To Ian Thanks!

[Ross]

Hey Ken,
Checked it out with a song and it works perfectly. I think you are much
more musically advanced than I am -- I play by ear, but have been playing
for about 30 years and it took me about 15 years before poeple didn't
immediately get up and leave the room when I played, but I do continue to
improve. Anyway, I have sent the song I put in their up to my domain for
you to check out. What is a CV?
Anyway, it is at http://ssor.net/Sheet/ I realized that you can build a
whole songbook with it.
Ross

 

[Ross]

Hi Ken
Last night I was just getting ready for bed when I wrote that post, and
was half asleep. I wanted to add: I tried to paste in the "I Will" after
copying it from a word file that already had the chords over the lines and
realized that the chords, like the text would all be pasted in column A, so
I had to remove the chords after pasting them in and then re-insert them
manually. I can't even begin to tell you how impressed I am that you were
able to create this wonderful tool..
I also wanted to add that I have always been fascinated with Australia and
have even considered pursuing my profession -- itinerant O&M instructor, and
even looked into it a little when I first started in the field(that was at
age 52 when I got my degree and certification 5 years ago). But, when I
contacted officials in the field to discuss it via email, they informed me
that firstly, I would have to have at least one year teaching experience
before I could be considered and secondly, if I did get hired to a
position, the likelihood that I would need to travel by plane to many of my
clients, due to vast distances between them. This put a damper on that. Do
you live in an urban or rural area? Can you look out your window and see
things like Kangaroos, Koalas and Wallabies?
I was pondering the synchronicity of it all between us -- Guitar, excel and
garbage pickup on the same day, when I realized that in fact we don't have
garbage pick-up on the same day. Mine is on Wednesday -- that is today. It
is Thursday for you, right? Or did I figure my international time
incorrectly. If you could, please give me your address, so I can go to
Google Earth (have you checked that out -- a satellite image of any place in
the world! It is a free download from http://earth.google.com/) and check
out where you live. I am at 306 N. Highland Ave, East Syracuse, New York .
If you download the Google Earth program and punch in that address, your
screen will fly you across the planet, as if you were in a space ship and
you can then zoom in and see a satellite image of my house.
Ross

 

[Ken Johnson]

