A A A – D D – E E E *

Are online guitar tabs soon to be a thing of the past? The US Music Publishers’ Association is doing all it can to make that happen. Already, the Online Guitar Archive and Guitar Tab Universe sites have gone black.

“It is simply wrong and unjust that many illegal Web sites are able to make money, whether from selling advertising, other products or by other means, giving away music that does not belong to them,” MPA President Lauren Keiser said in a statement on the association’s Web site, www.mpa.org.

May I suggest to Mr. Keiser that he get a life — puhlease.

* Guess that tune!

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9 Responses to A A A – D D – E E E *

  1. Frunobulax says:

    I guessin’ that the tune is LOUIE LOUIE…although it should be Em Em Em.

  2. abe says:

    ladies and gentlemen the president of the united states….fellow americans…..

    uh, we’ll just go with louie louie

  3. jim says:

    This’s truly grim news … not 4 me, since i am a proud musical illiterate/barbarian, but 4 the poor folks online who wanna become a REAL musician but can’t afford the moolah 4 hardcopy tabs. This just HAS 2 have been spawned by a Commitee – no one person could be this moronic. What a great idea: censoring online music-templates 2 make sure someone isn’t making a shady buck or three. Pheeuw.

  4. yuda says:

    I always thought Louie Louie was GGG CC DmDmDm

  5. yuda: well technically that’s exactly the same, only three bars up down. Oh, and I happen to think it sounds better in major, not minor (but what do I know). :)

  6. xorg says:

    Yep. It’s in a major key of whatever, depending mostly on your singer’s range. As for the notion of stopping people from trading chord changes, it’ll never work. Musicians have always shown or told each other how to play stuff and in the case of rock/pop/jazz have often managed to work out how to play it in the first place without necessarily buying the sheet music. The internet just makes it a bit easier.

  7. The kicker here is that, by the time someone attempts to play a song on guitar (or piano, or whatever instrument) it is because they had previously purchased the recording in the first place. So I really don’t get the copyright concerns. If you follow the MPA’s logic, then the publication of lyrics in any way is just as illegal, as they are, after all, the artist’s copyright just as much.

    The MPA needs to sell sheet music — their interest is not the artist’s copyright — at all.

  8. scott says:

    This is a very shitty turn of events. The greedy corporate parasites will eventually screw the internet up completely, you watch and see!

    I like being able to find and print out the lyrics and chord changes to a song on a whim
    when my buddies show up to drink and play music.

    ((sigh))

  9. billy says:

    I really don’t understand why the Publishers are so upset about tabs, since the majority of tabs online are incorrect anyway. The harder the song is, the more incorrect the tab is. So if you really wanted to figure out that fast part at the end of “Montana”, you would be better off buy the tab book anyway. Or you would just figure it out by ear.

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