# Tabs blocked on Ultimate Guitar?



## Spaced Out Ace (Apr 6, 2021)

So apparently now (or perhaps it has been a thing for awhile) songs are being blocked on Ultimate Guitar. Specifically, I was looking up Yes - Owner of a Lonely Heart to learn it. Instead, when I click on the tab, I get this:




Sorry, but I'm not buying the tab book, which for a lot of classic 70s / 80s artists, the tab books are not great, hard to find / OOP (and thus expensive), or never produced to begin with.

This is kind of odd, to be honest.


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## Dumple Stilzkin (Apr 6, 2021)

That’s really lame.


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## diagrammatiks (Apr 7, 2021)

It’s up to the artist or the company that owns the rights.


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## Dayn (Apr 7, 2021)

Copyright. Producing tablature of a song is a form of reproduction of copywritten material and when done without permission it's copyright infringement.

Which is especially dangerous for places like UG whose business model relies on ad revenue and associated income streams derived from the provision of tablature, most of which is not official. They can't claim safe harbour provisions if they willingly let unauthorised tablature be posted in order to profit from it.


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## elkoki (Apr 7, 2021)

This isn't anything new.


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## BenjaminW (Apr 7, 2021)

I agree it's lame.

For some reason, it's only the Owner of a Lonely Heart tabs that don't work because I tried to see what other Yes songs such as Yours is No Disgrace and Roundabout had the same issue, and apparently they don't have this problem. RATM also does this because for as long as I can remember the Killing in the Name tabs have had this warning. Meanwhile Bulls on Parade is fine.


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## mongey (Apr 7, 2021)

I can see why the tabs may be blocked by the publisher , even if think it’s super petty 

But the chord charts are also blocked which is weird as you can’t copyright a chord Progression.


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## Hollowway (Apr 7, 2021)

I’m not in complete disagreement with this, in that too much of musicians’ worth is expected to be free, but I’m not sure I understand it. This is an interpretation of what the musician is playing, not the actual music being played. I mean, anyone can transcribe the material. It feels like, if this is the case, I am not allowed to describe in detail what happened in a movie, or I could get into trouble for a copyright violation. Again, I’m not against it, as much as I don’t understand it. 

Furthermore, how are people allowed to play the actual song, without permission, and get away with it? We keep hearing about politicians (ok, Trump) using songs without the artists permission. Yet nothing comes of it, other than the artist saying, “stop it.” You’d think playing the actual song would be more illegal.


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## John (Apr 7, 2021)

I get that several musicians do this as a way to make others buy their transcribed stuff, whether it's published on their own or through the likes of Sheet Happens. Part of it is disheartening for those who have gone out of their own way to share what they have taken the time to transcribe.

On the other hand, it's even more disheartening _(and at times, just risible without mincing words)_ to see that type of tactic applied despite the aforementioned transcriptions for profit from the musician(s) in question being actually less accurate, less encompassing, and/or overall falling short compared to the work some independent guy or girl posted on those more ubiquitous tab sites instead.


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## AwakenTheSkies (Apr 7, 2021)

That's really sad to see. UG and tabs were everything for me when I was starting. And now that I finally own GP 7.5 I make my own tabs!

There's no fucking way I would've bought or asked my parents to buy a DIGITAL tab book from the Internet when I was a kid. I don't see how this benefits anyone at all, just making things harder for beginners.


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## Louis Cypher (Apr 7, 2021)

Hollowway said:


> I’m not in complete disagreement with this, in that too much of musicians’ worth is expected to be free, but I’m not sure I understand it. This is an interpretation of what the musician is playing, not the actual music being played. I mean, anyone can transcribe the material. It feels like, if this is the case, I am not allowed to describe in detail what happened in a movie, or I could get into trouble for a copyright violation. Again, I’m not against it, as much as I don’t understand it.
> 
> Furthermore, how are people allowed to play the actual song, without permission, and get away with it? We keep hearing about politicians (ok, Trump) using songs without the artists permission. Yet nothing comes of it, other than the artist saying, “stop it.” You’d think playing the actual song would be more illegal.



I do agree that too much of a musicians work is expected by the public to be freely accessable and Politicians like Trump using tracks without permission makes things worse, is a cease and desist order really worth it after your track has been used at a rally?? But then this situation does seem weird, to come down on a tab site like this but to do nothing for example about Youtube and the number of unoffical uploads of Owner... there. There does need to be a huge overhaul of the music industry and the rights of the legal owner of individual songs or music being respected and enforced, but its prob way too late now especially with the tech/Internet giants control of political policy for their own benefit (see facebook basically holding the entire country of Australia to ransom over news feeds). Regarding Youtube it has always surprised me that the record companies themselves have never come down hard on them in the past over all the unoffical, basically pirtate uploads of songs and entire albums.......


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## MaxOfMetal (Apr 7, 2021)

A lot of the publishing and distribution deals were struck before the internet, and more specifically tabs on the internet, were a thing. 

I think it's unfair to blame the artist, especially an old act like Yes, who couldn't see the future of tablature sites. 

Really, it's publishers who lord over the rights that should be getting the pushback, at least in as far as working on some sort of licensing agreement that would allow for free use by casual players. 

All that said, there are probably dozens, if not hundreds, or free to watch YT vids on how to play this song, many with tabs, so it's not like this is going to stop anyone who wants to learn in earnest.


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## ScottThunes1960 (Apr 7, 2021)

It’s been a few years, but it used to be that UG still hosted the tabs for viewing by IP addresses originating in non DMCA-observing countries. Just throwing it out there.


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## X1X (Apr 7, 2021)

Official tabs are more often very wrong and sometimes I really wonder what the transcriber was thinking (probably his paycheck and beer). The point being that if UG tabs are blocked then it's possible there are no worthy tabs available. A Russian tab site is probably needed.


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## soul_lip_mike (Apr 7, 2021)

Louis Cypher said:


> freely accessable and Politicians like Trump using tracks without permission makes things worse



IANAL but I'm pretty sure the venues have licensing to play music and the artists are paid. You only hear about it because of the icky man who held the rally.

Interesting read on the legal side of these things - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/can-rem-stop-trump-campaign-from-playing-its-songs-at-rallies/


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## Spaced Out Ace (Apr 7, 2021)

MaxOfMetal said:


> A lot of the publishing and distribution deals were struck before the internet, and more specifically tabs on the internet, were a thing.
> 
> I think it's unfair to blame the artist, especially an old act like Yes, who couldn't see the future of tablature sites.
> 
> ...


Sure, but the first one I checked out was wrong. It didn't even take long, either. The first riff is simple as hell, and it was wrong. I moved on, but I'll likely find another one.


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## coreysMonster (Apr 7, 2021)

ScottThunes1960 said:


> It’s been a few years, but it used to be that UG still hosted the tabs for viewing by IP addresses originating in non DMCA-observing countries. Just throwing it out there.


