Maybe they’re not officially dead, but it’s starting to feel that way.

The guitar tab plugins that I’m talking about are the add ons that you would use in applications like Rhythmbox or Amarok (that piece of crap), Songbird, Banshee, or even Exaile (which is cool, but based on Amarok, so therefore it’s a piece of crap).

Or maybe it’s all Ubuntu 11.10’s fault.

I don’t know anymore. I once wrote about guitar tabs in Rhythmbox and how they no longer work in Ubuntu 11.10. Banshee doesn’t seem to have the extension, and Songbird is no longer maintained and is basically dead in the water. I tried Exaile which CLAIMED to have a guitar tablature plugin (in the search results), but when you go on their website, there’s absolutely no mention of it. Nada.

I think what this all points to is that developers are starting to care less and less about applications that you need to install. The focus is now leaning heavily on cloud based software, and music apps are no different with iCloud and Google Music. But what are your options if you want to play your music locally and display guitar tabs?

Maybe Canary has the answer. (Yes, another animal named software!) Canary.fm is so freaking new I don’t think anyone knows about them. And hell, they only have 4 Twitter followers. But, they’re doing something interesting which is cloud based guitar tabs. And the tabs look super slick. Now, if you can display guitar tabs WHILE I listen to my music (locally or in the cloud) I may be sold.

Here’s a vid: