(Discussion Thread) - Fretboard Challenge #2 - Entries

thecolourbox

I'll vow here and now only to vote for myself if I would otherwise be on nul points at the end ha ha

daveww

If that's the case I'll get the Mrs to join....but she'd probably listen and vote for someone else 

PolarityMan

well im down to 2 contenders, not myself obviously. Will be casting my vote shortly.

Antique_Guitars

spark240 said:

daveww said:

Agree that it's not really cricket to vote for yourself.

Echoing someone's earlier comments I hope that we get plenty of votes from non-entering forum members (all for me of course  However, I fear that many won't take time out of their busy schedules to listen to over an hours worth of our efforts.  Today I listened to the tracks on soundcloud through Bluetooth whilst driving to and from work and thought it was a good idea to suggest other people do that as well.  I fear they won't take the necessary time unless they do similar.

For this reason, I reckon all challenges should have a time limit, say 2 minutes or so ..I mean....what if ( in a good way) there were 100 entries ! this has picked up considerably in just 2 challenges, it could easily get to 30-40 entrants plus.

Juts listening and picking a winner becomes a challenge in itself

Agreed on the time limit thing, some of the videos take a long time to make when the tracks are quite long and yes it is quite hard to get through all the tracks and listen to the mas well. I think the next challenge will have a minimum length of 1 min and a maximum length of 2mins 30 secs.

Antique_Guitars

I am pleased that the voting has picked up a bit, mods are on the fence about the voting arrangement as seems to be the case with the entrants as well.

What I propose to do is allow self voting for this challenge but from the next challenge on no one can vote for themselves.

Fretwired

Antique_Guitars said:

What I propose to do is allow self voting for this challenge but from the next challenge on no one can vote for themselves.

I don't think you will need to .. I can't see anyone voting for themselves. It hasn't happened yet.

Antique_Guitars

Fretwired said:

Antique_Guitars said:

What I propose to do is allow self voting for this challenge but from the next challenge on no one can vote for themselves.

I don't think you will need to .. I can't see anyone voting for themselves. It hasn't happened yet.

Yeah it has..............

Fretwired

Antique_Guitars said:

Fretwired said:

Antique_Guitars said:

What I propose to do is allow self voting for this challenge but from the next challenge on no one can vote for themselves.

I don't think you will need to .. I can't see anyone voting for themselves. It hasn't happened yet.

Yeah it has..............

Jesus .. I missed that.

Antique_Guitars

narrowed it down to 7 so far ha ha

Antique_Guitars

Down to 2, sexy times.

steamabacus

Antique_Guitars said:

What I propose to do is allow self voting for this challenge but from the next challenge on no one can vote for themselves.

I agree with this - since nothing was stated before voting began, it's only fair to allow self voting.
However, the voting rules state that...
"you can edit your vote up to the time the thread is locked"
...which means that any votes currently cast may change anyway. By the time voting ends, we may all have switched our votes to ourselves. Or none of us may have voted for ourselves. Or, in some nightmare scenario, we might be tactically switching our votes at the last minute to change the outcome.  ^#(^

The only fair options are we all vote for ourselves or none of us vote for ourselves.

The advantage of the second over the first is that we are then obliged to actually listen to all the other entrants, giving them an honest appraisal. As has been stated, there's a fair amount of listening time to fit in - I get dozens of tracks on my SoundCloud stream every day and I never get to listen to most of them. I just don't have the time or inclination.

Participating in this challenge has given me the focus to give some considered attention to around 18 tracks that I might never have listened to if they just flashed by on my SoundCloud stream. And the standard has been really high. After my first listen I had only managed to eliminate four or five tracks (and even they were by no means bad). It took further listens to narrow things down to my top three. I think I know my winner now but I'll have a further listen to be sure.

My point is that by choosing to not vote for myself, I have given a fair bit more attention to the other tracks than I might otherwise have done. And, hopefully, my own track has had more attention than it might otherwise have done.

Isn't that all we can really ask for, that someone listens to the music we create?

Antique_Guitars

The things is as there is no poll function on this forum I can't control the thread in regards to editing so people can edit as they choose anyway so people might as well have the chance to change their vote if they like up to the end of the voting period.

The competition is meant to be fun at the end of the day and we are supposedly all adults so I would hope we all behave in a respectable way in regards to voting.

