Nur Ein VI Round One "Colourblind"

[bambamoozle]

Congrats to WSA! Enjoy your week off!

[dantes]

Congrats to WSA! Enjoy your week off!

XD We wish.

[Caravan Ray]

Caravan Ray did not review our song...should I be happy or worried?

I think I forgot Manhattam Glutton too.

My old mum always said - "If you can't say something nasty about someone, don's say anything at all". That is probably why I forgot MG. Your song was pretty awesome.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Congrats WSA. Great tune.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Trilly's Little Bip: When you place your balls against a wall it leaves a sweaty ring after you remove them. There are moments in this when your voice reminds me of Jason Perry from A (the least cool punk band in the world - I used to love A). Good tune.

I had to google A. Yeah, I hear what you mean about his voice. I thought that was me singing on their vids.

Billy’s Little Trip- This is sooo you! This rocks. It’s everything I expect in a BLT. I think we should always take choruses away from you so we get more awesome riffs! At 2:21 I get the feeling you wrote a normal song and literally cut the choruses. This is where knowing the whole contest dynamic reduces the enjoyment of the song. It’s just good man! Well done!

You're right, I did chop the song there, but I chopped out another set of verses because it got so samey. I also had lyrics for the bridge, but it didn't give enough of a break and it took away from the rock-a-tude of the drums and guitars. In hindsight, the first and last parts of the bridge could/should have been cut in half, being that there's no vocals.

Billy's Little Trip==>The continetal divide of Round One.

I wish I had something clever to say, but my morning coffee stopped working a few hours ago. *Hands Ben an N*

blt - I can’t hear a chorus, but I want to hear more…harmony. Not the schmaltzy Yanni kind, but the good kind. I guess it’s ambitious for the time allotted and that’s too bad because this should really rock our undies.

Just for you, I'll make my next song rock your undies......off! It'll make you rock out with your cock out.

[Calliopeva]

Caravan Ray did not review our song...should I be happy or worried?

I think I forgot Manhattam Glutton too.

My old mum always said - "If you can't say something nasty about someone, don's say anything at all". That is probably why I forgot you. Your song was pretty awesome.

*Melts into a stunned little puddle and evaporates away, smiling*

[Caravan Ray]

Caravan Ray did not review our song...should I be happy or worried?

I think I forgot Manhattam Glutton too.

My old mum always said - "If you can't say something nasty about someone, don's say anything at all". That is probably why I forgot you. Your song was pretty awesome.

*Melts into a stunned little puddle and evaporates away, smiling*

Sorry - that was a bit confusing. I was referring to MGs song there


Dry up your puddle and wipe the smile off - I actually did address yours a few pages ago:

Caravan Ray did not review our song...should I be happy or worried?

Ooops sorry.

Main point - It was way better than lasts weeks. It wasn't bad.
It wasn't good. But it wasn't bad.

[RangerDenni]

djrd: where is the energy from last week?

I actually did have an answer for this, but it got eaten! I've been reading down in the middle of doing reviews and I'm not sure what happened.
I don't remember what I said. I think I explained why it was a bit emo and sad. Nutshell was that I didn't have a lot of energy this week, and I preferred this as a poem. The first response was a lot clever-er though.
I think I am having trouble getting my point across this week a little bit.

[jast]

I ran out of time towards the end, so some reviews are briefer than the songs deserve. Sorry about that. Regarding the challenge, I gave more points to those where I felt that no debate was necessary. As some of you discovered in the last round, judges are almost certain to end up interpreting the challenge differently than you did, but there's no helping that. It's part of the challenge.

Jon Eric: Great take on the challenge. Very interesting lyrical approach. I'm tempted to take points off because you felt the need to explain yourself... usually I find that explanations take away from the song. Bunch of horribly flat notes, vocals are a bit buried in places (you want volume automation). Great piano playing, but in the instrumental parts a few goofs and some rather hasty-sounding playing harm immersion... for me at least. Side note: it's perhaps not a good idea to get too deeply into a metaphor. The thing about cones is cryptic even if you are talking about actual colourblindness, but using it in the context of metaphorical colourblindness it's too much. Oh, and bad take gluing job before that falsetto part.

