Tannishblog

I’m a musician, and I’m pissed. As a self-taught guitarist of many years, I pride myself on what little knowledge I’ve gained, and I am proud to represent an art form that helps to bridge gaps between sectors of humanity, allowing us all to enjoy life a bit more. That enjoyment is being infringed upon.

For years, six-stringers like myself have gathered to share their licks, techniques and bond as brothers and sisters of something greater than all of us. through discussion and hands-on learning we perfect our craft, laboriously listening to recordings to glean what we can from the masters of the day. Eventually a system was worked out, in parallel to traditional written music, to annotate guitar method on paper. Known as tablature, this system acts as an aid for the many play-by-ear musicians, and as a written system specific to the instruments evolution and it’s impact on musical theory. Many string effects developed within modern music cannot be rendered in traditional sheet music. thus, guitar tab is an intrinsic part of musical development for millions of aspiring players.

Until now. Tonight, I peruse the online tab archives to find them all shut down from fear of litigation. GuitarZone.com has this to say:

The company which owns this website has been indirectly threatened (via our ISP) with legal action by the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) as well as the Music Publishers’ Association (MPA) on the basis that sharing tablature constitutes copyright infringement.

[…]

Apparently, the NMPA/MPA believes that the Internet may be on the foul side of the legality line they would like to draw here. For me, I see no difference. It’s teachers educating students and covered as a ‘fair use’ of the tablature. The teachers here don’t even get paid nor do the students have to pay this website to access the lessons.

Likewise, GuitareTab! is not functional without explanation. Mxtabs offers this tidbit when searching for a song’s tablature:

Due to recent controversy regarding the legality of free guitar tablature on the Internet, MXtabs is temporarily unable to display this guitar tablature. We hope to be able to offer guitar tablature again in the near future.

Music publishers are having a tough time thanks to Internet technology. From RIAA to NMPA, the traditional controls on music production and distribution are being subverted. Truth is that music companies are parasitic - they must rely upon the gifts of others to survive. Only through the means of reaching the public do they have anything to offer the aspiring pop star or diva. There are other means now.

What the music industry is experiencing is a natural progression. Market shifts brought on by emerging technologies is a fundamental part of a market-driven culture. Ask the railroad industry how that works. Unfortunately for the music tycoons, their well is drying up fast.

So they turn to another parasitic industry to aid them: Lawyers. somehow, by forcing lawmakers to reinvent existing laws in their favor (or so they hope) they attempt to stem the tide of progress. Lawyers are more than eager to comply, they make money no matter the outcome. and since their clients are so stinking rich, large fees can be expected. Unfortunately for musicians, our current administration is confused about what is good for Americans. Often industrial perks offered by lawmakers supercede actual benefits for consumers.

In the end, though, traditional music industrial tactics will fail. musicians will leverage consumer power whenever necessary to force the companies to comply with new needs. that is how capitalism works. Too bad for the likes of the RIAA, but their time is over. Give them time, they’ll figure it out.

Meanwhile I’ll have to do without guitar tablature. Future musicians and the next generation of pop stars will just have to work harder.

A couple of week ago, I found myself trying to relate Buddhist thinking to a Methodist friend. Dodging hurdles of not alienating a theist when speaking of a non-theistic belief, relating (literally) foreign concepts into an American mind, and expressing what caused me to abandon Lutheranism without dissing Christianity in general should not be attempted while driving. I’m not sure I did well.

Regarding my personal experience, there is one point I wish I had made clear. What struck me most about Buddhism as a philosophy is an attitude of "See for yourself." I found missing in the churches I attended.

Do not be satisfied with hearsay or with tradition or with legendary lore or with what has come down in scriptures or with conjectures or with logical inferences or with weighing evidence or with liking for a view after pondering over it or with someone else’s ability or with the thought "The monk is our teacher," When you know in yourselves: "These things are wholesome, blameless, commended by the wise, and being adopted and put into effect lead to welfare and happiness," then you should practice and abide in them…

- the Buddha
Kalama Sutra

Trust your judgment; I like that. It affirms a trust in the individual, a belief that all men are inherently good, want happiness, and wish to reduce suffering in self and others. It assumes any person alive capable to know the difference in the wholesome and the harmful, and allows the freedom to chose. When wise choices are made, all roads lead to the Dharma and the betterment of mankind. Any decision that benefits others benefits the self.

All terror, all the time. Our News corporations are having a field day with the newest episode of the continuing drama of BushCo V. the World. Q: What do the War on Terror and the War on Drug have in common? A: Neither achieved what they intended. The moral: Beware the Law of Unintended Consequences.

One of the tenets of my life’s experience is this: "You can’t idiot-proof something. The idiots will always out smart you." To begin confiscating water bottles and baby formula on all flights is to try to idiot-proof airport security. The fact that we feel the need to ban liquids as a result of the latest developments of the failed "War on Terror" shows how the idiots have again won.

How far will we go? An article in Slate asks just that, as well as pointing out the obvious. Read the Liquid World. Envision, if you will, a world where cat scans, human x-rays, and MRI devices are required to enter an airport. Sacrifice the known dangers of gamma rays to insure the illusion of safety in the friendly skies. Frequent fliers earn Chemotherapy points. The contents of your bowels are posted as public information, deep inquiries about your orifices occur in unadorned rooms. Strip searches include penetration as standard procedure.

Naturally, Al-Qaida, boogeyman du jour, is being blamed. They don’t even have to take credit these days, it’s given freely. As the NY Times reports:

“It has all of the earmarks of an Al Qaeda plot,” said Mary Jo White, the former United States attorney whose office successfully investigated and prosecuted the so-called Bojinka plot to bring down airliners over the Pacific in 1995.

What exactly is an earmark? Perhaps that statement has all the earmarks of  an administration in terror months before a mid-term election? The real issue, probably, is more like this quote from the same article.

“The great problem is that Al Qaeda has moved far beyond being a terrorist organization to being almost a state of mind,” said Simon Reeve, author of a 1999 book on Osama bin Laden and his associates. “That’s terribly significant because it gives the movement a scope and longevity it didn’t have before 9/11.”

I cannot believe that Al Qaida is the only American-hating Muslim group capable of thinking diabolically. Contrary to the Redneck Agenda, Middle-Easterners have the same amount of gray cells as anyone else. The one thing the world should have learned from the Iraqi debacle is that murder is an art form in hues of red and brown.

Folly, however is a science.