A Letter to All High School Guitarist Wannabees

TAB paper is not music.

If you are unable to read ACTUAL MUSIC, you are not a musician. I don't care how well you can play "Smoke on the Water" or "Hotel California" using a piece of TAB with the fingerings spelled out for you. Actually, I don't care if you can play "Smoke on the Water", period. Nobody wants to hear you play "Smoke on the Water". If you can't pick up a sheet of freaking music, put it in front of you, and learn a song from scratch, then you either need to learn how to do so, or put down the guitar and walk away. TAB is for lazy people.

TAB DOES NOT SHOW YOU RHYTHMS. One cannot get by with music that only shows pitch. Pitch is only part of the music. Rhythm is another, equally important part. So with TAB, one can only play songs that one already knows the rhythms to. Which roughly translates to "songs that one already knows". Which keeps from expanding one's musical horizons. News flash: Classic Rock isn't the only genre of music out there. I get it, you're cool and have excellent taste in music that you weren't alive to hear when it was released. Eric Clapton did it better than you. Get over it and play something new.

I can play TAB. Trust me, it's not difficult.

Your music teacher knows you've been playing the same three songs the entire year. He knows this because he's the one who assigned the songs to you. He is aware that you're not capable of handling anything more challenging. He is also aware of your attendance record. He is able to notice patterns and make connections. He knows that you can't play a scale to save your life. He judges you more than you realize. He's right. If you're not actually planning to learn anything in your music class, stop wasting the teacher's time while you sit there thinking you're hot shit because you can pluck out a few chords. Being a musician is not easy. If it's easy for you, you need to reevaluate how much respect you have for what you're doing. You also need to look down and see if your sheet music is comprised of notes, or of numbers on lines. If it is the latter, feel free to stop anytime you like.  

You are not a musician. Learn to read music, or get out.