# Learning Acoustic Fingerstyle by Ear Vs Tab/Staff Notation?



## DarkDove (Jul 10, 2008)

http://www.allears.co/index.php?opt...lable&catid=31:whatisallearsmethod&Itemid=196

I read in the link above that a lot of big names of acoustic fingerstyle guitarist like Tommy Emmanuel, Paco De Lucia and Jung Sungha learned everything BY EAR and not from tabs! Can anyone confirm this? 

Plus, is it a better idea to learn by listening or by tab/staff notations?


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## tpbiii (Nov 15, 2010)

Certainly there are excellent players that do it both ways and there is nothing to keep you from doing both. 

If you play by ear, the first question is how to determine what to play. I use an alternating thumb (ragtime) style which I do by ear. The advantage is for the type of stuff I do, if I hear the melody, I can pretty much play it immediately -- even in a jam session where I have never heard the song before. The disadvantage is that my arrangements tend to be simple, and if the harmonic structure id too complex, I don't do so well. 

For people you learn from tab, they can be limited to what they have learned, but that can lead to a much broader class of materials -- you are separating the composition from the playing, and there are some really good composers out there.

Either way works. Both require practice, practice, and practice.

Both can be really rewarding.

Let's pick,

-Tom


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## bw66 (Dec 17, 2009)

Can't speak to the other two, but Tommy Emmanuel learned by ear. Apparently Andy McKee did most of his learning by ear too. Learning by ear is an excellent skill to have and its something that you should try to develop. Having said that, learning by ear is not one of my strengths - particularly with fingerstyle, so I learn a lot of tunes from notation. If you are good at learning by ear, then go for it, but work on reading music too. If you are good at reading music, do that, but try to develop your ear as well.


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