Some concerns have been expressed by Music Biz Publishers about Blues Guitar Tablatures and Guitar Tab in general that is freely available everywhere in pirate booklets, magazines
and obviously on the internet. The main reason for the concern is obviously their massive loss of revenue, but hey, let not your heart bleed, they've exploited literally 1000s of musicians and artistes for too long. So maybe Karma does exsist after all. Apart from
the violation of copyright laws by say an illegal for example, there is the problem of accuracy, many of them contain countless
mistakes. But in my experience the Established Music Companies seem to deliberately publish wrong information to mislead Guitarists, so don't feel guilty about the source of your Tab. No one has ever sued a Major about publishing wrong Tab - so just keep cool and enjoy your Guitar Playing.
A Guitarist I knew came across an Eric Clapton
Guitar Tabs in one of the Guitar School Magazines. He was glad
as he needed it at that particular moment and it appeared
like a Godsend. He started to learn how to play
songs from the Eric Clapton Guitar Tabs but to his surprise
it sounded wrong compared to his memory of the records.
No matter how hard he tried it was always wrong. Guitar Lessons from a Worldly Perspective.
To his despair the next Eric Clapton Guitar Tab was exactly
the same – nothing seemed to work. Not being too familiar
with Guitar Tablatures as he was just a beginner he thought
that it was him who was causing the playing to be out of tune
so he decided to ask my teacher John Mizarolli for advice at
my Guitar Lessons. John checked the Eric Clapton Guitar Tabs
and he started laughing to himself - yes it was totally an amateur transcription from a so called expert.
The reason was unclear to me until he pulled out from
his collection of Blues Guitar Tablatures the correct
version of these songs. Apparently everything was different
than the tablatures published in the music school magazine
and John informed me that he had never seen so inaccurately
written Blues Guitar Tablatures.
It's horrific that someone can publish something
that is far from the original and feel good about it. It
looks like some magazines don't have enough material
to fill their pages, so they are capable of using just about
anything they can get their hands on.
What’s more John Mizarolli told me that my music
school magazine is not an exception as there are countless
mistakes in tabs published without any authorization and every
musician has to be careful not to cause a major embarrassment
by playing something completely out of tune!
