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Gutiar tab and lyric sites can't close, we need them

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There was a rumour that the music industry is taking it's war to song lyrics and guitar tab resource web sites are they?  They want the owners of web sites that publish lyrics, sheet music and guitar tabs to do some jail time as well as shutting the web site down.  Just who does the boss, 'the music miser' think he is anyway?

What do the MPA (Music Publishers’ Association) really hope to achieve by this kind aggressive action?  I’ll tell you what the will happen.  They are going to stifle the creativity that has flourished thanks to the fact that musicians and songwriters can easily share ideas and learn from each other.  If they carry on with their plan to clamp down on the publication of guitar tab and lyrics they wont be doing themselves any favours.   As it is, there isn’t a huge amount of decent original music out there anyway and the crap that the record companies are pumping out these days only backs that up.

Learning to play a guitar with tab. Why make things worse by killing dead a resource that allows musicians to learn and hone their skills?   Sheet music is notoriously expensive and this is probably why many musicians turn to the Internet to find tabs and lyrics.   Maybe if the music industry on the whole weren’t so greedy in the first place they wouldn’t have this problem.  Also, I would have thought that it is more important to encourage people to learn to play and develop their talents.   After all they could be the next best selling record.

Some of the tabs and lyrics come from published sources, but a fair amount of it also originates from people who have listened to the song, interpreted the music and written the tablature for the benefit of other musicians who wish to learn that particular song.  So are they breaking the law as well then?  Is helping someone to learn a song really that bad and is it actually equivalent to stealing food from the mouth of the original artist?   I don’t think so somehow.   I think the MPA, Warner Chappell and the music industry on the whole have completely lost the plot on this one.

Please lets have some sanity here.   Leave guitar tab and lyrics web sites alone!


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Flash

Flash

You know regarding creativity and the future of music... do you not just think that there are only so many notes that can be combined in so many ways in combination with other instruments to so many rhythmns that perhaps after 60 or 70 years or so of popular music we've just drained down the barrel?
The next big thing maybe just doesn't exist because there's nothing left?
Discuss.
29/03/11 Flash
79
guitargaz

guitargaz

If anyone can make money out of anything, regardless who get's hurt, they will do it.
I am a guitarist and most of what I've achieved in playing lead, is from free tabs, but now, in the future when I need to learn a new number, I either sit in front of my trusting stereo and stop and start all night till I get it right or buy a book, "on your bike". I wont go down that road, as ilovemusic said, £12 for a book, just to learn 1 number, this world just seems to be getting worse.
I really pitty my grandkids in the future, it actually scares me.
29/10/10 guitargaz
-7
sharebla

sharebla

How can one find out if they are breaking copywright laws? Is sounding out a song and sharing it with others breaking the law? Is writing down chords to a song and sharing it breaking the law? Is selling the chords to a song for 20 cents breaking the law? Where do we go to read these laws?
02/07/10 sharebla
-47
Century25

Century25

The slobbering greed of world corporations.. are eviscerating the golden goose. Not much left to take.. is there..?
09/08/09 Century25
79
ilovemusic.

ilovemusic.

surely we should be encouraging people to take an intrest in music and learning ?
the fact that you can buy a lyric book for £12.00 is a rip off. music is for everyone and it should stay that way
15/06/09 ilovemusic.
24
Steve da Bass

Steve da Bass

I can honestly say that 100% of musicians I know - which include a fair few professionals, all use tab sites. As you say, Lets Get Real
31/03/09 Steve da Bass
-57
Bloodyscot

Bloodyscot

Books of tabs is becoming the way of the past. With Midi files you can create tabs(sheet music) or just listen to it to get a feel for the music and timing. Power tabs(free) and Guitar pro is a much better way to go. You create or emport the files then listen and see tabs at the same time. You can mute some tracks and use it for back tracking.
The MPA needs to get behind this new technology and help setup quality websites to sell this much like the RIAA and itunes People will pay for quality if it is easy to use and fairly priced.
This willbe good for song writers but may hurt print companies.
Then is also new software that can take wav and mp3 files that can separate each instrument on to a separate track then create sheet music(tabs) for each one but it takes alot of hands on work to do it right and is still abit pricey and very new. In 5 or 10 years you will be able to create sheet music right from the recorded songs with software and it willbe as good or better that most current tab books.
If I remember right song writers get payed for songs played on the radio but the recording artist do not.
28/03/09 Bloodyscot
51
Ear Tabber

Ear Tabber

While a tab site can be useful, what ever happened to the old way of learning a song? Using your ears! Listen to the song, pick out the melody, the picking pattern etc...

