things twice

Wired News: Lyrics Dustup Ends in Apology

Kinda interesting, this one… Especially the last couple of paragraphs.

Beginning in January, the Music Publishers Association, of which Warner Chappell is a member, will begin pursuing a campaign against 5 to 6 such companies, according to MPA CEO Lauren Keiser.

“Lost revenue for rights holders is in the millions,” said Keiser, “We’re not going after fan clubs, but websites that make money.”
True, I do have that “small donations welcome” link hidden away at the bottom of some frame, but I guess that doesn’t really count — I’m a small potatoe here (sob! my ego is hurting!).
Anyway, for various reasons, I will not make any drastic changes quite yet, but stay tuned.

Thanks to …

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Song sites face legal crackdown

Before you act: there’s no point in writing comments like: Where’s the zip file? I want the zip file. Can you please send me the zip file?

well well… What can I say? Several people have sent me links to this and other similar news reports, concerned about what is going to happen to dylanchords.
I understand the concern — I share it, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.
On the one hand: I don’t want to go to jail, and I can’t afford a 500,000$ lawsuit. Those are two good reasons to shut down the site right now.
On the other, I keep telling myself that I don’t have …

Chimes of Freedom was, I think, the first Dylan song that I really made an effort to transcribe. This was before the days of the Internet and in my case also before the days of Lyrics, so if I wanted the words on paper, I had to write them out myself.
Which I wanted, and which I did.
I was spellbound by those words. The layer upon layer of different meanings connected to different sensual experiences: the thunder storm, the lightning, the sounds, the “we”, which is not explained in the song, but I imagined a loving couple, on their way home from a date, to . . ., well, you know – all these and more, working together, flowing in and out …

Seven years ago, I wrote, in the first version of the tab of “One Too Many Mornings”:
The chords below are what he plays. I’m not sure about the fingering, though. I have a feeling that it is played in some kind of altered tuning, but I’m not sure yet. The low g’s that are sounding throughout most of the song would indicate an open string. I’m working on it.
This was one of the first songs I tabbed — or should I say: failed to tab. At that time, I only had the song on vinyl, and apart from the huge problem involved in tabbing from a vinyl player (moving the pickup five seconds back not only damages the record, it …

OK, here’s the full story of the battle of Wichita, as requested.

It sounds pretty easy at first — just a run down similar to so many other songs (The Wicked Messenger, Down the Highway, and quite a few others), but when it came down to figuring out the details…

One thing was for certain: the highest string had to be tuned to the tone that is ringing throughout — there was no way in the world that that was going to be a fingered tone, the dexterity that would have been involved in that, would have been quite alien to Dylan (no offense). So there was one string…

For the rest, I worked with the different tunings that I knew Dylan …

After the story of the battle of Wichita, here’s some info on the tools I use when I tab.

Ear. Couldn’t do it without it.
Plain text editor. Well, not quite, but in principle. No fancy tabbing software, just typing. Tabbing is an ASCII art form…
Occasionally, pen and paper, but nowadays, I can hardly write music on paper anymore. Although that’s where I come from, it now feels odd to write down a guitar part in standard notation. Only when there is doubt about the tuning, as in the Wichita case, do I write down the actual notes.
Technical equipment 1. Ah, back in the good old days, back in the late nineties, when tapes were still the standard trading commodity (remember …

Finally! Now I can admit it: Wichita Blues has been bugging me for years. Thanks to a CD from Thomas Romon, and a file from lowgen at the Pool (heartfelt thanks to both!), I’ve finally won the struggle. Turned out it was played in a tuning he has never, to my knowledge, used anywhere else. The tab is from the Cynthia Gooding Tape (Feb/March 1962).
The tab is fairly accurate for the intro and the beginning of the first verse, and all the chord shapes he uses throughout the songs are there.
There is one text line I couldn’t make out. If anyone has suggestions, please help me out.

See That My Grave is Kept Clean

Another little gem (or at least almost-gem) from the McKenzie Tapes. Differs from the standard version by using the E class of licks instead of the Drop D class of the recorded version. But the most prominent feature is the uneven rhythm, with 5/4 bars alternating with plain 4/4.