posted
That's right, bub, I'm calling you out. I feel that it's high time we heard you exercise your l337 musical skillz and thus I am challenging you to a duel. Bring it! I'm tough, I can take the heat.
Now, I know you're a busy boy, so if you need until the end of this summer or even until the end of this year, that's cool. The absolute, final, this-far-and-no-further deadline, though, is May 2004 (also known as "graduation" by yours truly). Since you're a bit of a perfectionist I did feel that it was necessary to institute a firm and unshakeable deadline, but don't take this faraway deadline as an excuse to procrastinate! Bonus points will be awarded if you submit your work early.
As to the exact nature of the work (and there only needs to be one), it can either be original or a cover/arrangement. Instrumental or with vocals. Any genre except silent. Whatever. I will follow the same rules and will not submit anything I've already recorded - part of this is to get me to get off my own bum and spend some time with ProTools in OS 9.
posted
Your on. Want me to host it with a poll? I can manage that without requiring a forum registration now (I've been learning). I'll host the bandwidth too, if you wish.
One song? In an as-fully-mixed-as-possible format? Would you like a time limit (max and/or min) for the piece? I can do genre requests.
Give me at least until the end of the summer or the middle-end of September. I'm pulling three important classes over the summer, and doing twice that in the fall, so my schedule (along with working and other activities) is kinda full. I can handle mixing together a song, though. Should it be fresh and new, or one I never bothered to finish? Hmmm... maybe I should let others decide that for me.
Maybe after this, we can do a request challenge: people pick a genre/instrument/whatever, and the competitors put together the best-fitting piece to the request. Maybe that's best for later, though– a warm-up is always good.
posted
Sure. I can host stuff on my university webspace, too, if we need some bandwidth that you don't have to pay for. I don't have much room, but I can certainly fit a couple of songs on it. Middle-end of September, eh? It may well coincide with the arrival of Apple's first G5 systems cool beans! Sounds good to me.
Why don't we start with one song, though I'll probably record more than that in the process of getting one good piece done, because I have about an album's worth of unrecorded/unmixed riffs sitting around. As to time limit, I think requiring it to be at least a couple of minutes long is a good idea. That way we can't get away with posting 30-second snippets and have to write something more complete.
Genre... hm. I have no problem with comparing music across genres, but there are people who do, so perhaps we should choose one. That could potentially make it harder for me since I only write in a few styles, but challenge is good. As to instruments I'll be using the electric guitar; I don't have access to an acoustic or to a piano I can use for recording.
A request challenge is good. But I agree that we should take it one step at a time.
As to fresh/new vs. old/unfinished... I think that depends on whether or not we specify a genre. If we do, then we may as well write something new. If we don't, then allowing old works - old unfinished and unrecorded works, that is - is probably fine.
So. I currently feel competent enough to attempt to write in the following general genres:
Rock (light or hard)
Blues
Jazz (not swing)
Metal (not thrash, speed, or death)
Classical (but not complex classical)
If you have a similar list of genres you could handle writing in, we can either settle on one or ask a third party to choose. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I do write jazz occasionally, but hard rock is my bread and butter, and I'm generally having the most fun when I've got that fullness of sound you get from thickly layered, high-crunch distortion
But we'll see what Leto thinks. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Not at all, dude. Like I said, this is a challenge, and if it makes me flex new musical muscles, so much the better. Now if you wanted to do folk or country I'd have to take issue. I don't think I'm capable of writing in either of those genres.
So any genre on the list is fine. Or we could stay free-form for the first effort and narrow it later by doing genre requests (like jazz for nav).
posted
Personally I feel you should only write the songs that themselves need to be written, rather than shooting for a kind of sound or a genre of music.
But then I only play one genre: my own. Posts: 1307 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
The issue with genres is that some people don't like comparing songs across genres. This came up between ae and I in the Hail to the Thief thread - he doesn't feel comfortable comparing Radiohead's electronic songs to their rock songs, whereas I do.
Since this is ostensibly a contest (though really it's just an excuse for me to get John to record music so I can hear it) and we'll be polling jatraqueros about which submission is "better," I'm wondering if we should cater to people like ae by confining our submissions to a single genre.
On the other hand, in the Thor contest, the drawings were completely different stylistically and plenty of people still voted, so maybe we don't need to specify genre.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Ah, but the first contest only allows one submission. The question is do we allow the submissions to be in different genres...
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
It's true that some things can be difficult to compare if they are not that similar to begin with, but I think the difficulty of that judgment is precisely what makes this kind of thing fun. How do you compare Roosevelt to Jefferson? How do you judge between Bach and Beethoven? How do you judge between the Democrats and the Republicans?
Hell, let's just make it a popularity contest. We'll submit pictures of us, too, so we can be judged by our looks as well.
The point is that you should write to your best and write to your heart, and let the chips fall where they may.
Posts: 1307 | Registered: May 2000
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Caleb, I agree with you ...I was just wondering if we should try to accomodate those who differ.
Righty-o, then, one piece by the end of September, .aiff or .wav. or .mp3 format (.mp3's best, for obvious reasons), complete and at least one minute long, in any genre save silent. Instruments preferred but I guess electronica is allowed. Sound good to everyone?
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Well... I guess as long as you wrote the song that's okay. I'm going to have to do all of the instrumentation myself, though, so if I win I expect bonus points Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
All right, the deadline is in T minus two weeks and counting. However, much to my immese disappointment, GreNME has dropped out of the contest, citing high workload.
I'm still happy to let the show go on with THOR and Caleb, of course. I can provide web hosting space for those who need it.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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