I thought I'd write an entry about the process each tab goes through before it's posted on the website. The idea, of course, is to try to catch as many playing errors and tabbing typos as possible -- and correct them -- before sending my tabs out into the big bad world. Here's a rundown of that process:

Step 1:
I tab the song out on paper first. I'll generally end up with scribblings that look much like this: https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/tortab.jpg
If you mouse over that "document", you'll get an icon that will allow you to enlarge it...if you really want to see it any closer.

Step 2:
I do the tab on computer using a tab generator. I use the Gootar Text Tab Generator: http://www.gootar.com/tabber.html It's low tech, easy to use, and it works great for me. And you don't have to buy it. It's an online generator that can be used by anyone.

Step 3:
I print the tab for final checking.

Step 4:
Final checking is a two step process, first without the recording, then with it. First I play through the above the staff chord changes of the song to make sure they're right. Then I play through the tab, checking for "tab typos", for example, a note that's on the right fret but I've mistakenly put the number on the wrong string (maybe one string up or down from where it should be). That happens all the time, it's a matter of trying to catch them before posting.

Then I go through the tab again with the recording, section by section, catching errors and correcting them, and trying to clean up bits that have been troublesome. I mark on the printed tab things that need changing or correcting. And I decide what needs to go into the end comments.

Step 5:
The marked corrections on the printed tab are made on the computer tab. I do a final proof read of all the written text (lyrics, credits, and end notes). Then I go over the music staff part of the tab visually one more time, playing through the song in my head, just to make sure everything's in order.

Step 6:
The completed tab is uploaded and posted on the website. 
The finished product of the example in Step 1: https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/cantab/toronto-lookinfortrouble.txt

 All in six easy () steps!
 

Mood:  lyrical

The first Girlschool riff in the Riff-In-A-Jiff section. Jackie seems to favour Drop D as an alternate tuning. I can't think of any songs on previous Girlschool albums that use Drop D. (Of course, I haven't worked them all out, so who knows?) But there are (I think) at least three songs on Believe that use Drop D. And this is one of them.

GIRLSCHOOL - "Let's Get Hard"    (J. Chambers/K. McAuliffe/E. Williams)

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/gsriffs.txt

An mp3 clip of the song can be found here: http://www.girlschool.co.uk/downloads.htm

Mood:  accident prone

Accident prone, as in...oops, squished again.  

I got a bit hooked on this game last night. http://www.popcap.com/games/free/mummymaze

You have to get your little explorer out of the cursed pyramid before the mummy gets him. The idea is you're supposed to get the mummy trapped behind walls. Well, I was playing for the first time last night, so I wasn't very good. I couldn't tell you how many times my explorer got squished.

But it's fun to get the mummy stuck behind walls and in cul-de-sacs, waving his arms to no avail. (He's kind of cute. Well, until he catches you.) The thing is, any self respecting horror movie mummy wouldn't get stuck behind a wall anyhow. When you least expected it, he'd come bursting right through it! And there he'd be right in front of you. Squash!

I've been playing the online version. I always play the online version of games rather than do the download. I don't think I've gotten beyond Chamber 6 yet, and I don't think I've yet cleared the rank of "Tomb Beetle". I think my unfortunate explorer will be squished many more times!

Listening to: Coney Hatch

This is the first riff for the "Various Artists" page. It could almost go on the Canadian page, since Heart were a Vancouver (BC) based band when they recorded this. But I think we all know Heart's a Seattle band. This one is off their first album. I wouldn't mind doing a full tab of this sometime.

HEART - "Sing Child"   (A.Wilson/N.Wilson/S.Fossen/R.Fisher)

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/varriffs.txt

In this video version, you can get a good look at exactly how Roger Fisher plays this riff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cOnTGNvhhw

(There was a typo in the riff from "Don't Push Me Around", the last note of the top staff. It's been corrected.)

