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Musicnotes launches first free, legal tablature site

The Capital Times  —  7/01/2008 3:11 pm

Madison-based Musicnotes on Tuesday announced the official launch of MXTabs.net, the world's first free, legal tablature network. The side will provide guitarists, bassists and drummers with an online community in which to freely create tablature and share their knowledge of how to play tens of thousands of songs, while also compensating music publishers and songwriters through a share of advertising revenue.

Tablature is a notational system that uses letters, numbers or other signs rather than staff notation to tell players where to place their fingers on a particular instrument to get the desired sound.

Originally launched in 1999, MXTabs was one of the first, largest and most popular destinations for freely available online tabs. In 2006 the site voluntarily closed its doors due to issues of copyright, and the assets were later acquired by Musicnotes.

Featuring licenses from Alfred Publishing, Sony/ATV, Universal MGB, Domino Publishing, BUG Music and several thousand additional publishers, MXTabs features a catalog of nearly 50,000 licensed, user-created tablatures, with more added daily. The tabs for the songs are created and shared by the users of the site.

All songwriters, regardless whether they are part of a large global publisher or simply an individual who's written a song can participate in MXTabs. Fifty percent of ad revenues is paid directly to publishers, songwriters and copyright holders, while the community receives free, unlimited access to the tablature on the site.

In addition to tabs, MXTabs offers a fully-featured social network community, including the ability for users to find and add friends, participate in the MXTabs musician forums, post blogs and video lessons and show off photos of their music gear.

"The purpose of MXTabs is to allow musicians to freely share their knowledge and to participate in a community with other musicians," Bill Aicher, MXTabs' project manager, said in a statement. "The rebirth of MX was done with the direct input of previous users of the site and what we've built is directly based on what musicians have been asking us for."

MXTabs has partnered with Taylor Guitars to give away four guitars from the company in July, including two of its new electric guitars. Additional prizes, including MXTabs T-shirts, messenger bags and other branded merchandise also will be awarded.

The Capital Times  —  7/01/2008 3:11 pm