Allan, say, WHAT???

Probably the best way to submit corrections and lyrics is to post them here on the Forum, so other people can add their comments. I guess Jim Dixon and I are doing most of the harvesting now, and Dick and Susan do compiling. Generally, we include lyrics in the form they were originally submitted, because that is the submitting person's perception of the song. I admit that I correct spelling and delete offensive apostrophes), and I will sometimes patch together the submissions of several people; but once it gets in the Digital Tradition, it usually stays as-is unless there are major mistakes (we try hard to make sure we have correct songwriter and copyright information).

If you submit corrections, it's usually best to submit the whole song, not just tell us where to make the correction (but do tell us at the end of the lyrics what's corrected, and why. Depending on the nature of the correction, we may include your submission as an alternate version, rather than replacing the lyrics we have.

A good example is Greenland Whale Fisheries. somebody posted a message the other day, saying that our lyrics were "wrong" because they say "overhaul, let your davit tackles fall" - the poster convinced me that "OVERHAUL, YOUR DAVIT TACKLE FALL" might be a more nautically-correct phrase, with "overhaul" being a verb and "fall" a noun. However, both versions are found in songbooks, and both versions are sung - so, is one more "correct" than the other? We have 5 versions of the song, so we have it both ways.

So, my point is that the lyrics we have are more likely "different," rather than "incorrect" - so we're very careful about what we correct.

But anyhow, if you post lyrics we don't have, put ADD and the song title in the subject box of your message. If you're posting corrections, put CORR or "Correction" in the message title, and Jim and I will find it eventually. We mark songs with a harvesting birdie ^^ when we've harvested them. If the database already has the song and somebody posts the same lyrics again, we put a birdie with a (redundant) third wing. If you've posted a song more than a week ago and it's not marked as harvested, send me a personal message, and I'll take care of it. Dick and Susan also get submissions from places other than the Mudcat, so I suppose it's Jim and I who do most of the harvesting at Mudcat (although Susan does a bit to keep her hand in). There may be other harvesters I don't know about, but I haven't seen evidence of them.

MMario is heading up the effort to get tunes for all the Digital Tradition songs, and then he sends them to me for editing and forwarding to Dick. The preferable format for tunes is Noteworthy Composer, with first-verse lyrics matched to the tune. It can be a bear to match lyrics to a tune if you don't know the song - so we ask people to help us out if they can. ABC or MIDI is OK but including a JPG of the sheet music would help. If you can't do that, contact MMario, and he'll figure out a way to get the tune transcribed and sent to me.

-Joe Offer-