While looking at tab is an eay and quick way to learn a song, it doesn't help you fine tune your ears. The more you listen to music and try to play along the more you will progress as a musician.

While the tab sites may seem useful, if you really need to look at the tab for a song, it's probably too hard for you to play anyway.

I see kids who are learning guitar and they are just being showed paterns, they aren't learning chords, positions, scales and modes. Ask them to play an E5 chord in a different position and they won't have a clue.

You don't see the great guitarists (EVH, Steve Vai, Jason Becker, Satch, Gilbert) needing to look at tabs, and how did they learn? By listening to the songs and playing along with them until they got it.

Basically, the more time and effort you put into "learning" to play "Guitar", rather than "learning" to play "Songs", the better you will become - and that is true.

I'm not picking on people who use tans day in day out, but the best way to learn is to learn yourself.
26/05/08 Ear Tabber
25
From experience

From experience

kind of ironic in a way... they want to shut down tab sites to protect current musicians, but then all the thousands of little kids who learn guitar like that simply wont learn and we wont have the same musicians around... I think it may have a negative impact on the industry several years down the track when all the music we will be hearing are from professionally trained a-holes. people who learn by ear or tabs and that have more natural feeling in their music.
06/05/08 From experience
-105
a guy somewhere

a guy somewhere

...blah "all these tab sites to is enable morons to drag everyone else down with them by posting gibberish tab all over the place. why not try harder" blah ... What a "moron". Most musicians do look up music on the web especially when there isn't a decent published source. It is very easy to replay a melody line as soon as it is heard but transcribing a whole piece is usually excessively time consuming. Hey mozart figure out Bach's concierto in D. I know several children who play it by memory. But they cheated, they had the written music. But the double d is easy, how about a piece by Juan Luis Guerra or just any generic heavy metal group. Not so easy is it? But what would you know? You aren't a musician after all are you? Simply show someone a basic twelve bar blues line? No way, they should spend a week figuring it out. You should be beaten for expressing such moronic opinions. The issue posed by the question is really fair use and personal freedom. In Florida buyers of used CD's have to be fingerprinted. Children are prosecuted as criminals for sharing music. Stupid lawsuits fill the courts. Its not a pretty picture. Music publishing is a monopoly and a fraud. Anybody can attest to the fact that most published popular music is often very poorly written. Obviously tabs are written just to give someone a basic idea and are more or less accurate depending on who did them. Most are not very useful but interestingly quite a few are more accurate than the over priced published music. Its a matter of freedom it is not the stealing of another's work. The moron didn't quite realize these facts. BTW moron, if are going to post in English learn English .
03/07/07 a guy somewhere
83
Jake W. from Cncinnati

Jake W. from Cncinnati

Its basically gross. The fact that the record labels can reach into our own computers and take our music away from us makes me more than a little concerned. Aren't people supposed to fight that kind of thing? Sure we can whine , but what can we do in the real world. send ideas to - www.jakeistheman89@yahoo.com
31/03/07 Jake W. from Cncinnati
-45
Red Axe Guitar Player

Red Axe Guitar Player

Why cant you see that these people do no harm? They just want to give us the knowledge of how to play a wonderfull song nomatter what the content. There should be no reason for jailtime to them. If they don't make a profit on these tabs then there should be no trouble.
08/03/07 Red Axe Guitar Player
-34
Jimmy Wyld

Jimmy Wyld

there are lots and lots of tabs on this website....
http://thepiratebay.org

the MPAA is not really living in the real world. F*** them, if they can convince themselves that they know how to continue to make money. everybody hates them now, and they will lose...in a battle only they wanted!

they are just greedy wierdo's....don't give them the time of day
15/01/07 Jimmy Wyld
46
TabRocket.com

TabRocket.com

My site www.TabRocket.com was closed by lawers two months ago. It was MPAA that was behind the whole thing. :/
10/12/06 TabRocket.com
27
What the hell!!!

What the hell!!!

they SHOULD NOT be closed because all tabs are just made from more experianced musitions who can figure out songs so that begginers can actually play some of their favourite songs and make the beginning stages learning an instrument fun without spending money on books that they could be spending on there instrument.Closing them down is so F***'n retarted.
09/11/06 What the hell!!!
91

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