The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Hi All,

Before the pandemic and shelter in place orders, Sam and I were going to an event in Berkeley called, "Instant Band Night." It was a lot of fun for us because we got to make up songs with other local musicians. It was really low pressure, and everyone was really nice. Basically, you showed up and put your name in a can for each role in the band (vocals, guitar, bass, drums, other). Folks were randomly put together, given a few minutes to write a song, and then performed it in front of everyone else. Similarly, JB started Menage A Garage after meeting his band mates at a similar event. I thought I would try bringing this concept to Songfight. Therefore, here is how Instant Band: Song Fight Edition works:

1. Sign up on this Google form, indicating the role(s) you would be willing to play as part of a group: https://forms.gle/jsE6mc2BGyLg4hef9
2. Once the next title is posted, I will put people into groups. You will get an email with who is in the group and what their roles are.
3. You are now a band! Write and record a song together for this week's title. Work together to figure it all out (writing/mixing/submitting/etc.)
4. Come up with a band name and submit!

If this works, and people are into it, we can figure out a way to carry the info over from week to week, or I'll reset the form. Let's just see what happens this week!

Questions, comments, or answers?

Ken

It sounds super exciting to me to apply the instant band approach to Song Fight. I'm in!

I went to the form and my first question is, could the list of things you're interested in doing by checkboxes instead of radio buttons so that we could check multiple boxes vs only picking one thing? I'd be game to check all the boxes, personally, and then be happy with whatever I get assigned.

Lunkhead wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 18, 2021 11:32 pm

I went to the form and my first question is, could the list of things you're interested in doing by checkboxes instead of radio buttons so that we could check multiple boxes vs only picking one thing? I'd be game to check all the boxes, personally, and then be happy with whatever I get assigned.

Came here to say the same thing! I love the idea but I do a lot of different things, as do most songfighters.

Thanks for noticing. I totally meant for it to work that way and have changed the form.

We already have one person signed up!

Ah great, thanks Ken! I signed up now.

Oh, I had another idea. Since we're making recordings, not performing live, maybe we could use a "Mixing" checkbox? I really like the up front clarity of roles this will give, which will make collaborating easier, and mixing is a key role. Having it clear up front who'll be doing that could be helpful.

I’ve already filled in the form, but would have totally said yes to mixing if it was there.

Sounds fun, I signed up!

Having recently done Frankensong, I can say that having a 'project manager' is extremely useful. Pick someone in the group you can all agree has the authority to make quick decisions to get the song done on time without anyone's feelings getting hurt. Set up a schedule and enforce it eg: lyrics and music written and scratch track sent out by day 2, parts returned by day 5, mix review by day 7, etc. We did this via a shared google sheets doc.

Anyway, I'm in. Happy to provide a random folky instrument.

My thought was that the group would make that decision rather than it be assigned, or are you suggesting it is a role in addition to the others? Even when we did this in person, someone eventually had to take the lead and get the group working together.

I may or may not have entered my name into the mix... I may or may not have only committed to one thing... but if I did, I'd be willing to try and help with more than what I did or did not commit to do. If you know what I mean...

I ticked all the boxes, happy to have a go at anything. Let's make a song! This is for the upcoming fight, right? I.e. whatever comes after I'm Covered In It Now?

Yep. I wanted to get the sign ups during the gap between the deadline and the new title. I may post this again in the prefight thread to see if anyone else is interested. We already have enough sign ups for at least a couple of groups. Having seen who signed up, super groups is probably more accurate.

I signed up too. But I'm worried my unorthodox style may make collaboration difficult. I hope not.

Let's give it a go as-is then without a dedicated pre-selected role for mixing/producer or whatever you want to call it, and see if that turns out to be a point of friction or not.

I am confident we can all work it out amongst ourselves.

ken wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:51 pm

My thought was that the group would make that decision rather than it be assigned, or are you suggesting it is a role in addition to the others? Even when we did this in person, someone eventually had to take the lead and get the group working together.

No, but it's good to explicitly acknowledge one of the members as the 'project manager.' It can be a fair bit of extra work on the front end, so maybe that person is like the bassist or final mix engineer.

I'm sure some groups will do fine without this, or they'll come up with some innovative way to stay on track.

Not it!

JB

I'm not it either!

We need another drummer! We've got almost enough people for another group, but I need someone willing to be the drummer of the band. Programming drums is acceptable as well. If you are already in a group and want to join another as the drummer, just let me know.

A drummer, huh?