UG used to be hosted in Russia, where the owner is from. I'm guessing they moved their hosting to the cloud, which means playing by US copyright rules now because all the big cloud services are owned by American companies.
They've struggled a few times with copyright claims over the years, and at one point even had to remove all their tabs temporarily while sorting out legal issues.



X1X said:


> A Russian tab site is probably needed.


That Russian site _is _UG (unless that was a joke)


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## aesthyrian (Apr 7, 2021)

Yep, this is the same shit that killed powertabs ages ago.


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## NoodleFace (Apr 7, 2021)

I think this is lame, it's been happening to a ton of bands that have been published at sheethappens

Not gonna go out and buy your dumbass tab book


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## StevenC (Apr 7, 2021)

BenjaminW said:


> I agree it's lame.
> 
> For some reason, it's only the Owner of a Lonely Heart tabs that don't work because I tried to see what other Yes songs such as Yours is No Disgrace and Roundabout had the same issue, and apparently they don't have this problem. RATM also does this because for as long as I can remember the Killing in the Name tabs have had this warning. Meanwhile Bulls on Parade is fine.


I second this! Go learn a better song like Yours is No Disgrace, Sound Chaser or Tempus Fugit.


MaxOfMetal said:


> I think it's unfair to blame the artist, especially an old act like Yes, who couldn't see the future of tablature sites.


I would say it's definitely not Yes because they have seen how important modern internet routes are to increasing their visibility and value with Roundabout's success from Jojo. Or at least Jon Anderson has, and none of the current Yes enterprise was on that song except Alan White. 

Though I'd happily blame Trevor Rabin for this in particular.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Apr 7, 2021)

Some of the tab books (like I said, especially true of older bands) only had a few printings of books in the 80s/90s, and are currently decades out of print, with any listing of the tab book for exorbitant prices. Besides, what am I going to do with it? Learn a dodgy version of a song because it's close enough and... play it illegally in my bedroom for personal enjoyment? Because if I play live or record a cover and post on YouTube, guess what? The venue is paying performance royalties, and ads are being placed on it with most/all of the revenue going to the publishers (ie, record labels).


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## Bodes (Apr 7, 2021)

aesthyrian said:


> Yep, this is the same shit that killed powertabs ages ago.



RIP PowerTabs. Brings a tear to my eye.

MetalTabs was also a good source for a while.


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## BlackMastodon (Apr 7, 2021)

Bodes said:


> RIP PowerTabs. Brings a tear to my eye.
> 
> MetalTabs was also a good source for a while.


Came here to say this is what happened to Taborama when I was a kid and learning metal on an acoustic. Back then it scared me that no tabs would be available on the internet anywhere but then I found UG. This blows, and I hope that metal record labels don't start taking down tabs. I don't have the training or patience to try to listen to tech-death slowed down 400% while hitting notes on the fretboard until it sounds right.


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## Wc707 (Apr 7, 2021)

BlackMastodon said:


> Came here to say this is what happened to Taborama when I was a kid and learning metal on an acoustic. Back then it scared me that no tabs would be available on the internet anywhere but then I found UG. This blows, and I hope that metal record labels don't start taking down tabs. I don't have the training or patience to try to listen to tech-death slowed down 400% while hitting notes on the fretboard until it sounds right.


This.
Sure, we _should_ put time into learning/transcribing from ear, but damn, some of us only have so much time in life. 
It's nice to be able to have a tab to work from, instead of starting from zero.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Apr 7, 2021)

Wc707 said:


> This.
> Sure, we _should_ put time into learning/transcribing from ear, but damn, some of us only have so much time in life.
> It's nice to be able to have a tab to work from, instead of starting from zero.


Yeah, pretty much. I start with a tab, and then utilize other sources. ie, watching video lessons, seeing what the guitarist plays live, using my ear, etc. For instance, most of the In My Dreams tabs have the chorus doing rather odd chords and playing more than necessary. Knowing Lynch's playing style a bit from learning a lot of his stuff, as well as how others play that he is influenced by, I came up with a much more likely version of the riff.


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## Jonathan20022 (Apr 7, 2021)

Dayn said:


> Copyright. Producing tablature of a song is a form of reproduction of copywritten material and when done without permission it's copyright infringement.
> 
> Which is especially dangerous for places like UG whose business model relies on ad revenue and associated income streams derived from the provision of tablature, most of which is not official. They can't claim safe harbour provisions if they willingly let unauthorised tablature be posted in order to profit from it.



UG can end it's business for all I care, they've done barely anything to innovate the space and just spam you with ads to sign up for their instrument learning courses when you open a new page. There are plenty of great sites (albeit still hit with dmca) that are more straightforward and easy to use. Also their articles are a complete waste of space, seems like they report on anything and everything at all.

I've personally set aside a weekend and went through all the artists I like and downloaded all tabs available for their music pre-emptively just so I can keep my own record of it when DMCA invades the tab space and we lose everything.



Hollowway said:


> I’m not in complete disagreement with this, in that too much of musicians’ worth is expected to be free, but I’m not sure I understand it. This is an interpretation of what the musician is playing, not the actual music being played. I mean, anyone can transcribe the material. It feels like, if this is the case, I am not allowed to describe in detail what happened in a movie, or I could get into trouble for a copyright violation. Again, I’m not against it, as much as I don’t understand it.
> 
> Furthermore, how are people allowed to play the actual song, without permission, and get away with it? We keep hearing about politicians (ok, Trump) using songs without the artists permission. Yet nothing comes of it, other than the artist saying, “stop it.” You’d think playing the actual song would be more illegal.



It also has quite a bit to do with platform, if you're performing/playing copyrighted material in real life you're likely to never receive a C&D. But the second you record your performance and broadcast it to the world, the copyright holders have the ability to reach into a platform like Youtube/Facebook/Twitch and ask the parent company to take down the content.

Can't really do that in most if not all real life scenarios, so all artists can do at the end of the day is request, then sue for copyright infringement.



NoodleFace said:


> I think this is lame, it's been happening to a ton of bands that have been published at sheethappens
> 
> Not gonna go out and buy your dumbass tab book



What a weird reaction lol, you liked a song enough to look into how to play it but supporting the artist and the company transcribing it is a hard stop for you?

I've bought a few tab books, sometimes direct from artists and some from sheet happens but of course only for artists I love.



X1X said:


> Official tabs are more often very wrong and sometimes I really wonder what the transcriber was thinking (probably his paycheck and beer). The point being that if UG tabs are blocked then it's possible there are no worthy tabs available. A Russian tab site is probably needed.



This assumption is extremely off base in most scenarios, just because a live video shows the artist playing one way doesn't mean that's how they play it currently. Most interviews and discussions around official tablature usually focuses in on the musicians not actually remembering their songs 100% accurately and have to combine their muscle memory and basically relearn their music.

