[Shoe Lace]

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You can reach the very highest standard of rock/jazz/blues etc, guitar playing without ever learning to read a single note.( ie tabs and playing by ear as opposed to sheet music)

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What's your definition of very high standard?

After a little over half a year of reading tab I was able to play a lot of metal songs with very good accuracy. Some of the more difficult solos gave me trouble, but for the most part if I wanted to learn a song it was as simple as finding the tab online or in a book and spending a few days of hardcore practicing.

This doesn't mean I learned how to play metal though. I felt like a monkey -- just inputting tab notes a little bit at a time until I memorized it.

It wasn't until I ignored tabs and really buckled down into learning what you mentioned before I learned how to play. It was a complete transformation from "monkey memorizing notes" to "actually knowing what I was doing".

Suddenly I was able to sit down for extended amounts of time just playing whatever came into my head. Instead of it sounding like random crap, it sounded "right".

Prior to that when I tried to play whatever it took much much longer (mostly trial and error) before it resembled something that sounded good. It also had very little flow.

The only way I can describe is it, it's like trying to speak a foreign language without learning the alphabet/grammar/etc. If you spend some time, yes you'll be able to speak a few sentences and words, but if you know the language then you can skip all the grunt work and just let it flow.