There's a pretty good selection of sheet music for sale as well. I wish there were more music available, but it seems like publishers are releasing new titles on a regular basis as they try to keep up with demand. And I'm very willing to buy sheet music. I can typically buy an album's worth of material for the price of a lesson and a half (a pretty good deal, I'd say). And I think it's absolutely fair for the songwriter to earn a pittance for the song. It's not that I'm thrilled with the recent developments, but I have no quarrel with them either.
Well we all shine on--like the moon and the stars and the sun.
-- John Lennon
There's a pretty good selection of sheet music for sale as well. I wish there were more music available, but it seems like publishers are releasing new titles on a regular basis as they try to keep up with demand. And I'm very willing to buy sheet music. I can typically buy an album's worth of material for the price of a lesson and a half (a pretty good deal, I'd say). And I think it's absolutely fair for the songwriter to earn a pittance for the song. It's not that I'm thrilled with the recent developments, but I have no quarrel with them either.
Good point. I just recently purchased John Denver's anthology online for $19.95. A lot of material for the price. I have found this site to have a good selection:
Music is the universal language, love is the key.
By the way, this is a word from your sponsor. If you do decide to purchase from Sheet Music Plus, you'd do this site a favor to link to the site via the shop/store tab on the Guitar Noise home page. I think a few cents of your purchase price come back to GN to support the site. You pay the same price, but Sheet Music Plus shares a bit with the site. At least, I think we get some benefit.
Thanks.
Oh, and if you want instant access, try either Music Notes or Sunhawk for digital sheet music downloads.
Well we all shine on--like the moon and the stars and the sun.
-- John Lennon
By the way, this is a word from your sponsor. If you do decide to purchase from Sheet Music Plus, you'd do this site a favor to link to the site via the shop/store tab on the Guitar Noise home page. I think a few cents of your purchase price come back to GN to support the site. You pay the same price, but Sheet Music Plus shares a bit with the site. At least, I think we get some benefit.
Thanks.
Oh, and if you want instant access, try either Music Notes or Sunhawk for digital sheet music downloads.
I was not aware of the link, thanks for the update. Henceforth, I will access it that way.
Music is the universal language, love is the key.
What about if a teacher buys a song book, and teaches his students the songs in it? Is that really any different than downloading a tab?
It sounds to me like it would be more of a violation to teach a student out of a single book than to d/l a tab. If the teacher is being comped for teaching those tunes then some comp needs to go to the property owners. Since the verdict is still out on d/l tab I'm not sure what to suggest for that? I think, for me, the fine line is being paid.
Treat others how you would like to be treated.
Hmm, well my teacher rarely uses a book to teach me, and when he does, I have to buy it. Which is only fair.
Well we all shine on--like the moon and the stars and the sun.
-- John Lennon
The teaching thing is a great example of how muddled this all is. Used to be that teachers had students buy books, but that's fallen by the wayside a lot these days. There should be some way to compensate the songwriters. Maybe kind of like the way that libraries pay royalties on the books in their systems.
Peace
People keep talking about compensating the artists.
But a quick look at a typical actual contract from the publishing firms shows pretty quickly that the artists don't in fact recieve much at all in terms of compensation for this kind of stuff.
A few cents from a CD, a fraction of a penny from printed music or a legal download is all they get.
And that, frankly, is why for a lot of people arguments about "stealing" have little resonance. To them a pirate is depriving an artist of far less than the publishers already are . . .
Which, btw, is why I strongly advocate for buying directly from the artist whenver possible.
When it comes to tabs though, since this is guitarnoise, I'll toss out this thought -- figure 'em out yourself! You'll learn a lot more about the song, you'll really improve your ear, there's no legal questions involved, and once you get the hang of it, you'll find it's kind of fun!
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
King you got that right, for everyone that thinks that you're doing the right thing by paying for sheet music etc., don't be so naive, the record labels and publishers are already ripping off the artists 100 times more than you ever will and the only reason they fight this internet tab is beacuse the money is coming out of there pockets for the most part not the artists.