Mood:  silly

Just added to the main site tonight, and presented for your six stringing enjoyment (hopefully), is a song I often (jokingly) refer to as the "donut donut" song. If you look at the very last line of the song, you'll see how it came by that name.

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/cantab/headpins-dontitmakeyafeel.txt

I think Tim Horton's should pick this up as a theme song. Maybe have Darby Mills in the commercial.

"Donuts make me feel like dancing, Donuts make me feel alright..."

What do you think? No? It couldn't be any worse than the two guys in the car celebrating their sandwich holders that they have in their commercials right now.

Oh, now I'm hungry. I could really go for a Timmy's coffee and a Chocolate Dip doughnut right about now.

You can hear the song here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYzySRvLD_0

Mood:  a-ok

The walk is going well. A night or two ago I completed the Level 2 section, passing the 50,000 steps mark. That means I'm one tenth of the way there; a long way to go. The weather is perfect for walking right now, though. Autumn weather is the best weather of the year (although we're not quite into real fall weather yet).
https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/halfamillionsteps.txt

I did some scary math today that put things into perspective. After 50,000 steps, I had walked a little over 30 km, give or take (depending on how accurate my pedometre is). The distance from where I live to Toronto is about 60 km, depending on who you ask or what reference you check. So at the 100,000 step mark, I'll have walked the distance between here and Toronto. Completing the half a million steps will mean walking the distance between Hamilton and Toronto five times!  But that's okay. It was intentionally designed to take some time and commitment to do.

The other night, my sister was visiting and we were out for a walk. I mentioned that I'm walking half a million steps. She said, "Tonight?"

The webmaster of Girlschool's official site posted a couple of videos on YouTube a day or two ago, filmed at the recent Kelly Johnson Tribute Night at the Rock'n'Roll Kabaret in London.

Former Girlschool members Cris Bonacci (lead guitar) and Tracey Lamb (bass) joined the band on "Screaming Blue Murder"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb9baZXjzGs

...while Vice Squad's Beki Bondage was featured on vocals for "Emergency".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdx-lcBquFc

Rockin'! Kudos to Craig for posting those.

Mood:  bright

I'm launching a new section in the blog today. I've always had a policy of posting only fully completed tabs, whether it's in regard to sending tabs to large sites or posting on my own site. Everything has to be there, Intro-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Solo-Outro. I won't post parts of songs. That's because people come looking for the whole song.

However, the blog is different. It seemed like maybe a good place to add a section of just cool, fun to play riffs, tab that can be produced quickly because it's not the whole song. In this section you'll find main riffs from songs, or Intros (the Intro often is the main riff, but not always), or just parts that I like out of songs. Where possible, each post will be linked to a sound sample of the riff, so anyone can have a go at it if they like, even if they don't know the song.

There's no way of putting the tab right on the blog page. Or at least if there is, the HTML knowledge required to do it is beyond me. So the "jiffy riffs" will be done on a plain text page and the posts will have a link to the page. There will be three pages, divided the same as the website tabs, since I'm sure I'll do riffs in all three areas: Girlschool riffs, Canadian artist riffs, Various artist riffs. Each time I do an entry in the riff section I'll just add the riff to the applicable page.

I'll probably do this about once a week, maybe more often. It'll come in handy when I'm drawing a blank on anything else to write about. I can just pull out one of the stored riffs, and voila!...instant blog post. :-)

The inaugural Riff-In-A-Jiff is:

APRIL WINE - "Don't Push Me Around"     (M. Goodwyn)

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/zerofret/annesblog/canriffs.txt

The riff can be heard here:
http://www.samgoody.com/Stand-Back-Front-Page_stcVVproductId354053VVcatId463278VVviewprod.htm

I've always loved this riff. Have fun!

Mood:  incredulous

I have a Fender Custom Shop calendar hanging on one of my walls. I love the guitar for July. It's a Strat with a carved top, depicting a Phoenix rising from the flames/ashes. The gold hardware sets it off beautifully. It was built by Master Builder Yuriy Shishkov and the hand carving was done by George Amicay.

http://www.shishkovguitars.ru/info.php?fender_eagle

Look at the detail! Just a stunningly gorgeous piece of work, don't you think? Amazing!