Until the forum gets a poll system this is the best way to vote and I do think people should have the chance to change their vote if they like, obviously like any real vote if there looks to be something dodgy going on towards the end of the voting period I will of course investigate this.

Like I said this is a fun competition and I do hope other forum members vote in great numbers so that the voting choices of the entrants don't influence the competition as much.

But yes next challenge NO SELF VOTING!

steamabacus

Would it be worth sending out an invite to everyone to listen and vote via PM? There must be many who are unaware of anything happening way over here in the 'Making Music' section.

Antique_Guitars

steamabacus said:

Would it be worth sending out an invite to everyone to listen and vote via PM? There must be many who are unaware of anything happening way over here in the 'Making Music' section.

Well I did post threads about voting in the off topic and guitar parts of the forum (the most frequented parts) so I am hoping people took notice. I am not sure the mods would approve of spamming all the members with a request to listen and vote as it is their choice at the end of the day if they participate or not. A lot of people are too busy to listen to the tracks/vote or are just not interested, that is something that we will just have to live with for now.

not_the_dj

Good to see a few more votes being placed last night (including one for me :-) )

So come on everyone else, get listening and voting!

 

daveww

Nearly ready to make my vote (drum role please).  Really hard and would be much happier if I could vote for a top three or even better provide marks based various scoring factors for each song.  That way everyone would get some mark and some feedback.  Been said before but shame we can't do a poll.

Adam_MD

I'm listening to my three favourites again and wil cast my vote when I've...if I decide.

This is bloody hard :-B

Edit - Just cast my vote.  Hopefully the voting heats up soon and we get some more voters who didn't enter a track themselves.

not_the_dj

Just did a quick tot up of the score....16 votes placed so far, and it's currently a 3 way tie between @Adam_MD @mellowsun and @steamabacus  ;

I think it's 5 non participants that have voted.

 btw who is tim morris? That's not a forum name I recognise.

steamabacus

It was late last night when I finally cast my vote so I'd like to just say again how high I thought the standard was.
Not long after the tracks were put up, I sat down with a cup of tea and a pen and paper to listen through to all the tracks and pick a winner - if only it was that simple!

On my first listen through I thought I'd put a tick next to any track that was a contender - by the end there were only 5 tracks I hadn't ticked - and even they were pretty good (I was getting pretty ruthless). So it took a couple more listens through to come to the conclusion there were 3 tracks that stood out. I'd been considering all sorts of things like 'how 'drone-y', 'how much effort put in', 'how technically proficient', etc. but in the end, my favourite three just 'spoke to me' a little more than the others.

It was maybe even harder to decide which of these three very different tracks was 'the one'.

So, on the final podium but not quite taking the champagne (and I'm calling it equal second) were...

@thecolourbox - Broken String Blues   What a great track! I'd call Syd Barrett one of my seminal guitar playing influences and this had a real early Floyd psyche vibe to it. Wonderful stuff. It brought a huge smile to my face. I know you said you felt a bit out of your depth doing this challenge but you really shouldn't have - music isn't all about clever technique and vituoso playing. You've really got something here.

@PolarityMan - Dronie  Just my sort of thing. Lots of work gone into this, drum programming (love the tabla!), different sections and changes, some great guitar riffs. It made me feel I should have put just a bit more effort into my own track (like bothering to tune up before I laid down the lead line!  "> ). Proper tune, good work.

In the end, (Christophe Lambert accent) "there can be only one".....

@Basher - 56k Warning  Well, you've beaten Norway!  It may have been "post-modern, atonal, sonic-drone collage" like you said, but it certainly wasn't "barely listenable" to me. I love abstract soundscapes and this was engrossing and engaging. And, having played with some synth-mangling noiseniks myself, I know how much work goes into making something like this. And I felt you really put the 'drone' concept at the heart of your piece. I really liked the graphic design work on your image, too. Top marks.

=D>

thecolourbox

Thanks to @steamabacus and @erictheweary for the kind comments, ive not actually really listened to Canned Heat nor Pink Floyd before (though at the last West Brom match i did join in the chorus of "all in all you're just another pr!ck on the board, hey Peace! Leave our stripes alone!") so will give them a listen.

After listening to the fretboard challenge entries again of course!