- The advantage of tabs is that it is easy to learn and it tells you how to play.

- The advantage of learning by ear is that it allows you to learn any song or piece and is also a very useful and versatile musical skill for improvising / jamming.

- The advantage of sheet music is that it tells you what to play and the theory it involves also gives you a language to efficiently talk to other musicians with.

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- The disadvantage of tabs is that it does not tell you what to play. If you get tabs for a musical piece you have never heard, you could not reproduce it very faithfully.

- The disadvantage of learning by ear is that it can be a time-consuming process.

- The disadvantage of sheet music is that it takes a fair bit of time to learn and a lot of time to master to read on the fly (sight-reading)