Ross,
CV = Curriculum Vitae, which is a document outlining your,
qualifications, abilities, achievements etc. You submit your CV to a
prospective employer and if they like what they read you're one step
closer to getting the job, otherwise you're culled out. I've never had
to put one together but my son Eric had to for a job in a carwash cafe,
making coffees and serving food to customers while their car is being
washed and polished. He got the job and he's there right now. My
daughter also had to submit one for her casual job (mainly cashier
work) at Target, a Chain of Department stores. Target is pretty
down-market so everybody jokingly pronounces it Tar-shay to improve its
image.
CV's are a recent phenomenon. I applied for my first job (apprentice
photoengraver-etcher) in 1966 and got the job because I could write my
name. Technological change put an end to that job. After just 2 years
of a 4 year apprenticeship the number of workers had halved. My job
served the letterpress printing industry which was losing work to the
lithographic printing industry. I could see no future in my job so I
completed school at night while completing the apprenticeship by day. I
then went through Uni with the support of a Teachers' Scholarship. I
was actually paid to go to Uni (We baby boomers had it so easy. I feel
sorry for my kids, without parental support they're stuffed).
It's funny you should ask me about seeing kankaroos etc out the window.
It's a long standing joke that Americans think that kangaroos hop down
George St (the main street of Sydney). About 18 years ago I was
teaching at Pittwater High School Mona Vale. Mona Vale is a beachside
suburb in Sydney's north and about a 30 min drive from where I live (68
William St Roseville Sydney, one of the northern suburbs). The school
has a sister school in USA, I think it's called New Trier High, but I
forget where it's located. A visit was organised and we had the company
off a New Trier High science teacher and some students for a couple of
weeks. One morning, during that two week visit, as I was driving to
school a wallaby hopped across the road in front of me. (the road
passes through a National Park). This was a unique experience for me,
and some Americans returned home from Australia knowing that kangaroos
on George St is not all that far from the truth.
I've had a look at your songbook. How do you set up those textboxes
with hyperlinks on the menu sheet? I'd like to know how to do that, it
looks useful.
Could you put one of your song word docs on your site? Word is
controlled by its version of VBA, I've used it a little bit and I might
be able to do something about the problem you explained (could take a
while though). I'm keen to manipulate Word through Excel's VBA. It
involves using references, of which I know very little, and this looks
like an opportunity for me to get started on a new VBA skill.
I haven't yet looked at that Google Planet Earth thingy (what ever it's
called), I clicked on the Preview button to review what I've typed then
when I returned to edit I can no longer refer to your messages. I'm
scared I'll lose everything if I fiddle around trying to get back to
your messages, it's happened to me before.
I too play guitar by ear. The only time I read music is when I play
cornet, which is never these days. I used to do things like play a 45
rpm record at
33 1/3 to slow down fast riffs (still couldn't play some of them) or 78
rpm to raise the pitch and audibility of bass lines, but that was a
long time ago.
I don't have perfect pitch but I have been able to work out some of
John Scofield's weird chords. A music teacher once asked me to work out
the chords off a tape recording and she was pleased with the result. My
daughter plays the trumpet and has done quite well. She's up to grade
whatever(I've lost count). She's wearing braces at the moment, and they
have held her back a bit. They come off sometime next year. She's
studying music for her Higher School Certificate and sometimes hints at
becoming a high school music teacher. I try to steer her away from that
idea. We Australian teachers are constantly having to go on strike to
improve our pay and conditions but we always seem to be going
backwards. When I started teaching in 1977 our pay was equivalent to
that of a politician on the back benches, who are now way ahead of
teachers.
Getting back to the songbuilder: Please don't take offence (We need
them to keep in the kangaroos) but I'm not happy with the chords for I
Will. I've played them and, to me, something sounds wrong. You can call
me a pedant, I won't mind, but my preferred chord sequence for I Will
is A, F#m, Bm, E, A, F#m, C#m (we differ here), A, D, E, F#m, A, D, E,
A, A7, D, E, F#m, D, E, A, D, E, F#m, B, E. I'm just using my ear here,
I haven't bothered to listen to the track or look up the music and
there are, from memory, a couple of spots in the song where there are a
some strong and fast chord changes that I have missed out. Try out my
chords and let me know what you think. Do you sing when you play? When
I was in the Bush/Rock band in Finley I sang a few songs to give our
singer the odd break, and the only thing I had thrown at me was a pair
of panties (obviously done as a joke by a friend in the audience).
Bye for now, I've got some marking I must get done these holidays and
time is slipping away.
Ken Johnson

 

[Ken Johnson]

Ross,
I downloaded Google Earth and it flew straight to your place. Is that a
backyard swimming pool a few houses from you? Does it get that hot in
summer and snow and ice in winter?
I typed in my address and it failed to find it . It even failed to find
Chatswood, Sydney, the next suburb and Sydney's third biggest business
district. I don't know what's wrong there.
Let me know how you go with it? I can find my place manually and email
it. Or maybe you can input latitude and longitude. Do you know if that
is possible?
By the way, you were right first time about our garbage collections,
we're both Wednesday (review your use of the international dateline. I
never get it right either.)

Ken Johnson

 

[Ken Johnson]

Ross,
Latitude and longitude of the cursor are shown at the bottom on the
left. Just keep moving the Earth until the cursor is at 33 deg 47'
18.40" S and 151 deg 11' 00.30" E and you should be on top of the
Hanzmann-Johnson dwelling (My wife wanted to save the Hanzmann name
from extinction by tacking mine on to hers. She is from a family of
three girls.)
Ken Johnson

 

[Ross]

Couldn't get exactly to those coordinates. Can I just have your phyiscal
address -- Street, number and postal code should do.