This causes the notes to change and the positions to change once transcribed "officially", but I have noticed poorly tabbed music before. There's just a distinct difference between the two, especially transcribing old material the artist hasn't played live in ages.


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## Dayn (Apr 7, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> UG can end it's business for all I care, they've done barely anything to innovate the space and just spam you with ads to sign up for their instrument learning courses when you open a new page. There are plenty of great sites (albeit still hit with dmca) that are more straightforward and easy to use. Also their articles are a complete waste of space, seems like they report on anything and everything at all.
> 
> I've personally set aside a weekend and went through all the artists I like and downloaded all tabs available for their music pre-emptively just so I can keep my own record of it when DMCA invades the tab space and we lose everything.


I remember the time where UG was flooded with tabs of all varieties. It was glorious. The community... was never really great. But that golden age is gone. Articles are basically those "click through 22 pages to read one sentence at a time to only hear about 30 seconds of a 30 minute interview" in a different format.


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## Jonathan20022 (Apr 7, 2021)

Dayn said:


> I remember the time where UG was flooded with tabs of all varieties. It was glorious. The community... was never really great. But that golden age is gone. Articles are basically those "click through 22 pages to read one sentence at a time to only hear about 30 seconds of a 30 minute interview" in a different format.



Oh God yeah it's suffering, I just checked it out right now as a joke and it's talking about how low in James Hetfield's IEM mix Lars is. Albeit kind of funny, not the riveting journalism I want clouding my feed in any way shape or form


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## NoodleFace (Apr 7, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> UG can end it's business for all I care, they've done barely anything to innovate the space and just spam you with ads to sign up for their instrument learning courses when you open a new page. There are plenty of great sites (albeit still hit with dmca) that are more straightforward and easy to use. Also their articles are a complete waste of space, seems like they report on anything and everything at all.
> 
> I've personally set aside a weekend and went through all the artists I like and downloaded all tabs available for their music pre-emptively just so I can keep my own record of it when DMCA invades the tab space and we lose everything.
> 
> ...


I think it's foolish that they block tabs from your average joe transcribing songs because they published a book with official tabs. I hate that there are copyrights so deep that people can't even post how they think a song goes without a takedown notice. 

Part of the fun growing up was trying to learn a song then looking at some dudes tab to see if I was close. I think gating behind purchasing a book is lame. 

If anything, put out a book but allow user tabs. Block the ones that infringe the copyright


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## Floppystrings (Apr 7, 2021)

"Oh I've seen this one before, it a rerun" - Marty McFly


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## BlackMastodon (Apr 7, 2021)

What's even stupider is if they ordered a C&D to take down fan made tabs but then that band doesn't even offer official tab books. I can't think of an example where this happened, and I might be fear mongering a bit, but this could very easily happen and it just seems spiteful.


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## StevenC (Apr 7, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> This assumption is extremely off base in most scenarios, just because a live video shows the artist playing one way doesn't mean that's how they play it currently. Most interviews and discussions around official tablature usually focuses in on the musicians not actually remembering their songs 100% accurately and have to combine their muscle memory and basically relearn their music.
> 
> This causes the notes to change and the positions to change once transcribed "officially", but I have noticed poorly tabbed music before. There's just a distinct difference between the two, especially transcribing old material the artist hasn't played live in ages.


I have a Rust in Peace tab book and it's super weird because the transcriptions seem to be pretty good, but the tab is just awful. Like the first three notes of Holy Wars D-Eb-E, right? 5-6 12 on the lower string. And all sorts of other jumps like that. Clearly transcribed in notation and then converted with bad software and no editing.

Like the whole point of tab and a tab book in particular is it gives you a better idea of the fingerings to play something. Which can be crucial on some pieces and slightly less efficient fingerings can be very plausible until you get to full speed.


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## c7spheres (Apr 7, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Some of the tab books (like I said, especially true of older bands) only had a few printings of books in the 80s/90s, and are currently decades out of print, with any listing of the tab book for exorbitant prices. Besides, what am I going to do with it? Learn a dodgy version of a song because it's close enough and... play it illegally in my bedroom for personal enjoyment? Because if I play live or record a cover and post on YouTube, guess what? The venue is paying performance royalties, and ads are being placed on it with most/all of the revenue going to the publishers (ie, record labels).



I literally have spent decades trying to get a certain books and they never come up for sale. Ever. I've gone to all the used book stores, internet etc. I can hardly even find mention or a picture of some of them. They're just, gone. I've searched pretty regularly for a specific one too.
- I've literally been trying to get my hands on the Alfred publishing version of Page and Plants No Quarter album for 25 years! How ironic. Not the Warner Bros. edition, not the UnLedded etc. The Alfred one. I glanced it at the store when it costed like $40 and it looked fantastic. By the time I got the cash it was gone.
- These companies involved can't say that there's no demand for Led Zeppelin. What's the worse we could do, make a living in a Zeppelin cover band?

-The only thing you find is this, and they have to use the word "permanently" like they know their rubbin it in! Like there's no hope of it ever coming back. 

https://www.alfred.com/jimmy-page-and-robert-plant-no-quarter/p/55-2949A/


At this point I just don't care and try to write my own stuff.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Apr 7, 2021)

Floppystrings said:


> "Oh I've seen this one before, it a rerun" - Marty McFly



See, that's what I wanted to learn. I know the intro, but I wanted to learn some of the fills and the basic structure of the song. The weird thing is that UG only recently had this claim on Owner of a Lonely Heart.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Apr 7, 2021)

BlackMastodon said:


> What's even stupider is if they ordered a C&D to take down fan made tabs but then that band doesn't even offer official tab books. I can't think of an example where this happened, and I might be fear mongering a bit, but this could very easily happen and it just seems spiteful.


Bands have gained some interest from newer generations thanks to covers and such. Rocco is the reason I know of a few bands, like XYZ.

At 3:11


By the way, the riff after this is It's Showtime. I just have to say that I think the track order on A Little Ain't Enough is utterly stupid. It's Showtime and Last Call are the last two tracks, because, ya know... THAT makes sense, right?

I prefer this instead:

Side A
1. It's Showtime
2. A Lil Ain't Enough
3. Lady Luck
4. Hammerhead Shark
5. Baby's on Fire
6. Sensible Shoes

Side B
1. Drop in the Bucket
2. Dogtown Shuffle
3. 40 Below
4. Tell the Truth
5. Shoot It
6. Last Call


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## Jonathan20022 (Apr 7, 2021)

NoodleFace said:


> I think it's foolish that they block tabs from your average joe transcribing songs because they published a book with official tabs. I hate that there are copyrights so deep that people can't even post how they think a song goes without a takedown notice.
> 
> Part of the fun growing up was trying to learn a song then looking at some dudes tab to see if I was close. I think gating behind purchasing a book is lame.
> 
> If anything, put out a book but allow user tabs. Block the ones that infringe the copyright



Trust me I am 100% on board with shelving DMCA for an alternative that feels more satisfying for people like you and me. The process of copyright has deep rooted effects on several industries I've seen as of late and it's super annoying to deal with.

