Tablature
Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the guitar, lute or vihuela, as well as many free reed aerophones such as the harmonica.
[citation needed] While standard notation represents the rhythm and duration of each note and its pitch relative to the scale based on a twelve tone division of the octave, tablature is instead operationally based, indicating where and when a finger should be placed to generate a note, so pitch is denoted implicitly rather than explicitly.
For example, the number 3 written on the top line of the staff indicates that the player should press down at the third fret on the high E (first string).
The most common form of lute tablature uses the same concept but differs in the details (e.g., it uses letters rather than numbers for frets).
These courses are tuned in accordance with the key of each piece played: The origins of German lute tablature can be traced back well into the 15th century.
ASCII tab files can be written (somewhat laboriously) with any ordinary word processor or text editor, using a monospaced font such as 'Courier New' so that characters maintain vertical alignment across all strings.
By early 2006, an unprecedented legal move was taken by the Music Publishers Association (MPA), initiating the removal of unlicensed guitar tablature from websites.
MPA president Lauren Keiser said that their goal is for owners of free tablature services to face fines and even imprisonment.
In addition, there are now a number of "legal" services offering guitar tablature that have been licensed by music publishers.
[9] On 10 April 2010, Ultimate Guitar (UG), a Russian free tablature website, entered a licensing agreement with Harry Fox Agency.
These companies offering legal content generally fall into three categories: Mxtabs.net closed because of copyright-holder complaints.
On 29 February 2008, MXTabs.net relaunched as the first legitimately licensed site designed to provide musicians with access to free tablatures, while also compensating music publishers and songwriters for their intellectual property.
However, unlike other user-generated content sites, only songs that have received explicit permission from participating copyright owners will be made available online.
On 17 July 2006, Guitar Tab Universe (GTU) posted a letter on its home page that its ISP had been jointly threatened with legal action by the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) and the MPA "on the basis that sharing tablature constitutes copyright infringement".
[12] The On-line Guitar Archive (OLGA) is another tablature site that has been removed after receiving letters from lawyers representing the NMPA and the MPA.
