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MuSATO (Music Student and Teacher Organization) has been formed for the sole
purpose of protecting the rights of music students to learn to play the guitar
through the use of online guitar tabs available on a number of websites around the
world. The exchange of information in this way has been the backbone of the learning
process between guitar teachers and students since the invention of the electric
guitar. A student hears a record on the radio, wants to learn the guitar part, and
plays the CD recording of the song for his or her teacher. The teacher subsequently
shows the student how to play the part. Sometimes, to insure that the student remembers the
lesson, the teacher also writes down the part on some paper, depending on the teacher
- student relationship. PLEASE REGISTER AT BOTTOM OF PAGE TO HELP SAVE GUITAR TABS!
Online guitar tabs are simply a rudimentary way for guitar students to show each other how to play a guitar part for their favorite song. These tabs are created by the users and as such are not akin in any way to the illegal downloading of music recordings. They are not copied from published music from a book, from the web or other pre-existing sources. Moreover, in many cases the guitar tabs do not represent the song from which they came but rather the guitar part recorded during the making of a recording of the song. Guitars tabs do not contain rhythmic information of any kind and therefore are actually not accurate representations of the song. Not allowing students to help each other this way would effectively be the same as stopping a music teacher from writing a piano part on the back of a napkin for a young student. A BBC web article dated 12 December, 2005, quotes US Music Publishers Association president Lauren Keiser as saying that unlicensed guitar tabs and song scores were widely available on the Internet but were "completely illegal"...and further that the owners of these sites should "be jailed". We are all stunned to read this opinion. We want to know the truth. What do publishers really object to? To further this cause, we have called the New York office of the US Music Publishers Association on several occassions...leaving precise and polite voice messages for Lauren Keiser informing that we wanted to hear from him what the real issues were and what, if anything, could be done on the part of the site owners to satisfy his objections should they prove legitimate. To this day, we have never received a return call from anyone at the MPA. The bottom line is that we believe that extremists like Mr. Keiser are coming dangerously close to exploiting innocent guitar students simply because they now congregate in large crowds on the Internet. We do not believe this should be allowed. Why can't guitar players around the world learn to play their favorite guitar licks together? |
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You have indicated that you are currently a member of GTU or GuitarZone.com. Please log in below and then you will be redirected to a page with a link to your 'control panel'. If you have difficulty, you can just return to this page and then click here to change your MuSATO registration setting. If you are willing and able to make a donation, even something as small as US$5, please click here.
If you are having trouble finding the option for joining in 'Your Control Panel', look at this picture for help |