Blocking tabs can be intentional by the artist, and sometimes is but I don't mind throwing them a bone for what is an accurate representation of their work. I don't expect THEIR transcriptions for free, but I do expect a transcription for example that a fan posts that's completely done by them online.

The slippery slope argument for this part is that for an artist, the worry is someone can buy the tab books and just copy their work and upload it elsewhere. They're not going to quality check thousands of user tabs for what amounts to musical plagiarism,

That being said, I had one of my own transcriptions taken down by an artist that I personally worked on for a week back in college and uploaded myself which I didn't have a copy of anymore on my harddrives. It was extremely sad to see that I couldn't download my own work or even see it without even being notified. I'm all for fan works and tabs to be available free range on the internet.



StevenC said:


> I have a Rust in Peace tab book and it's super weird because the transcriptions seem to be pretty good, but the tab is just awful. Like the first three notes of Holy Wars D-Eb-E, right? 5-6 12 on the lower string. And all sorts of other jumps like that. Clearly transcribed in notation and then converted with bad software and no editing.
> 
> Like the whole point of tab and a tab book in particular is it gives you a better idea of the fingerings to play something. Which can be crucial on some pieces and slightly less efficient fingerings can be very plausible until you get to full speed.



Now that sucks, the fact that the transcription is THAT far off the mark. But you're right that seems like they just did the automatic method and put zero love into that transcription. One of my recent buys was both Artificial Brain albums and there's even notes from Oleg Zalman talking about the intricacies of the playing on both records. And it was something like $30 bucks for both of their albums fully tabbed out, I would have easily paid $50 for the digital alone for how much care was put into the work they did.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Apr 7, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> The slippery slope argument for this part is that for an artist, the worry is someone can buy the tab books and just copy their work and upload it elsewhere. They're not going to quality check thousands of user tabs for what amounts to musical plagiarism,


Perhaps that is why all of them have at least some idiotic fretting / chord choices that obviously aren't right. lol


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## BenjaminW (Apr 7, 2021)

Jonathan20022 said:


> Oh God yeah it's suffering, I just checked it out right now as a joke and it's talking about how low in James Hetfield's IEM mix Lars is. Albeit kind of funny, not the riveting journalism I want clouding my feed in any way shape or form


Yeah the main article author has had a lot of just meh articles that turn nothing into something. Sometimes there’s good stuff such as the Wednesday Question/Friday Top and some other stuff, but it’s just meh like I said before beyond that.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Apr 8, 2021)

BenjaminW said:


> Yeah the main article author has had a lot of just meh articles that turn nothing into something. Sometimes there’s good stuff such as the Wednesday Question/Friday Top and some other stuff, but it’s just meh like I said before beyond that.


I'm sorry, but I couldn't give a fuck less about any of the articles. I'm on there to learn a riff or whatever.


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## OmegaSlayer (Apr 8, 2021)

I've seen Polyphia, Jon Gomm, Guthrie Govan blocked tabs
I'm totally ok with those
They're not big names, some offer their official material and, being small acts, that's their legit way to gain some revenue
But big management agencies going after every cent from the artists in their rosters is disheartening


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## BenjaminW (Apr 8, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> I'm sorry, but I couldn't give a fuck less about any of the articles. I'm on there to learn a riff or whatever.


Idk what I’m doing getting my guitar related news from there.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Apr 8, 2021)

BenjaminW said:


> Idk what I’m doing getting my guitar related news from there.


Me neither.


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## efiltsohg (Apr 8, 2021)

technically ultimate guitar can take anything they want down from their site... but there's only a legal case for it if the tab is copied from a book you can purchase IMO


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## Jonathan20022 (Apr 8, 2021)

There's just no resource available to archive and check against fan tabs, there's no plagiarism index for tablature and notation replication. Someone has to develop it, but at the end of the day if I copy right a melody where I tab out a melody played on the high e string.

5 - 9 - 10 - 15

If you also open up guitar pro, and tab out those string of notes you can't have the software flag all tabs that contain that string. But then at that point if you're checking for that string of notes in the context of the rest of the tab, the rest of the tab would need to be similar/identical for you to really take down all copyright infringement scanned. This only really accounts for the laziest form of tab piracy, where I open an official tab then ctrl + a / ctrl c and paste it into a new blank file.

Fan tabs without accents and exact chord shapes or their correct notes, basically most fan created trancriptions by ear would be unaffected. Because even if the lead line is identical, the chords are slightly off, and so are the other parts of the song like it's time signature/bpm/chord progressions.

I think it'll probably have to be an AI effort with a lot of manual review, but that's also an immense amount of work in the first place.


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## Lopp (Apr 8, 2021)

efiltsohg said:


> technically ultimate guitar can take anything they want down from their site... but there's only a legal case for it if the tab is copied from a book you can purchase IMO





Jonathan20022 said:


> Fan tabs without accents and exact chord shapes or their correct notes, basically most fan created trancriptions by ear would be unaffected. Because even if the lead line is identical, the chords are slightly off, and so are the other parts of the song like it's time signature/bpm/chord progressions.



I agree that losing access to something we used to get for free is annoying, even if whomever is preventing access has the right to do so.

Just to clarify what seems to be a misconception here:

It doesn't matter if the tabs are copied from a book or fan created, even poorly created. They BOTH infringe the copyright.

A copyright covers works that are substantially similar. Furthermore, guitar tab is a derivative work of a copyright, regardless of whether it is official or not, and the law, especially in the U.S., expressly gives the copyright owner the "exclusive rights" to "prepare derivative works". See 17 USC section 106.
https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html

Thus, unauthorized guitar tabs infringe the author's copyright, regardless if they are photocopied from a licensed book or fan created from scratch, and regardless of the accuracy.


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## BlackMastodon (Apr 8, 2021)

Funny enough, this discussion made me want to order the Crack the Skye tab book.


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## wankerness (Apr 8, 2021)

I got the crack the Skye book, some of the transcriptions seemed a bit dodgy. UG had better ones for a couple songs imo. 
The big thing I don’t like about tab books is just reading the damn things. Especially with songs with multiple guitars, you spend more time turning pages than playing if you try to do songs all the way through. Powertabs and gp tabs were greatly preferable for that reason.

when powertabs got destroyed, it was entirely record companies going crazy filing legal takedowns against any artist they had copyright rights to, most of whom didn’t have official tab books. It’s completely unrelated to whether there’s a book out for a particular song/album. They have the same right to sue you. I remember from the time that people often got in touch with the bands whose stuff was being taken down, and they had absolutely no idea.

it’s all pathetic. Tabbing was my favorite hobby until powertabs.net got locked down and then the vultures at UG uploaded all my tabs after stripping my name off them. Completely destroyed any happiness I got out of it. I say good riddance to that site.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Apr 9, 2021)

wankerness said:


> I got the crack the Skye book, some of the transcriptions seemed a bit dodgy. UG had better ones for a couple songs imo.
> The big thing I don’t like about tab books is just reading the damn things. Especially with songs with multiple guitars, you spend more time turning pages than playing if you try to do songs all the way through. Powertabs and gp tabs were greatly preferable for that reason.
> 
> when powertabs got destroyed, it was entirely record companies going crazy filing legal takedowns against any artist they had copyright rights to, most of whom didn’t have official tab books. It’s completely unrelated to whether there’s a book out for a particular song/album. They have the same right to sue you. I remember from the time that people often got in touch with the bands whose stuff was being taken down, and they had absolutely no idea.
> ...