 

[Ross]

I will answer longer later on rest of this message, but creating the textbox
hyperlinks is easy
Just create a textbox from the draw menu and put the desired text in it.
then right-click it and one of the items on the menu that drops down is
hyperlink. Select that and in the "insert hyperlink" dialogue box that
opens, click icon on middle left that says "place in this document" Then in
the box in the middle, you will see the tabs of the page listed. Just click
on the desired tab you want the textbox to link to and click ok. Note that
when you click on the tab, the cell reference in box above that comes in at
A1 automatically, but you can make it go anywhere on the sheet by typing in
any cell reference.
Ross

 

[Ken Johnson]

Ross,
68 William Street, Roseville 2069. Maybe the postcode will make a
difference.
Thanks for the hyperlink tips. I noticed on yours that when the cursor
changes to the pointing finger the hyperlink address that appears
included C drive and I thought this could be a problem if the file is
being used on another machine at a different address. However, the
hyperlink that I inserted, following your instructions, used an address
that did not include the file's location, so I guess I needn't worry.
Ken Johnson

 

[Ross]

Hi Ken,
I seem to have encountered a bug. Added another song and I think I
followed the rules, but everything but the G transposes. Check it out at
http://ssor.net/Sheet/MySongbuilder1.xls
The song is have a cup of tea by the Kinks.
Ross

 

[Ken Johnson]

Ross,
I noticed that the problem chords were not Bold, and it seemed to be
all the chords in column A. How were they put in place? Did you paste
them in from a Word Doc?
What I think I should do is add a few more lines of code to the
transpose macro that will make all of the even rows Bold and the odd
ones Regular. That should solve it.
I'll have a go later on tonight. I've got to feed the hungry hordes
soon. The wife's at work.
By the way, I was looking at the rest of your website earlier today. I
love the horoscope! It's so spot on. I'll check it again tomorrow to
see if it's predictive powers are consistent ;-)
I thought I knew most of the Kink's songs but I don't remember this
one. I'll see if Eric can download a copy for me.
While you wait for me to change the code you can just reset those
chords back to bold.
Ken Johnson

 

[Ken Johnson]

Ross,
The problem's now solved.
We're back in action with our good computer and Eric has uploaded
MySongBuilder2.xls
to http://hanjohn.customer.netspace.net.au/

One other problem I've noticed when you do a transpose is when chords
are in adjacent cells and the chord on the left changes from a natural
to a sharp or flat. This chord is then partly obscured by the chord to
its right. I'm thinking about a macro that could be used to increase
the number of spaces between words in a line that suffers from this
problem so that chords can be spaced further apart to avoid their
overlapping.
Ken Johnson

 

[Ross]

Hey Ken,
Well, I tried to enter your address into Google Earth and found that I could
It would only accept "Roseville Australia" and give results. I tried
putting your street address in concuntion with the above numberous ways but
always got the message "your serach returned no results.
Is this ---> http://www.ssor.net/pics/Roseville.jpg Roseville? If so I
found that, but I can't figure out how to find you.
Ross

Ross

 

[Ross]

Firstly,
OK, you were right, those chords do work better -- couldn't quite follow what you meant with all of them, but anyway here is
(I just switched to rich format, so you should be able to go there from that link, but if not then http://ssor.net/Sheet/MySongbuilder2.xls )
I also added a little bonus material
1. My trained squirrel sings for you
2. a print macro button that prints the song out for you.

Ross
Ross

 

[Ross]

I just realized, that if you click on the link, it will open the songbuilder
on the web and you can hear the little bonus I sent by clicking where
prompted, but not without being prompted as to whether you want to save
songbuilder, because it is closing it to open your windows media file. Not
sure how to embed the mp3 in the excel file itself-I could only link to it..
If you want them to work together at home you will need to download both
files to the same directory the mp3 file at ht www.ssor/Sheet/ I guess you
figured out that ssor is Ross backwards, huh?
Ross

Firstly,
OK, you were right, those chords do work better -- couldn't quite follow
what you meant with all of them, but anyway here is
(I just switched to rich format, so you should be able to go there from that
link, but if not then http://ssor.net/Sheet/MySongbuilder2.xls )
I also added a little bonus material
1. My trained squirrel sings for you
2. a print macro button that prints the song out for you.

