Apostrophe (’) vs the Songsterr GPs

Album take · full-song · AI transcription · drums present · measured 2026-09-05

18tabs measured

6AI transcriptions

2pass all four filters

1songs covered

1,273drum notes in the keepers

The question

Nine tracks, the record that put Zappa in the American top ten. This page asks one narrow question of Songsterr's Apostrophe (’) tabs: which of them is a full-song AI transcription that carries a drum part. Those three conditions are the filter, and every tab on the record is measured against them from Songsterr's own notation JSON.

This is the same measurement pipeline as the Over-Nite Sensation and Roxy & Elsewhere page, pointed at a different record. The duration arithmetic there was checked against two published tabs and reproduced both to the hundredth of a second, so the numbers below rest on a validated method.

The four filters, stated before the results

Filter	How it is measured	Why it can fail
Full song	The tab's own duration, computed from its signatures and tempo automation, against the album track length from MusicBrainz. Inside ±20 percent counts as full-song coverage.	A tab can be an excerpt, a bass intro, a solo lift, or a single verse looped.
AI transcription	Songsterr's own aiGenerated flag on the meta API, plus its createdVia field reading AI.	The two fields disagree on some tabs. Both are reported below rather than merged silently.
The album take	The tab must transcribe the studio performance. A tab that titles itself a live take is excluded whatever its duration, and a studio-titled tab whose length falls outside the band is recorded as unmatched.	A live tab can sit close to the album length and still be a different performance, with its own meters, tempos and arrangement.
Has drums	A drum staff carrying real notes. Counts are rest-excluded, since Songsterr emits a {"rest": true} object inside each beat's note list.	A staff can exist and hold nothing but rests, which reads as a drum part and plays as silence.

Album reference release: Apostrophe (’) / 1974 / 6933009f-2a2d-4c9b-aa1a-274b79cab331

The tabs that pass all four

Song	Tab	Bars	Tab length	Album	Delta	Drum notes	All staves	Meters written
Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow	s1459839 AI · jean-robert chiasson	72	1:52	2:06	-10.4%	674	1,270	7/8×68, 4/4×4
Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow	s2549677 AI · Hodd Toward	36	1:48	2:06	-14.3%	599	1,517	7/4×36

AI drum tabs excluded as live takes. These carry drums and would pass on duration alone, and they transcribe a different performance, so they are not counted as coverage of the album take:

Song	Tab	Bars	Length	vs album	Drum notes
Cosmik Debris Cosmik Debris Live	s1154774	159	7:40	+84.1%	3,135
Apostrophe' Apostrophe' (Live in Los Angeles, '	s6035435	152	6:36	+12.3%	2,855

Song by song, where more than one tab exists

Apostrophe'

Tab	Provenance	Bars	Length	Delta	Drum notes	Empty staves	Verdict
s6035435 Apostrophe' (Live in Los Angeles, '	ai=True via=AI	152	6:36	+12.3%	2,855	none	not full length
s35873 Apostrophe'	ai=False via=Editor	125	5:48	-1.2%	0	none	not AI

Cosmik Debris

Tab	Provenance	Bars	Length	Delta	Drum notes	Empty staves	Verdict
s1154774 Cosmik Debris Live	ai=True via=AI	159	7:40	+84.1%	3,135	none	not full length
s412177 Cosmik Debris	ai=False via=AI	80	4:19	+3.8%	1,581	none	not AI

Don't Eat The Yellow Snow

Tab	Provenance	Bars	Length	Delta	Drum notes	Empty staves	Verdict
s6075883 Don't Eat The Yellow Snow (Single Versi	ai=True via=AI	85	3:38	+73.8%	934	none	not full length
s35866 Don't Eat The Yellow Snow	ai=False via=Editor	38	1:50	-12.4%	560	none	not AI
s2561609 Don't Eat The Yellow Snow (Ukulele)	ai=False via=Editor	4	0:12	-90.3%	0	none	not AI

Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow

Tab	Provenance	Bars	Length	Delta	Drum notes	Empty staves	Verdict
s1459839 Yellow Snow	ai=True via=AI	72	1:52	-10.4%	674	none	passes all three
s2549677 Dont Eat The Yellow Snow	ai=True via=AI	36	1:48	-14.3%	599	none	passes all three

Stink-Foot

Tab	Provenance	Bars	Length	Delta	Drum notes	Empty staves	Verdict
s2382928 Stink-Foot	ai=False via=Editor	226	6:57	+5.6%	2,599	none	not AI
s6205368 Stink-Foot V2	ai=False via=Editor	114	6:50	+3.9%	2,524	none	not AI