Someone should tab the Constrictor and Raise Your Fist albums by Alice Cooper. I was looking up tabs, and I know for a fact they took at least one of the fan tabs and put it behind a pay wall.


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## Wuuthrad (Apr 9, 2021)

AwakenTheSkies said:


> That's really sad to see. UG and tabs were everything for me when I was starting. And now that I finally own GP 7.5 I make my own tabs!
> 
> There's no fucking way I would've bought or asked my parents to buy a DIGITAL tab book from the Internet when I was a kid. I don't see how this benefits anyone at all, just making things harder for beginners.



lmao snowflake-how tf you think we learned how to play back in the day?

by ear, learning to read notation and figuring shit out on yer own..

library books, sheet music, which for popular music wasn't ever very accurate.

guess what? Music isn't supposed to be easy!
y'all got it way too easy. crocodile tears...yawn...


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## AwakenTheSkies (Apr 9, 2021)

Wuuthrad said:


> lmao snowflake-how tf you think we learned how to play back in the day?
> 
> by ear, learning to read notation and figuring shit out on yer own..
> 
> ...



How is what I'm saying insincere? And how is it easier with tabs? You have to practice all the same. Almost everyone I know who learns their stuff "by ear" plays it wrong anyway. It only makes sense to figure it out by ear if you already know the artist's playing style. And who are you to say how music is supposed to be anyway? Fuck off!


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## j3ps3 (Apr 9, 2021)

AwakenTheSkies said:


> Almost everyone I know who learns their stuff "by ear" plays it wrong anyway.



I don't care how you learn your instrument. Main thing is that it's fun for you.

Now that that is out of the way, that quote goes with most of the tabs too. The main reason I learn songs by ear nowadays is because mostly the tabs are just wrong and miss on a lot of little details. Occasionally I'll take a peek of a tab to tackle something a little faster, though, if it's hard to hear what's going on in the song.

When I used just tabs I didn't really give any thought on those repeating patterns / chord progressions. I started to find those similarities only after I started using my ear and that's what really got my playing / understanding of music to bloom. Tabs were a great thing when starting out, though. I don't think I would've had the patience to learn stuff by ear back then just because of how hard it was. I just wanted to jam.


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## Lorcan Ward (Apr 9, 2021)

When you view a tab on UltimateGuitar they are actually meant to pay the artist like Spotify or Youtube would since they are hosting a copyrighted work. Jason Richardson talked about it on a podcast where he contacted them on behalf of himself and a few bands saying why they hadn't been paid. He said they quickly send out all the back payments and set up a future payment system but he points out how many other bands are unaware and not paid. The money you get would be a fraction of what a tab book would make though.

I get some artists like Jason Richardson and Scale the Summit blocking tabs because people were taking tabs from their tab books and uploading them. Like how the Necrophagist tab books is all tabbed out. Now that Sheet Happens are supplying Guitar Pro files with the tabs its pretty clear why they block tabs on Ultimate Guitar.

The majority of older tab books were transcribed by keyboard players so the notes are accurate but the fingering is awful. This is especially clear in the older Yngwie Malmsteen books where they had 3 string arpeggios starting on the B and G strings instead of the high E.

I don't have a problem with tabs being blocked when an artist has high quality tabs easily available to buy online. If you are going to learn Jason Richardson why bother digging up tabs from someone like me when you can get them straight from him with a guarantee they are correct with his fingering. Now when its something like Protest the Hero blocking Fortress tabs when they released a god awful tab book that's not ok. It does bug me knowing I've higher quality tabs on my computer for bands that have blocked tabs but they are well within their legal right to do. Its worth pointing out that just because a tab is official and sold by the artist doesn't guarantee its accurate and just because its fan made doesn't mean that it's not accurate. A lot of artists tab out how they play it live or planned to play it while a fan or hired transcriber will tab out what they played on the album. 

Right now its just a correction with record labels and artists trying to find the best way to deal with sheet music. Like how videos were taken down in the early days of youtube before the eventually changed it so copyright holder could claim and monetise them.


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## StevenC (Apr 9, 2021)

Lorcan Ward said:


> When you view a tab on UltimateGuitar they are actually meant to pay the artist like Spotify or Youtube would since they are hosting a copyrighted work. Jason Richardson talked about it on a podcast where he contacted them on behalf of himself and a few bands saying why they hadn't been paid. He said they quickly send out all the back payments and set up a future payment system but he points out how many other bands are unaware and not paid. The money you get would be a fraction of what a tab book would make though.
> 
> I get some artists like Jason Richardson and Scale the Summit blocking tabs because people were taking tabs from their tab books and uploading them. Like how the Necrophagist tab books is all tabbed out. Now that Sheet Happens are supplying Guitar Pro files with the tabs its pretty clear why they block tabs on Ultimate Guitar.
> 
> ...


And then you've got the Cynic tabs with "here's how Paul plays it" and but you have to shift it to where a human can play those chords.


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## VGK17 (Apr 9, 2021)

Wuuthrad said:


> guess what? Music isn't supposed to be easy!



Yeah, it actually is though.


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## wankerness (Apr 9, 2021)

Lorcan Ward said:


> I get some artists like Jason Richardson and Scale the Summit blocking tabs because people were taking tabs from their tab books and uploading them. Like how the Necrophagist tab books is all tabbed out. _Now that Sheet Happens are supplying Guitar Pro files with the tabs_ its pretty clear why they block tabs on Ultimate Guitar.



I didn't know this. I just bought Mastodon - Once Round the Sun and Cynic - Traced in Air digital tab books off there because of your post.  Does anyone else do this? That's a great move and I'd much rather have GP files than a tab book in many cases. I did order the physical tab book for Traced in Air, cause it looks like they also very smartly use spiral binding so the pages would actually stay open when you are playing out of the books. Frickin 200-page Dream Theater tab books especially were a nightmare cause of their regular bindings causing them to constantly close, until you'd thoroughly broken the spine.

I might look into Scale the Summit tab books if they're good. I listened to V a whole lot and a lot of it sounded pretty playable for a bad guitar player.

