https://spintunescontest.blogspot.com/2021/03/spintunes-17-round-1-challenge.html Welcome to SpinTunes 17. I'm excited to begin a new competition with you all. There are a lot of you this year - new faces and old faces alike - so let's get to know each other, shall we? Here's your first challenge: P...

Today's your last chance to throw your hat in the ring for SpinTunes 17! The first challenge will be posted tonight at 12:01 am EST. This ain't like certain other online songwriting contests: you must sign up BEFORE the first challenge goes live! Sign up here if you haven't yet: https://spintunescon...

Sober wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 21, 2021 10:07 am

It's been nearly 20 years since I performed this, but if you need another bass I may be able to contribute. Just the chorus and not the whole Messiah, right?

Cool, I'll send you a PM! Yes, we're just doing the one movement.

For Easter at my church I'm putting together a virtual choir video of Handel's Hallelujah chorus from Messiah, and inviting folks outside my church to participate - my church choir is not very large and I'd like to get a big epic group for this. If 300-year-old oratorio choruses are your jam, let me...

gizo wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 17, 2021 3:58 am

Well this is most likely beyond my capability, but I got some pretty good feedback from my boss today, so maybe I might be a bit excited about my abilities - who knows?

If you've survived this long in SongFight, SpinTunes is definitely within your capabilities.

Hello everyone. Since Dave has retired from running the SpinTunes contest, I have volunteered to take over, and I am pleased to announce that SpinTunes 17 will run from March 6 to May 1, 2021. The sign-up page is here , and contestants have through March 5 to sign up. The full schedule is posted her...

sleepysilverdoor wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 16, 2021 3:03 pm

You waste no time.

My wife took the kids out of the house for a few hours. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't have a 1- and 4-year-old demanding your constant attention!

My entry has been sent!

Was just thinking about Songfight stuff and then I was like "Wasn't there a Gift of Music going on? What happened to that?" And then I remembered that the deadline got extended to January 14 and I then I remembered that today was January 15 and then I remembered that I very much have not s...

I find a lot of joy in writing my little songs. Mostly I just crank out chuggy or bouncy acoustic guitar stuff, but sometimes I write on ukulele, and more rarely, on accordion. In college, I wrote exclusively on accordion, but it’s been a decade since that time. SF may be a good chance to try it ou...

Micah's picks:

Stan Rogers - The Mary Ellen Carter


The Rankin Family - Rise Again


John McCutcheon - The Great Storm Is Over


Stephen Foster - Hard Times Come Again No More
This has been recorded hundreds of times; here’s a good one:

My church had an online Thanksgiving service yesterday. We did a virtual choir video for a song I wrote a while ago. Check it out if you're into that kind of thing:

I will be in as soon as I finish making my selections. In the meantime, I've made a Spotify playlist with everyone's selections, like I did for the last Gift of Music back in March. I will add to it as more people sign up. The following songs are not on Spotify and thus are not on the playlist: The ...

Blown away by the quality in this fight, both music and videos.

Here's mine:


And here's the mp3, which I promise does not start with 28 seconds of silence:

Just exported an mp4. Not sure if this will be the final version, but I'm pretty happy with what I've got!

How should the videos be submitted? DropBox? Some other way?

Okay, I'm in! In descending order of likelihood you'll find something worth covering: Micah Sommersmith Jerkatorium feat. Micah Sommersmith Levenhagen-Sommersmith Micah Sommer If sidefights are allowed, you can also peruse my Nur Ein archive , or my individual albums for SpinTunes 13 , 14 , 15 , or ...

I watched all 4 episodes in one sitting and really enjoyed them. It's an interesting contrast to the podcast, because on the podcast you don't hear from Hrishikesh except in his introduction, so the effect is that the musician is in complete control. Here, hearing Hrishikesh's questions and seeing t...

fluffy wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 19, 2020 1:45 pm

Looks like it did, yes.

Cool, thanks! I know there was some talk about having so many submissions we may need to add extra nights, which is the best kind of problem to have.

jb wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 19, 2020 7:46 am

Night 3 set is frozen

Did my set make it in for tonight? I submitted it on Thursday. Just curious.

BTW a lot of cameras will only record for 10-20 minutes, both for weird tax reasons (Japan taxes the sale of video cameras differently than photo cameras, and being able to record video past a certain length of time makes it count as a video camera) and due to thermal designs that lead to overheati...

Recorded a set this evening. Recorded audio and video separately. Audio turned out great. Video did not save. Wheeeeeeee. Going to try again tomorrow, hopefully.