Monday, July 20, 2009

Sharing of songs; now and before

A friend of mine just sent me a song book via email, The file size is just 1.8Mb, but it contains 120 pages of songs complete with guitar chords. At approximately 6-8 songs per page, there are at least 720 songs in it. Before you start thinking about copyright implications, these are very old Christian songs we used to sing in the old days. Actually many of them are not familiar to me. I will get some people to sing them so that I can record the songs and make them more useful for me and for others. I don't know about you, but I love to play the very old songs on my guitar. The lyrics are beautiful and they are great when you are in the mood to worship.

Here is how it was done in the "BC" (before computer) days. When I was a teenager, photocopy machines were not yet available. If we found a song we liked, we would look for the lyrics in the magazines, or borrow somebody's songbook. Then we would hand-copy each and every song into a notebook.To learn the songs, we would tune in to the radio, while the more fortunate ones have the luxury of playing cassette tapes or vinyl records on a player. It was not easy at all to distribute your favourite songs to your buddies. I wonder how many kids today appreciate what is available to them now.

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