I will say there were some very talented transcribers on UG here and there. It was a lot harder than PTabs.net to sift through the dreck cause that site had a complex approval process that required entire songs, proper rehearsal signs, bass score lining up with guitar, etc while UG is full of "lol hear's the tenth tab of the intro to Limp Bizkit - Break Stuff i play it in standard." But, I got some great tabs for Animals as Leaders songs and stuff that as far as I know had no legal tabs out there anywhere. Katatonia, Anathema, etc, lots of bands that didn't have anything good and legal out there. Or Opeth, who I spend hundreds and hundreds of hours transcribing songs for, but sure as heck didn't do every song of, and whose official tab book was almost exclusively songs I'd already transcribed (or someone else already had). With how many hours it took to give deep listens to those songs and figure out what the hell was going on in some sections, it was a HUGE relief to find transcriptions from other people that were good.

There's also the "path of least resistance" going on with getting fan tabs sometimes, like, sure I'll download tabs to Deftones - Koi No Yokan, but I wouldn't pay for a tab book, because the guitar stuff on that album is simple enough that I could figure it out myself in less than 30 dollars' worth of time.  But I sure am more likely to play it if I don't have to spend that time!


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## Demiurge (Apr 9, 2021)

Wuuthrad said:


> by ear, learning to read notation and figuring shit out on yer own..
> 
> library books, sheet music, which for popular music wasn't ever very accurate.
> 
> guess what? Music isn't supposed to be easy!



Whoa- look at Mr. Fancypants with "notation" and "learning". Back in my day, we played guitar uphill in the snow- both ways. We didn't have no tuners- whatever pitch the town drunk screamed outside the tavern at 3am was A below middle C. Better get up early if you wanted to play. 

But maybe- MAYBE- the point of progress is that shit in the future doesn't have to be as hard as shit in the past.


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## Evan89 (Apr 9, 2021)

*Long post incoming!* 

As a professional transcriber, I think I can offer a unique perspective here. I totally understand why people are skeptical of tab books in general, based on how they've traditionally been done by publishers like Cherry Lane, Alfred, etc. A huge part of why I got into transcribing and eventually made it my career, is that there's just so much bad information out there. For example, early Savatage text tabs written in drop D tuning, when it should be D standard. Criss Oliva didn't use drop D tuning until Gutter Ballet (title track). It seems like just because those tabs have been floating around on the internet for decades, people assume there's some validity to them. I even managed to track down the guy who transcribed the old Gutter Ballet book for Cherry Lane, and he told me he didn't have any correspondence with the band. Don't even get me started on the pre-Octavarium Dream Theater books. In case anyone missed it, I transcribed all of their 90s albums, using the isolated tracks, and put together my own corrected books for free. Here's my transcription thread: https://www.sevenstring.org/threads/evans-official-transcription-thread.336738/

Unfortunately, artists being directly involved with tab books is rare. It's also important to remember that the old books were done without a lot of the technology we enjoy now, like youtube live videos and isolated instrument tracks. A big part of transcribing (accurately) is doing research: not just the notes being played, but how and where they're played. As @Lorcan Ward pointed out, the transcribers on these old books were often non-guitarists, or they were guitarists who simply didn't have the vocabulary for the type of music they were tasked with transcribing. Those old Metallica, Megadeth, Testament, etc. books come to mind.

Anyway, I'm trying to do my part in changing the way people view tab books. By working directly with artists and using the isolated guitar tracks, I'm able to accurately notate every little detail and ensure that the positions are all accurate to what was played on the album.



Lorcan Ward said:


> I get some artists like Jason Richardson and Scale the Summit blocking tabs because people were taking tabs from their tab books and uploading them. Like how the Necrophagist tab books is all tabbed out. *Now that Sheet Happens are supplying Guitar Pro files with the tabs its pretty clear why they block tabs on Ultimate Guitar.*


Yes, if Sheet Happens didn't block tabs on UG, there would be nothing stopping someone from uploading the GP file and taking credit for it. Guitar Pro 7 does have a password protection feature to prevent editing and copy/paste, which I've been forced to use on the transcriptions that I offer via my youtube channel. All it takes is one asshole to ruin it for everyone else.



> *It's worth pointing out that just because a tab is official and sold by the artist doesn't guarantee its accurate* and just because its fan made doesn't mean that it's not accurate. A lot of artists tab out how they play it live or planned to play it while a fan or hired transcriber will tab out what they played on the album.


Again, the early Dream Theater albums are a perfect example. On the front of the Images and Words book, it says "includes transcriptions by John Petrucci." The key word is "includes". It does not mean JP transcribed the whole album. Far from it, actually. I was told that the publisher sent JP handwritten manuscripts of certain parts. JP would pencil in fingerings. Honestly, when looking through that book, it's obvious which parts he was involved in. That's how you end up with a transcription like Under a Glass Moon, where the solo is pretty darn close, but the rhythms are godawful.



StevenC said:


> And then you've got the Cynic tabs with "here's how Paul plays it" and but you have to shift it to where a human can play those chords.


Not my fault that Paul loves that m9 shape 



wankerness said:


> *I did order the physical tab book for Traced in Air,*


Thank you for supporting the Cynic books. It's been an absolute honor to transcribe Focus and TiA for Paul, and we have more stuff in the works.



> *I might look into Scale the Summit tab books if they're good*. I listened to V a whole lot and a lot of it sounded pretty playable for a bad guitar player.


The StS books are accurate note-wise, but they definitely need some editing. For example, there are no section markers or timestamps anywhere, and there's a bunch of stuff that would be easier to read when written differently (using dotted notes instead of ties, using 6/8 instead of 6/4, etc.)



> But, I got some great tabs for *Animals as Leaders* songs and stuff that as far as I know had no legal tabs out there anywhere. *Katatonia, Anathema*, etc, lots of bands that didn't have anything good and legal out there. Or *Opeth*, who I spend hundreds and hundreds of hours transcribing songs for,


Animals as Leaders have official tabs (guitar pro & PDF formats) for The Joy of Motion and The Madness of Many here: https://www.animalsasleaders.org/the-joy-of-motion-guitar-tabs
Sheet Happens originally released the book for TMoM, not sure why it's no longer on their site.

Katatonia, Anathema, and Opeth are all managed by the same management group, Northern Music in the UK. They also manage a band called The Wildhearts, who I just did a tab book for last year. I'm trying to get some books going for other bands on their roster. Hopefully we can make it happen!


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## wankerness (Apr 9, 2021)

Cool. I’d really like some solid books for Anathema, particularly their albums from Judgment through Distant Satellites. I got motivated a few years ago to start transcribing Distant Satellites, especially cause I had the 5.1 disc where it was a lot easier to quasi-isolate tracks, but their stuff was still pretty tedious to transcribe so I got through my favorite song (Lost Song Pt 3) and then stopped. 

