It is especially true for guitarists, but applies to any instrument. There’s tons of “chart junk” as Edward Tufte, an American statistician, calls it: imagery that serves no other purpose than to be a flowery representation of data, which often serves to confuse, rather than enlighten, the viewer.
For guitarists, here’s some samples you may have seen:
While there’s a time and a place to use diagrams and tabs, and these do serve a purpose, the mind saturated with fingering charts, and worry over what is G and G# too early in the game only serves to confuse guitarists starting out, rather than help them (I should know).
So, I have turned to my ears. Those two things on the side of my head, from which all music actually springs. I have the award-winning music educator David Bloom, founder of Bloom School of Jazz, to thank for presenting a project to me which made me realize the importance of ear training. Upon navigating the guitar solely by ear (or attempting to) I could see where my skills need to be, and thus I started a journey of my own on ear training, making up my own exercises including one I call “mirror notes” where I find all the octaves of a certain note. It’s one small step for my ears, one giant leap for my musical brain. May you likewise endeavor to develop your ears!