Billy's Little Trip: Awesome gritty guitar tone; nice riff, too. Vocals are a bit off again, but not as badly as in Round Zero. You pass the challenge, but to the detriment of the song. It's an okay song, quite energetic, but it's not catchy, except for perhaps the guitar riff. Very sudden ending. I think perhaps you didn't give this song enough time to develop. The title... well. It seems like you applied more than just a bit of force to make it fit.

Rabid Garfunkel: I like the sound of the instruments a lot. Unfortunately, in the mix things really don't come together very well. The lyrics don't really speak to me, but I have no serious complaints about them except for some places where the prosody (I learned that word on the forum) is horrible. You pass the challenge. The arrangement does a lot to actually make this sort of interesting. However, the melody is hard to make out in places because your vocals are way off. I consistently can't figure out what the melody in the third line of each verse was supposed to be. This has a huge impact on the overall verdict, unfortunately; makes it very hard to judge the compositional aspects properly.

Pop Machine: Slightly jerky piano playing in the ritardando. Cool chord progressions. Somewhat wobbly vocals, and the higher notes sound pretty strained. Very loose interpretation of the title, I'm not sure I appreciate that... it works in writing, but much less so in the actual song. Challenge: even by the generous Wikipedia interpretation brought forth a number of times on the forum, this is a toss-up between chorus and refrain. I consider it a chorus because it's very clearly a separate musical section. Major loss of points here. Somewhat awkward rhymes in the verses... forcing rhymes often comes at the price of having to use clichéd lines, and that happened here, I think. I like the musical quirkiness of this song, but performance and interpretation of challenge/title take away from that.

Luke Henley: Chock full of energy. That first section is a bit long though, perhaps. It gets just slightly boring. Awesome bridge, perhaps the instrumental part of it is a bit long, and the last few strums don't sound very nice. Did you know that clipping can be quite painful when listening on headphones? A few instances of terrible prosody. Somewhat oddball lyrics, but you pass the challenge and title requirements. The very sudden ending is not cool.

Bram Tant: Interesting asymmetric mix, perhaps a bit too asymmetric in the "what life is worth" part. The whole composition is a bit generic. Lyrics are not terribly interesting. Nice to hear someone who can actually sing the high notes half-decently... though in general, you seem to be pushing against your voice, and it makes the enunciation a bit weird (accent notwithstanding). Ending got cut off a bit.

The Worldly Self Assurance: Well, that style totally doesn't appeal to me. Still, it's done well... nice arrangement, development and such. I don't like the way the verses are pretty much completely free of rests, though. Doesn't really give them room to breathe. Requirements from challenge and title passed, and this is one of the submissions that are not just "good considering the challenge", it's good on its own. Vocals buried in last line. Sloppy recording, guitar timing slightly uneven. Vocals are not terribly exciting.

John Kloberdanz: Not sure I like how nasal those vocals are. The way you sing "colourblind" is cute, but why did you do it that way? Doesn't really fit the song as far as I'm concerned. As someone else already said, this is hardly an 80s mix, but it is an 80s song, sort of. Anyway. I can sort of appreciate this song, it's interesting in a way, but it doesn't grab me. Somewhat stupid lyrics, but it's the kind of stupid I can work with. (Afterthought: I'm not judging your song for how well you emulated some other band, I'm judging it on its own merits, and/or lack thereof.)

Merisan: Just as much (read: not much) going on in the vocals as in the last round... but here it actually fits. The song is a bit on the long side, especially since the sections are pretty similar musically. Nice dueting. You did work the title in, but it feels like a bit of an afterthought. The whole thing fits together, no doubt about that, but it's a bit like "oh, and by the way, things would be the same if $randomthing" (you integrate it better than that, but that's the impression I got out of it).

Glen Raphael: You might want to give the percussion a bit more presence. It's hard to even make out. Parts of the mix are oversaturated. Guitar playing is a bit mediocre... you're not keeping time properly, and it makes parts of the song rather weird. Vocals in the bridge could use some more work. Hmm, the staccato thingy in the last iteration of the verse is hard to make out, too. Challenge: what you did qualifies as a refrain as far as I'm concerned. Nicely done, too. I think you're stretching the "colourblind" metaphor a bit. It takes a bit of finesse to make one metaphor work in several different ways within the same song.