I did a few songs off katatonia’s viva emptiness and last fair deal gone down, but the production made it very difficult when you’re working off cd audio. Would be great to have books for all their stuff starting with LFDGD, since that’s where things started getting really layered and cool.

I might have to get the Joy of Motion book, knowing there is one. The first album is still the one I’d like the most, but there are decent tabs out there (not amazing, but decent!). Thanks for the info about the StS book.

if you end up doing a bass book for traced in air, I’ll be all over that. I got the bass book for focus that was briefly available! Thanks for all the work you do. Those early dream theater re-dos were huge.


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## StevenC (Apr 9, 2021)

wankerness said:


> I might look into Scale the Summit tab books if they're good. I listened to V a whole lot and a lot of it sounded pretty playable for a bad guitar player.


I have all the Scale the Summit tab books and have learned everything from Carving Desert Canyons and The Collective. But The Migration and V have some really difficult bits that sound way easier. The books themselves are really good and accurate though, spiral bound too. The only issues I've had with any of them is some weird misprints like a bar and a half missing from Whales in a solo, and part of Glacial Planet missing that repeats later. But I think those were fixed in later printings.

If anybody has a later edition of The Collective, though, PM me so I can get the missing bit.



Evan89 said:


> Not my fault that Paul loves that m9 shape
> 
> Thank you for supporting the Cynic books. It's been an absolute honor to transcribe Focus and TiA for Paul, and we have more stuff in the works.


Yeah, I love your Cynic transcriptions (and DT!!!!), but damn does that guy have big and flexible hands. I practice that chord every day and it's not getting any easier.

But more Cynic tabs please.

I also got the AAL Madness of Many book, but don't care about TJoM almost at all. Hopefully they'll do Weightless sometime, but the tabs seem pretty good at least.


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## Ataraxia2320 (Apr 9, 2021)

Lorcan Ward said:


> The majority of older tab books were transcribed by keyboard players so the notes are accurate but the fingering is awful. /QUOTE]
> 
> This is a mind blown moment. It's so obvious in hindsight but I had no idea.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Apr 9, 2021)

Evan89 said:


> Unfortunately, artists being directly involved with tab books is rare. It's also important to remember that the old books were done without a lot of the technology we enjoy now, like youtube live videos and isolated instrument tracks. A big part of transcribing (accurately) is doing research: not just the notes being played, but how and where they're played. As @Lorcan Ward pointed out, the transcribers on these old books were often non-guitarists, or they were guitarists who simply didn't have the vocabulary for the type of music they were tasked with transcribing. Those old Metallica, Megadeth, Testament, etc. books come to mind.


What is problematic in this regard, I think, is when the artist actively lies to people in magazines that likely get distributed worldwide. Dimebag Darrell lied to people about some of the riffs that later got compiled into his Riffer Madness book. If memory serves, he says playing the heavy riff of Cemetery Gates in open position is wrong, whereas it is in 5th position. A friend showed me a video of him live, where he splits the difference. (Again, if memory serves.) So sometimes it is the artist themselves misleading people for some reason.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Apr 9, 2021)

Evan89 said:


> using 6/8 instead of 6/4


Typo?




12/8 instead of 6/4 would make more sense in what you're talking about, and would be easier to read.


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## Evan89 (Apr 9, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Typo?
> 
> View attachment 92303
> 
> ...


It all depends on the part and how it feels. 12/8 I would mainly use for a riff that feels like 4/4 triplets (see 0:33 of Dream Theater's Take the Time). The main example I was thinking of when addressing the Scale the Summit books was the beginning of The Great Plains. I misremembered the way it's written in the book. It's 3/4 (not 6/4), but would be much easier to read in 6/8. Plus there are tied notes everywhere which should just be "let ring" notation. Regarding your screenshot, Guitar Pro's default beaming for 6/4 is something I don't use. This is generally what I would do in 6/4:


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## Rosal76 (Apr 9, 2021)

StevenC said:


> Yeah, I love your Cynic transcriptions...



+1. I have both the Focus and Traced guitar tab books and they are awesome. I'm actually finishing up on covering the entire song, Veil of Maya. The one thing I hate about Cynic and I probably shouldn't use that word because it's a common thing that happens in music but the fact that they improvise/change notes in their repeating riffs. Again, I understand improvisation is a common/important thing in music but it doesn't help that the music is already technical. I must..., Focus on covering Cynic songs.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Apr 9, 2021)

Evan89 said:


> It all depends on the part and how it feels. 12/8 I would mainly use for a riff that feels like 4/4 triplets (see 0:33 of Dream Theater's Take the Time). The main example I was thinking of when addressing the Scale the Summit books was the beginning of The Great Plains. I misremembered the way it's written in the book. It's 3/4 (not 6/4), but would be much easier to read in 6/8. Plus there are tied notes everywhere which should just be "let ring" notation. Regarding your screenshot, Guitar Pro's default beaming for 6/4 is something I don't use. This is generally what I would do in 6/4:
> View attachment 92304


I could've changed it, but didn't bother.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Apr 10, 2021)

Rosal76 said:


> +1. I have both the Focus and Traced guitar tab books and they are awesome. I'm actually finishing up on covering the entire song, Veil of Maya. The one thing I hate about Cynic and I probably shouldn't use that word because it's a common thing that happens in music but the fact that they improvise/change notes in their repeating riffs. Again, I understand improvisation is a common/important thing in music but it doesn't help that the music is already technical. *I must..., Focus on covering Cynic songs. *


Daltrey, would you shut the fuck up with that screaming in my ear? Hell!


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## BuckarooBanzai (Apr 11, 2021)

coreysMonster said:


> UG used to be hosted in Russia, where the owner is from. I'm guessing they moved their hosting to the cloud, which means playing by US copyright rules now because all the big cloud services are owned by American companies.
> They've struggled a few times with copyright claims over the years, and at one point even had to remove all their tabs temporarily while sorting out legal issues.
> 
> 
> That Russian site _is _UG (unless that was a joke)



"Cloud" hosting from the big players (AWS, GCP, Azure) is hideously expensive compared to colo or VPS hosting... the value proposition of using services like this is that it minimizes labor expense by offering things like databases, caches, MQs, Hadoop, and so forth as managed services, not to mention the APIs, elasticity and HTTP object storage (S3). This works well for greenfield projects that have engineering talent to take advantage of these features and enterprises that have a need to shift costs around; I highly doubt that a quasi-fly-by-night website that traffics in copyrighted content would have the capital and wherewithal to pay a 10x premium and/or hire professional-tier talent to architect their solution to run properly in a Big Three cloud.

https://builtwith.com/ultimate-guitar.com

Looks like they're using a Dutch company called LeaseWeb (although they do use AWS for DNS - not sure why they would). They likely have a few servers colo'd somewhere and are paying Cloudflare to cache the static content (tabs and articles) along with whatever other SaaS products they need for tracking, commenting, and so forth.


