Okay folks, recently some of the big guitar/bass/drum tablature sites have been forced to close over claims that unauthorised tabs are illegal, seemingly as very little money is being made for the sheet music companies and their respective artists.

So this got me thinking, what say you?!

This is a topic that is really extreme. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground. The people that are against it are vehemently so, and the people that think it's ok can't understand why the big issue.

Here's my take on the situation:

If a song is on the radio it's public domain. As a musician, if I want to learn a song from the radio, and I sit there with my guitar and learn it, it doesn't cost me anything. If I have doubts about how a part goes, why should I have to pay for a book of music for one part of the song?

The anti-piracy people will tell you that it's because not buying the song book is piracy, stealing the music. The kicker to this, for me, is that if you learn the song, and perform it on a cd, giving credit to the original artist, it's not piracy, even though you are going to make money on the song, by virtue of it being on the cd. I don't know if artists get royalties off of your sales or not, but I don't think so, considering the number of "cover" tunes that get on cd's these days. I also don't know if I need permission from the artist/rep to use it, but I don't think that is true either.

Of course, my music wasn't professionally produced, I did it on my computer, in my kitchen...The issue of royalties won't be a problem, since all the music is original. If somebody wants to "cover" my music on a different cd, as long as I get credit, I'm fine with it, might even generate more sales for me.

It's extreme. It's ridiculous.

Admittedly, this is the first I've heard of it. However, the arguments (songbook companies and artists not making money) are spurious.

The songbook companies complaining would be like the blacksmith complaining about these newfangled cars. It's a new world... adapt or die. Tabs make it a lot easier to learn music for someone who's not an experienced music reader. And if you are, it's still another simple way.

The artists... I can buy that, since they do create it. I mean, they sell hint books for games... but sites like IW give that away for nearly free. If you want to sell the hint book or the tab, you need to find a way to do it better. Since they're not actively selling tabs, they need to decide to do it or decide not to. The kicker would be for them to decide how to work with their fans.

Don't try to stop change. Embrace it, and ride the wave :D

For the uneducated that actually think "internet piracy" hurts sales...

Prime Palaver 11
Prime Palaver 6

[ 07-28-2006, 07:38 AM: Message edited by: Sir Krustin ]

Pff, half of the time, tabs that you can find for free are way from accurate anyway. If you want quality, you'll have to go look somewhere else.

That's only too true. However, they can put you on the right track, and depending on your skill level, you can get it from there. I see tab as a guide anyway, even if it's written by reputable people, like the pair of guitar mags that I used to use for tab. What ends up on the paper usually isn't what is either played, or feasible, sometimes. I know, before I learned how to read it, I used to wonder how I was supposed to get 7 fingers... [img]graemlins/heee.gif[/img]

Also, what I find highly lacking in tabs is rhythm. You can at most hint to the rhythm by placeing eight, sixteenth, quarter above the numbers in the tabs. Forget about triplets, quintuples, slurs and all those things. And with the music I try to find in tabs (Pastorius for instance, where he plays so fast I can't figure out what tabnumber corresponds to what note) there is no way I'm going to figure it out with.

A lot of tab is simply based on the number/spacing of the numbers in a bar. Triplets usually still have a little three above them, and the hammer/pull off indicators as well. Based on the count, you can differentiate between what's a half note, quarter note, etc.

Haha, I think of tabs solely as drum tabs, as that's what I played, so I did a double take at JrKASperov saying they lack rhythm. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Triplets are just separated from the rest of the bar, or the tabs are written more spaced out.

What? You expect me to read all that? Can't you just tell me what's it about?