Every tab measured on this record

Song	Tab	AI	Bars	Length	Album	Delta	Drums	Total notes	Empty staves
Apostrophe'	s6035435	AI	152	6:36	5:53	+12.3%	2,855	7,369	—
Apostrophe'	s35873	no	125	5:48	5:53	-1.2%	0	3,351	—
Cosmik Debris	s1154774	AI	159	7:40	4:10	+84.1%	3,135	8,380	—
Cosmik Debris	s412177	no	80	4:19	4:10	+3.8%	1,581	3,360	—
Don't Eat The Yellow Snow	s6075883	AI	85	3:38	2:06	+73.8%	934	2,126	—
Don't Eat The Yellow Snow	s35866	no	38	1:50	2:06	-12.4%	560	2,720	—
Don't Eat The Yellow Snow	s2561609	no	4	0:12	2:06	-90.3%	0	44	—
Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow	s1459839	AI	72	1:52	2:06	-10.4%	674	1,270	—
Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow	s2549677	AI	36	1:48	2:06	-14.3%	599	1,517	—
Excentrifugal Forz	s1014276	no	9	0:18	1:31	-79.9%	143	361	—
Father O'Blivion	s35864	no	83	2:16	2:18	-1.2%	1,339	3,168	—
Nanook Rubs It	s35865	no	109	4:46	4:37	+3.6%	1,309	4,238	—
St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast	s35892	no	63	1:51	1:52	-0.5%	851	2,829	—
Stink-Foot	s2382928	no	226	6:57	6:35	+5.6%	2,599	9,720	—
Stink-Foot	s6205368	no	114	6:50	6:35	+3.9%	2,524	6,923	—
Stink‐foot	s4428902	AI	64	1:54	6:35	-71.1%	651	2,110	—
Uncle Remus	s35894	no	57	2:55	2:54	+0.8%	834	3,626	—
Nanook Suite (4 tracks)	s35878	no	292	10:37	n/a	n/a	4,059	12,896	—

Method

Every number here is read from Songsterr's own JSON, with no browser and no login, on the route recorded in the songsterr-tab-guide skill:

https://www.songsterr.com/api/meta/{songId} → revisionId, image, tracks[]
https://dqsljvtekg760.cloudfront.net/{songId}/{revisionId}/{image}/{partId}.json

Bars, meters, tempo automation and note counts come from that notation JSON directly. Nothing is read off a rendered screenshot. Note counts exclude rests. Tab duration is computed by walking each measure at its own signature and the tempo in force, including tempo marks that land mid-bar.

The duration arithmetic was validated before it was used here. Run against the two public Zomby Woof tabs from the earlier page, it returned 114 bars at 88 bpm and 5:03.86, and 123 bars at 89 bpm and 5:30.84. Both match the published figures to the hundredth of a second, and the bar and tempo readings match exactly.

Album track lengths come from MusicBrainz, from the release named at the top of this page, rather than from recall. That mattered: an earlier pass of this work carried remembered track times that were wrong by minutes on several Joe's Garage tracks, which flipped the full-song verdict on two tabs.

Honest limits

A label match is not a verified transcription. Every measurement here is structural: length, bar count, meter labels, note density, which staves carry notes. None of it establishes that the drums are accurate, that the cymbals are right, that the orchestration is playable, or that the attacks land where the recording puts them. Settling any of that needs the album master alongside the tab.

The parenthesised-note count from the earlier page is not reproduced here. On that page the figure came from a field this pass cannot confirm. Checked against the current revisions, one of the two source tabs carries the count in its staccato field and the other carries no note-level flags whatsoever, so the two cannot come from one field. Rather than publish a number whose source is uncertain, this page omits the column and says why.

Correction, 5 September. The AI flag is two fields answering two questions. Songsterr exposes aiGenerated and createdVia. A first version of this page counted a tab as AI when either one said so. Across 49 tabs that union changed exactly one row, and it changed it on the weaker signal: s412177 Cosmik Debris reads aiGenerated=false with createdVia=AI, and carries prevRevisionId 2010328 and 9,376 views. It is a long-standing tab whose latest revision was submitted through the AI route. aiGenerated records whether the tab originated as AI; createdVia records how the current revision was produced. aiGenerated is now the authority, and the revision route is reported beside it rather than merged into it. Both are printed per tab so the call stays checkable.

The ±20 percent band is a choice. It is wide enough to admit a tab that notates a fade or a count-in differently from the master, and narrow enough to exclude an excerpt. A tab sitting near the edge of the band is a coverage question rather than a settled verdict.