Ultimate Guitar Tabs App & Site - Publishers Pulling User Submitted Tablature?

Poppadocrock

I’ve been using Ultimate Guitar for almost 30 years. I used the site to teach myself guitar and have been using the app ever since I got my first iDevice to learn songs, practice, learn, etc…

After watching the Thriller 40th Anniversary Documentary I decided to look up some Michael Jackson Tabs, and saw something I’ve never seen before…. All the MJ tabs have been removed at the request of the publisher! They are still there if you search but once you click on an individual song it doesn’t come up. I don’t know how many artists/publishers/etc… have done this, I’ve only found this one so far, but this strikes me as a bit odd. The thing that really bothers me is 75% of all the tabs are user submitted. They are peoples best interpretation of songs, shared for others to learn how to play. They do have Pro versions and official versions of songs, but the majority of the tabs on UG are user submitted.

I decided to find a few tabs on E-Chords.com, which is ok but definitely no UG. Has anyone seen this before? Have you noticed it with any other artists?

Is there any precedent here? I’m guessing the rights extend past any official sheet music/Tabs to any interpretation or attempted re-creation as well, or else this wouldn’t make sense…

Here are the photos of what happens when you try to click on any MJ song inside the app, and on the website.

McD

Slowly the gatekeepers of historical artifacts will be displaced by artists that opt out of traditional databases managed by lawyers and accountants.

We shall see….

I love the art of Madison Cunningham who teaches her fans how to play her cool guitar innovation:

This is what the tune sounds like live:

Schmotown

I rely heavily on Ultimate Guitar for lyrics and chords to use in my cover band. Last week, for the first time, I encountered a message saying that they’d taken down a song as requested by the publisher. Thankfully, it was still available in GuitarTapp Pro which is odd given that that’s just a cleaner UI drawing from Ultimate Guitar.

Schmotown

And Madison Cunningham is extraordinary.

Poppadocrock

@Schmotown said:
I rely heavily on Ultimate Guitar for lyrics and chords to use in my cover band. Last week, for the first time, I encountered a message saying that they’d taken down a song as requested by the publisher. Thankfully, it was still available in GuitarTapp Pro which is odd given that that’s just a cleaner UI drawing from Ultimate Guitar.

Me too, always have, and I’ve never seen that message before… so it must be something relatively recent because I use it a lot. Weird, I don’t like it.

Thanks for the tab site/app recommendation I’ll check out GuitarTapp Pro, cheers.

Atlesbe

The same happened with Paul McCartney tabs 😞

I’m still using UG but now only to upload my shots. I’m now using Just Chords app (https://apps.apple.com/es/app/just-chords/id1632968272 ) where you can look for tabs from different sites and you have a lot de functions like autoscroll, Apple Music integration, tuner, metronome, etc etc
BTW my nick there, is atlesbe, I have some Beatles, McCartney, Queen covers there 😊

Schmotown

@Atlesbe said:
I’m now using Just Chords app (https://apps.apple.com/es/app/just-chords/id1632968272 ) where you can look for tabs from different sites and you have a lot de functions like autoscroll, Apple Music integration, tuner, metronome, etc etc
BTW my nick there, is atlesbe, I have some Beatles, McCartney, Queen covers there 😊

Thanks for the tip. I’ll check it out.

bluegroove

@Atlesbe said:
The same happened with Paul McCartney tabs 😞

I’m still using UG but now only to upload my shots. I’m now using Just Chords app (https://apps.apple.com/es/app/just-chords/id1632968272 ) where you can look for tabs from different sites and you have a lot de functions like autoscroll, Apple Music integration, tuner, metronome, etc etc
BTW my nick there, is atlesbe, I have some Beatles, McCartney, Queen covers there 😊

Nice, I've been looking for an app like this. Thank you.

Atlesbe

@Schmotown said:

Thanks for the tip. I’ll check it out.

@bluegroove said:

Nice, I've been looking for an app like this. Thank you.

Great. I think it will become a very complete all-in-one very similar to Onsong and also in constant development taking advantage of the creation of a discord server to get feedback.

BroCoast

Please don’t take this the wrong way but what do you need tabs for when you can slow down anything for learning purposes these days?

Poppadocrock

@BroCoast said:
Please don’t take this the wrong way but what do you need tabs for when you can slow down anything for learning purposes these days?

No offense taken, but sometimes I want to learn to play a song quickly. My ear isn’t as well trained as some, so having access to so so many songs provides a quick way to learn covers. I literally taught myself guitar a long time ago just by learning easy songs, and progressively learning harder and harder ones over the years. I started as a guitar player so the ability to quickly have the lyrics, chords, tablature laid out, it’s easy to learn my favorite songs or artists. There’s tons of benefits from learning this way, and it is one of my favorite things to do. Play and sing a song I like.

