Noel Gallagher, me and the music industry

I play the guitar. Not very well, I may add. But it keeps me amused.

I’m completely self-taught (something which is evident to all who have had the ‘pleasure’ of hearing me) and, whilst I know what sounds wrong, it takes me time to find the right notes and chords to find what’s right for a particular song I want to play.

So I do what every bedroom guitarist does – and hit The Google ™

It doesn’t matter what musical genre is your preference, the chances are high that you’ll discover a web site somewhere where someone with more talent than you has worked out that that tricky chord before the chorus in “Don’t look back in anger” is an A flat over an E7 (which is tricky to play, let me tell you).

Anyway…

I’ve noticed more and more recently that the web sites I visit for my instruction are shutting down or their catalogues are getting deleted. I presume this as a consequence of legal action because, after all, the musical notation of a song is as much copyright as the song itself.

But… well, there’s always a but. And, yes, I’m going to rail against the music industry again.

I have form after all.

In the vast majority of cases I am never going to buy the professionally-produced sheet music for a song.

And, yes, I mean professionally-produced.

As much as I may admire Noel Gallagher as a songwriter, I know he’s not one for musical theory (too much time watching DVD extras where he admits to this tells me all I need to know), so the “Oasis song books” I could buy have been produced by some bloke listening to “Don’t look back in anger” and coming to the same A flat over an E7 conclusion as the guy scribbling things down for a web site.

But not being able to find the chord music I want on the Internet doesn’t do the music industry (aka The Man) any favours because he won’t generate a new book sale through his actions.

I also won’t buy any more or any less Gallagher-related musical offerings because of this action (take it as read that I am unlikely to *ever* buy a Beady Eye CD).

All that happens is that I go back to Monsieur Le Google and search again. Find a site that hasn’t been shut down or had its guts pulled out. And get the answer to my chord-based dilemma.

Causing me to lose approximately 45 seconds of my life in an unwanted diversion. Oh – and cause me to think even less about the music industry than I did already.

Yeah… I didn’t think that was possible either.

Photo of Noel Gallagher taken by Freschwill and released under a Creative Commons licence.