(Click on any picture for a closer view.)

Listening to: The Guess Who - Greatest Hits

I been hangin' around webbbbb siiiites, I been learnin' 'bout ads. Oh no, wait. That's the tab I posted tonight.

About those ads on the website. (I assume they're there anyhow.) I hope they're not too annoying. The thing is, I can't see them. From Day 1 when I started this site, I haven't been able to see the ads on my own site. I guess it's because of my security. People have assured me that they're there, though, (oh, joy) and I can see the ad coding on the "View Source" pages of my site, but I have absolutely no idea what kind of ads people are looking at on my site.

Angelfire says it tries to match ads the best it can to the content of the site. I was reading the Angelfire blog one day (where members can post to get help from other members if they're having website problems, or need site building info, etc.) and one person posted to say that the ads on her site for the last few days were "inappropriate". I had no idea what she meant by that, she didn't elaborate. But it got me a bit worried about what kind of ads show on my site, since I can't see them.

A friend of mine took some screens shots of my site and sent them to me just so I could see what the site really looks like to anyone who visits. I'm told I have the usual complement of banner ads and pop ups, etc., but right to this day I don't see the advertising on my site, and I don't know from day to day what kind of ads are put there.

Listening to: April Wine - Stand Back 

Mood:  quizzical

Chilliwack the band, that is, not the city. Although I'm sure the city is a very nice place. (I've never been there.)

They have some great songs on their mid to late 1970's albums, and I think it's a shame that they've never been made available on CD. From what I've read, they're not on CD because they're somehow tied up in the bankruptcy of Mushroom Records. I could accept that as a reason except for one thing. Heart's first two records (when they were a Vancouver, BC based band) were also on Mushroom Records, and both Dreamboat Annie and Magazine have been available on CD for quite some time. So why can't the rights to Chilliwack's records be extricated from the bankruptcy tangle? It would be great to have both Dreams, Dreams, Dreams and particularly Breakdown In Paradise on CD. (1978's Lights From the Valley also falls into the Mushroom years.)

Another thing I don't understand. As I recall (and I recall it pretty well), the song "Something Better" was a fairly big hit. I can remember it getting plenty of radio airplay. That's how I knew it. It was a hit even before the much more widely known "Fly At Night" (from the same album). Both are great songs. I really like "Something Better" and would love to do a tab of it, but inexplicably it's not on any of Chilliwack's Greatest Hits packages! I don't get that at all. Why would that song, one of their significant early hits, not be on the Greatest Hits CDs? And since it comes from the Dreams, Dreams, Dreams album, that means it's not available on CD at all. That's just wrong!

To a somewhat lesser extent, the same could be said of "148 Heavy" from the Breakdown In Paradise album. I got to know (and really like) that song because it got lots of play on FM radio at the time. But it doesn't show up on Greatest Hits records, either. And since it's on one of those Mushroom Records albums, it's also not available on CD at all.

Here's hoping that someday soon that situation gets resolved so that some of Chilliwack's best records can be made available on CD.

Something Better  - (B. Henderson/R. Turney)

People run like tired lemmings headed for the sea
Borders of imagination keeping them from seeing things
Ancient guards in greying fortresses of old ideas
Standing guard on treasure that has long since disappeared from use

Oh, we have got to find something better
Oh, people, we've got to find something better

People run like tired lemmings, they don't see the sun
Shadow pictures drive them on and keep them on the run
Knights in blazing armour stand upon a nearby hill
Shafts of gleaming light held high and no one sees them still

Oh, we have got to find something better
Oh, people, we've got to find something better

"Long ago and far away", the words ring like a bell
Stories, poems, books, and songs have used these words and use them still
Long ago and far away is where most of us dwell
Time has chased us all away, and left today under its spell

Oh, we have got to find something better
Oh, people, we've got to find something better