Like King I'd much rather buy something directly from the artist or go see a live show or something that gets the cash closer to there hands, as for sheet music and tab I'll get it anyway I can if if it means downloading it for free oh well, like they said in "School of Rock", You got to stick it to the Man!!!
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
For some reason I think teachers should have special privalages with sheet music. I mean, you don't mess with a guru.
"Like the coldest winter chill. Heaven beside you. Hell within." -Jerry Cantrell
Interesting stuff.
I have a folder next to my desk of sheet music that I have purchased from Sheet Music Direct. I have a few problems with going "legit" though...
1. often the sheet music isn't that accurate - at times its as out of whack as a didgy tab
2. at £2.25 a song, it soon adds up. But the flip side of that is that its great to have the flexibility to download just one song, I suppose.
3. Like everything else, once you go the legal route, its gets boring :lol:
anyway, I agree with just about everything that's been said on this subject. By everyone. :lol:
Matt
Like King I'd much rather buy something directly from the artist or go see a live show or something that gets the cash closer to there hands...Ditto. I'm not buying any more albums on principle now. Back when Offspring were still producing 'real' music, they put high quality MP3s on their website on the day of the album launch, because they were of the opinion that people who download are more likely, not less, to buy the album if they like it. (An opinion backed up by numerous studies, I might add). Their own music label threatened to sue them if they didn't take them down :shock: .
I absolutely refuse to put any of my money into helping that kind of business succeed when there's an alternative, dodgy or not. When I can pay the artist directly (or at least give them a better proprtion than their current 5% compared to the label's 30%), I will do so but until then everyone loses out.
Just my $0.02
For some reason I think teachers should have special privalages with sheet music. I mean, you don't mess with a guru.
To a certain extent, we do.
If you read the backstory stuff on our current copyright law - the testimony before congress by industry figures from publishing while the law was being debated - you find there are some uses publishers agreed would be within the law. Even though this stuff isn't written into the law itself, it's in the congressional report that accompanied the bill... and courts take the intent of Congress pretty seriously.
Publishers agreed that teachers could use copyrighted works to prepare for lessons. In my read, that makes it perfectly legal for me to download a tab, do a transcription of a recording, etc. IF I only use it to 'prepare' the lesson - that is, if I don't teach directly from the copyrighted work.
There was also discussion on how much of a published work could be used in a lesson without the students having to go out and buy a copy. If a teacher uses less than 10% of a song, it would be ok - at least, the way I understand the law.
I should note that these teaching provisions have never been tested for music... but musicians are not the first ones to face publishers zealously guarding against copies. In the 1960s there were a number of cases where school teachers were sued for copyright infringement for using photocopies of newspaper articles, etc. in their classrooms as part of a lesson. It's entirely possible that the MPA would argue that using tab to teach a song is different from using a magazine article to teach social studies. They might have a point - if the teacher is only teaching the song as part of the lesson.
What I do in teaching is to make a transcription of a riff (from a copy I've purchased, or from a freely available sample clip), make sure the music is a small portion of the lesson, and teach the technique, not the song. If I use "Purple Haze" to demonstrate sliding into a lead riff, or just about anything from Heart to demonstrate the use of harmonics, I can make a strong argument that the song is only collateral material for teaching - I don't think it's any different from a social studies or economics teacher using a current magazine article to make a point in class.
If a student wants to learn a song note-for-note, that's a different situation. In that case, the student has to buy a copy of the song - and they can give me a copy. I use the copy to prepare for the lesson (which I think is pretty clearly allowed).
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
My first guitar teacher charged $60 a lesson and was doing something that I came to believe was clearly copyright violation. I quit. What this person would do was to give you a written copy of the song in a fakebook type of format. (the words with the chords noted above.) Then she gave you a CD with the song on it. I never discussed the copyright issue with her so I don't know what she thought but I'm sure she had some sort of justification, like she wasn't teaching the song only the chords and chord changes, but to my mind it was copyright violation and at $60 a lesson I don't think she had any business doing that.
Having said that, what i think about the issue is that there is a huge demand for things like online tab. If the publishers were smart they would meet that demand and charge a reasonable price for a song. swhat Music Notes charges is way too much and I don't know of any other way to get online tab except the copyright violation way.