Poppadocrock

Im still using UG too but I also have this one, GuitarTab - Tabs & Chords Pro which is pretty good. I got it free awhile ago, not sure if it’s a paid app or not.

bluegroove

@BroCoast said:
Please don’t take this the wrong way but what do you need tabs for when you can slow down anything for learning purposes these days?

You don't exactly want to be doing that every time you want to play a song, especially with buddies or a band. Having at least a chord chart to glance out is invaluable and a huge time-saver, even moreso as your library of songs increases and your memory decreases naturally with age lol.

BroCoast

@bluegroove said:

@BroCoast said:
Please don’t take this the wrong way but what do you need tabs for when you can slow down anything for learning purposes these days?

You don't exactly want to be doing that every time you want to play a song, especially with buddies or a band. Having at least a chord chart to glance out is invaluable and a huge time-saver, even moreso as your library of songs increases and your memory decreases naturally with age lol.

Yeah absolutely. There are a lot of times I can’t hear certain voicings properly unless I worked on the tune for a while.

But I also believe that you’re only as good as your ear and it’s important to prioritise training it!

bluegroove

@BroCoast said:

@bluegroove said:

@BroCoast said:
Please don’t take this the wrong way but what do you need tabs for when you can slow down anything for learning purposes these days?

You don't exactly want to be doing that every time you want to play a song, especially with buddies or a band. Having at least a chord chart to glance out is invaluable and a huge time-saver, even moreso as your library of songs increases and your memory decreases naturally with age lol.

Yeah absolutely. There are a lot of times I can’t hear certain voicings properly unless I worked on the tune for a while.

But I also believe that you’re only as good as your ear and it’s important to prioritise training it!

Right on. That's very true.

It's also good practice to transcribe your own chords/sheets. Lately I've been transposing songs to different keys and notating the melodies by ear. There's something almost therapeutic about it.

hghon

That’s very sad. I learned the guitar as a kid by spending 8 hours every day in front of Ultimate Guitar with my acoustic on my lap.

Schmotown

@bluegroove said:

@BroCoast said:

@bluegroove said:

@BroCoast said:
Please don’t take this the wrong way but what do you need tabs for when you can slow down anything for learning purposes these days?

You don't exactly want to be doing that every time you want to play a song, especially with buddies or a band. Having at least a chord chart to glance out is invaluable and a huge time-saver, even moreso as your library of songs increases and your memory decreases naturally with age lol.

Yeah absolutely. There are a lot of times I can’t hear certain voicings properly unless I worked on the tune for a while.

But I also believe that you’re only as good as your ear and it’s important to prioritise training it!

Right on. That's very true.

It's also good practice to transcribe your own chords/sheets. Lately I've been transposing songs to different keys and notating the melodies by ear. There's something almost therapeutic about it.

I often work out songs by ear (guitar + vocal) but the neighborhood band I’m in has at least 60 songs in our “set list” and we add several more every month. I couldn’t possibly remember all of those lyrics and changes by heart.

Awhile back I introduced an exercise wherein we’d begin each rehearsal by playing a new Bob Dylan song without any prior practice. I’d just pick one off Ultimate Guitar and we’d go for it. Some of those were complete train wrecks and never played again while others were promising enough that we added them into the regular mix. We couldn’t have done this without a resource like UG.

hisdudeness

@Schmotown said:

@bluegroove said:

@BroCoast said:

@bluegroove said:

@BroCoast said:
Please don’t take this the wrong way but what do you need tabs for when you can slow down anything for learning purposes these days?

You don't exactly want to be doing that every time you want to play a song, especially with buddies or a band. Having at least a chord chart to glance out is invaluable and a huge time-saver, even moreso as your library of songs increases and your memory decreases naturally with age lol.

Yeah absolutely. There are a lot of times I can’t hear certain voicings properly unless I worked on the tune for a while.

But I also believe that you’re only as good as your ear and it’s important to prioritise training it!

Right on. That's very true.

It's also good practice to transcribe your own chords/sheets. Lately I've been transposing songs to different keys and notating the melodies by ear. There's something almost therapeutic about it.

I often work out songs by ear (guitar + vocal) but the neighborhood band I’m in has at least 60 songs in our “set list” and we add several more every month. I couldn’t possibly remember all of those lyrics and changes by heart.

Awhile back I introduced an exercise wherein we’d begin each rehearsal by playing a new Bob Dylan song without any prior practice. I’d just pick one off Ultimate Guitar and we’d go for it. Some of those were complete train wrecks and never played again while others were promising enough that we added them into the regular mix. We couldn’t have done this without a resource like UG.

When you have day job ,Sometimes for band practice there is a song you will be playing for the first time and not much time learn during week , I need ultimate guitar for quick reference , at least to understand the basic progression ie I ii iv V etc , once I see those chords , im learning the song in the car to hear how it all works , so its a job saver when short on time