tab or the “position info” that says where on the neck you should be, and it makes it do-able.
I don’t know if that’s your point or not, but that’s exactly what tabs do.
E–2–
B–3–
G–2–
D-----
A-----
E-----
The numbers indicate what frets to put your fingers on and the lines are the guitar strings from lowest to highest. That’s a D chord. It doesn’t tell you which fingers to use, btw, just which frets to place them at. That’s something that got me at first.
Pretty simple once you get used to it, I think.
Maybe I can explain the block I have about reading music, that will explain my block about understanding tablature.
If there was a line of notation with chords and rests, etc., I would have to go:
OK, that’s C. It’s on this fret, with this finger. The next note in the chord is, um, every good boy…deserves…E, with this finger. The next one is…every good boy deserves favor…G, with this finger. And that’s just for the first three notes! I would have to do that for every note on the page! By the time I got through the first line, the band would have finished the song and gone out for a beer. And with tabs, I’d have to be counting frets now!
:: runs out of thread, screaming! ::
fb - it can be easier than that. Look at silentgoldfish’s example: Okay, put a finger on the high string, 2nd fret, next string 3rd fret, and string after that, 2nd fret. Okay, got it. Now - do you have to know you’re now playing a D chord? Nope, you just are doing what the tab says and strumming.
I don’t read music and can’t recall what each note is at each fret at all, but use tabs as quick references all the time. If I have to quickly figure out a song or a solo for my band, I check out a few tabs - because, as had been point out, they vary in quality - and get the basic layout of the song.