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## Wuuthrad (Apr 15, 2021)

AwakenTheSkies said:


> How is what I'm saying insincere? And how is it easier with tabs? You have to practice all the same. Almost everyone I know who learns their stuff "by ear" plays it wrong anyway. It only makes sense to figure it out by ear if you already know the artist's playing style. And who are you to say how music is supposed to be anyway? Fuck off!



 

Thats the spirit! I love Tablature myself- Ive been a contributing member of the Lute Society of America for years! 

TAB is in fact the OG form of notation, showing us what to play, rather than how to play in standard notation.


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## Wuuthrad (Apr 15, 2021)

VGK17 said:


> Yeah, it actually is though.



Can you play acoustic?


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## Wuuthrad (Apr 15, 2021)

Demiurge said:


> Whoa- look at Mr. Fancypants with "notation" and "learning". Back in my day, we played guitar uphill in the snow- both ways. We didn't have no tuners- whatever pitch the town drunk screamed outside the tavern at 3am was A below middle C. Better get up early if you wanted to play.
> 
> But maybe- MAYBE- the point of progress is that shit in the future doesn't have to be as hard as shit in the past.




Tab is nothing new homes... ( OG 1500s) it was originally a sketch and you were required, _expected_ if you were lucky, to fill in the blanks w/ modal improv etc, not recite note for note in copy cat styles.

Are you suggesting its easy to imitate? I might agree Tab in its current form is just that, perhaps nothing more. 

Why not originate? Write new material? 
Isn't that what playing music is about? Sure we can sing songs around the campfire spitting plagues at each other, plunking on the acoustic, but does anyone really want to hear amateur hour Metal wankery? 

Make sense of this if you think TAb is supposed to be easy: 





btw this ^ is usually a 10 or more min piece, the Tab is merely a guide. 

Or what of this:




And yes I still tune the old way, plunking a metal fork across my noggin. Or tuning to the resonance of lunar cycles, atmospheric harmony and wooden forest spirits...Obviously


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## MaxOfMetal (Apr 15, 2021)

I thought playing music was about having fun. Boy was I wrong.


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## Wuuthrad (Apr 15, 2021)

MaxOfMetal said:


> I thought playing music was about having fun. Boy was I wrong.





Metal Karaoke anyone? Air guitar olympics?


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## diagrammatiks (Apr 15, 2021)

Wuuthrad said:


> Tab is nothing new homes... ( OG 1500s) it was originally a sketch and you were required, _expected_ if you were lucky, to fill in the blanks w/ modal improv etc, not recite note for note in copy cat styles.
> 
> Are you suggesting its easy to imitate? I might agree Tab in its current form is just that, perhaps nothing more.
> 
> ...



guitarists are really the worst musicians.


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## MaxOfMetal (Apr 15, 2021)

diagrammatiks said:


> guitarists are really the worst



FTFY


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## Wuuthrad (Apr 15, 2021)

Yea, seriously though music is hard work if you want to go pro. Touring is really hard, its not for everyone. 

Playing guitar for fun is great no doubt, and it pretty much sums up most of the popular YT content thats out there- people playing same old whatever genre, shilling for the corps selling product. Which is what people want to do nowadays? Sheesh...

What makes guys like Ola cool- one foot in the old ways and front foot in the new, doing WTF he wants to do for the most part. 

Another thing thats special about playing guitar or any musical instrument, compared to programming or computer music is there is always room for improvement, the skys the limit! 

Even with Tab!


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## Wuuthrad (Apr 15, 2021)

diagrammatiks said:


> guitarists are really the worst





MaxOfMetal said:


> FTFY



I resemble that remark.

When “playing” Jazz...

AKA butchering!


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## kamello (Apr 15, 2021)

something that I dislike about SheetHappens or official tab books is that they only include the tab for the instrument you buy, instead of a tab of the whole song. For me atleast, that includes three problems

1-. sometimes, specially in songs with more complex rhythms or where the guitar playing is more "ambient-oriented", the lack of other instruments makes learning the song boring and harder, as Im not _getting_ the interaction between the different instruments (Disperse official tabs are a perfect example of this, lots of layers, the guitar is far from being the main focus of the music, plus the fact that the fingerings in "Living Mirrors" have lots of mistakes) 
2-. when I was a kid, studying tabs was the main way to learn how to write, as I could clearly see how the drums work with the rest of the instruments, how the chords progression are still implicit in the riffs, how altering the snare position or the bass can dramatically change the feel of a certain section, how to write good accompaniment and layering in the case the tab was complete enough, etc. etc. Hell, I believe I learned more by dissecting Corelia tabs than by taking songwritting lessons for a few months
3-. being forced to buy a full album tab book when most of the time im interested in learning how a particular song works, hell, sometimes just a section  

The fact that fans in UG could make a far more complete and better work make it painful to go and spend 20 bucks for something that was free and better

on the bright side, the lack of tabs made me take the jump to transcribe some songs or learn more stuff by ear, and it has been great for ear-training, but working, studing and already having to tab shit out for my band implies that I can barely transcribe 4-5 songs a year


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## Emperor Guillotine (Apr 15, 2021)

diagrammatiks said:


> guitarists are really the worst.


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## CerealKiller (Apr 15, 2021)

While I would have thought this sucked when I was starting out, it would probably have helped me develop my ears earlier. UG was a good source for a riff and a lick here and there, but ultimately I would have been better off if I'd just learnt it by ear to begin with.


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## iamaom (Apr 15, 2021)

CerealKiller said:


> would have been better off if I'd just learnt it by ear to begin with.


Would you have? Or would you have given up on guitar after struggling through that first "easy" sounding Nirvana (or whatever) song for weeks on end and still not sounding quite right (perfect fourths vs fifths I'm looking at you).


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## CerealKiller (Apr 15, 2021)

iamaom said:


> Would you have? Or would you have given up on guitar after struggling through that first "easy" sounding Nirvana (or whatever) song for weeks on end and still not sounding quite right (perfect fourths vs fifths I'm looking at you).


Well, IMO yeah. I'm not saying you should start transcribing from day 1, but I was stuck with tabs for years because I didn't train my ears, and that really held me back. I basically couldn't play anything if I didn't have the tabs in front of me.


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## mastapimp (Apr 15, 2021)

CerealKiller said:


> Well, IMO yeah. I'm not saying you should start transcribing from day 1, but I was stuck with tabs for years because I didn't train my ears, and that really held me back. I basically couldn't play anything if I didn't have the tabs in front of me.


Yes, I kind of view this like taking off the training wheels when you don't have the tabs in front of you and you must pick apart a song or riff. You'll learn the stuff faster by just straight reading the tabs, but learning to transcribe parts has helped develop my ear immensely. I still grab tab books or an occasional tab from UG from time to time, but if there's an obscure song or something new that nobody's put the notes to paper, nothing's stopping me from hunkering down and tabbing it out myself, especially with the rise of audio manipulating software.


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