Sticking Its Neck OutSticking Its Neck Out

Attention, closet guitarists: If life's too busy to factor in significant time with your ax (that's musician-speak for instrument), you might be interested in the latest from Fender Musical Instruments. The guitar maker has launched Fender Players Club (http://www.fenderplayersclub.com), where players can learn their favorite licks the easy way: via the long-practiced tradition of tablatures, or tabs.

Tablatures essentially are cheating for guitarists: A musical staff with six lines instead of five represents the strings, while numbers running along those lines correspond to the fret that should be fingered. While tabs are nothing new for guitarists, online access to accurate, licensed tabs is, says Mike Lewis, Fender's director of special projects.

The key to the club is the involvement of Fender partner Hal Leonard Corp., one of the largest publishers of printed music, giving club members access to a huge source of licensed tabs, Lewis says. It's taken this long because Fender wanted to make sure it got the club right.

Now, if only it could hook up members with label deals, they'd really have something.