Ross
Ross

 

[Ken Johnson]

Ross,
It was a bit of a fiddle, but I finally got your strained squirrel to
sing. Our possoms don't sound that good. I bet you made the Squirrel
sing button by copying the Print I Will button. They were both assigned
to the print I Will macro. I've since fixed that. You probably have
too.
I had to get the mp3 off your site. Did you make that site? I don't
know the first thing about web development.
I took your test and only got one wrong. I didn't know Spot's name. I
said Andy. I was thrown by Kung Fu Andy. Is Kung Fu Andy a real dog?
(Could do some harmonies with the squirrel)
I had a look at the eye page and have learnt something. I wrongly
thought that the fovea and macula were the same thing. I now know the
macula surrounds the fovea.
My late mother suffered from age related macula degeneration. She was
an avid reader. The talking books eased her boredom. Her younger
sister, who is still with us, developed the same symptoms and had
successful laser treatment. I'm seeing her and my cousin tomorrow.
Last night I finished the changes I mentioned in my last post. It's
available as Mysongmaker3 at the now usual place:

http://hanjohn.customer.netspace.net.au/

We've now got different versions coming out our ears.
I think the two new buttons are self explanatory. They only affect the
one selected lyric line. I thought it wouldn't be necessary to expand
all lyric lines, just those that have a lot of chord changes.
Another change I made is not realy visible but might prove to be
useful. Before I made this change, the cell range that was worked on by
the transpose and enharmonic macros was A4:Z100. I've extended the
width of this range out to the last visible column. It now might be
possible to fit the whole song on the visible part of the screen with
parts of the song side by side (no scrolling). I've also made it easy
to increase the number of rows in the working range. It is currently 97
rows (row4 to row100). Towards the top of the code in the transpose and
enharmonic macros the variable LastRow is currently made equal to 100.
Change this value to suit the circumstances.
Are you happy with the Chords/bold, Lyrics/regular aspect of the whole
thing. I'm pretty sure it can be done away with. I sometimes
unwittingly apply unnecessary conditions and I think that is the case
here. The chords/even rows, Lyrics/odd rows is enough for the code to
recognise what is what.
Your Google Earth snapshot does show where I live. I'll try to upload a
picture.
Ken Johnson

 

[Ken Johnson]

Ssor,
Yes, I had.
I used to teach with a John Flanagan. Most of us called him Naganalf
because he was a bit of an incessant talker.
I used to teach a girl by the name of Roopi Kalsi, her name backwards
is a social comment that I used for inspiring students to work harder.
Nek Nosnhoj

 

[Ken Johnson]

Ross,
I have successfully uploaded a word doc "I live here"
http://hanjohn.customer.netspace.net.au/
Ken Johnson

 

[Ross]

Hey Ken,
I sent you a nice long email, complete with pictures, but apparently, the
message list doesn't like it, because I don't see it posted. Could you send
me a normal email address that we can communicate with using our inboxes?
Ross

 

[Ken Johnson]

Ross,
I used to use our main email address for Google Groups and the kids
recommended I use a Gmail account instead, so Gordon set one up for me.
I never bothered to check it for messages though, I wasn't sure how to.
I just asked Gordon about it and we've received five messages. I
haven't read them yet, but I did see the Google Earth shot with your
annotations plus one of a mass of puppies. I'm about to have a look now
on this older computer. Wish me luck.
Ken Johnson

 

[Ross]

Ken,
I have sent a few emails at the account you gave me. Have you got them.
What email program are you useing? You are using outlook express right? If
not, why not? ARe you accessing your mail through the web? If that is the
way you are going, you should really try outllook express. It is one hundred
times easier and you have more control over what you are doing. Outlook
express comes packaged for free with internet explorer -- also free. Are
you using XP? With outlook express, each time it is loaded in a series of
frames appear, it opens up with folders in the left frame, a list of
messages in the top right frame and the currently selected message in the
bottom right frame. You can easily ad links to web pages and attach things
like excel files, so you don't have to upload them to the internet, you can
send them directly to me. You can add pictures and make the text scroll
around them. The fact the I.E. and I.E. express reamin to be free, never
ceases to amaze me. Besides the inbox, outbox, saved, deleted, and whatever
other folders you create yourself, through outlook express, you can join any
one of the bajillion newsgroups out there and that is how I access the Ecel
newsgroup, by just switching to that folder.

Ross