WreckdoM: Good job saturating the mix like that, it sounds awesome. Your vocals don't quite fit into the sound of everything else, though. Points off for not posting lyrics. Nice guest vocals. Timing in the bridge thing is a bit off. In the part after that, too. The two vocalists don't quite line up there. It's hard for me to determine how well you did with the title when I can't read along while listening, so I guess that potentially gives you some points off in that area, too.

Paco Del Stinko: Great guitar riffs. Vocals are not terribly impressive. Writing your songs so that you have to hurry through the singing doesn't help. Very nice break in the middle. I'm surprised that the a cappella bit works as well as it does. I have no idea how this song relates to the title, even though you mentioned colourblindness twice (rather randomly, I thought). Challenge passed.

Abbott and Hines: I suspect I'd enjoy this a lot more if the vocals, and the vibrato in particular, didn't sound so fake. Pretty generic composition. Fun take on the title, challenge passed. I can't really think of too much to say about this song. It's more better than it's worse.

Boffo Yux Dudes: Good job with the sharp note right in the first line. It's better in the rest of the song, but you're below the low end of your vocal range a lot. Very generic composition. Is that supposed to be a lame pun you're using over and over? Vocals are somewhat buried all throughout the second part. Challenge passed, but not in a way that made the song great. Title requirement passed, too, at the cost of lyrics being interesting.

DJ Ranger Den: Great piano playing, great vocals. You did not use the correct title, and I'm not quite sure how the subject matter relates to it anyway. This almost sounds through-composed, which pretty much makes this a non-catchy song. I think you tried too hard to use many unusual chord changes. I had trouble keeping up with the song that way. Some clipping.

Embers of Autumn: The singing is terribly, terribly pitchy. I don't know whether the filter on the piano was deliberate, but it adds to the atmosphere, so I like it either way. I love what I presume the melody would have been like. You've got a pretty good voice, but please please do practise pitches, ideally before submitting more songs. Pitch aside, it's an excellent performance. Guitar adds a nice touch. Clippy mix. Challenge/title requirements definitely passed. Magnificent coda (the thing you apparently called a bridge).

Manhattan Glutton: I don't understand what the jab at the British spelling is doing. It doesn't add anything to the song. Nice build-up. Great arrangement. Challenge/title reqs fulfilled. Lyrics aren't all that clever. Great outro. Not a very exciting song, but all the other details are just right.

Frankie Big Face: Great composition... but you made your refrain extremely chorusy, almost like you were thumbing your nose at the challenge (even if you perhaps didn't actually intend it that way), so I'll take some points off for that. Very good performance all around. I like the lyrics, too.

Ross Durand: Once again, I think this is my favourite lyrical take on the title in this round. Nice bridges. Unlike some, I like the synth. The secondary vocals are a bit uncreative, thirds all the way... ah well. Nice arrangement/development.

Adam Adamant: you definitely pass the challenge requirements.

Score range: 12-20. In that range, up to seven people tied for the same score. All scores are final.

[RangerDenni]

My 5 favorites in alpha order were:
DJ Ranger Den – I enjoyed your round zero entry. This one not so much. It reminded me of annoying ex-girlfriends that rambled complaints to me so quickly that I didn’t know where to start trying to make things better.

Except for the "ex" part, this type of Tendency has probably been the source of all my Inter-Personal problems for the whole Round One Week. Hopefully I'll get through and be more relaxed. Of course, in a competition of this nature; unless one is a woman of Quite Strong Mettle you are going to hear the pesky influence of Unruly Travelling Minstrels guesting on the track at least twice, should the lady continue through all weeks un-eliminated. [smooths hair]
[am sure I have breached some kind of Board Rule now, and yes, would like some cheeze with my whine.]

[Manhattan Glutton]

I don't understand what the jab at the British spelling is doing.

IMHO anyone who didn't mention it being the British spelling of "color" failed the title.

[dantes]

Bram Tant: Interesting asymmetric mix, perhaps a bit too asymmetric in the "what life is worth" part. The whole composition is a bit generic. Lyrics are not terribly interesting. Nice to hear someone who can actually sing the high notes half-decently... though in general, you seem to be pushing against your voice, and it makes the enunciation a bit weird (accent notwithstanding). Ending got cut off a bit.

I agree that it's a bit generic, I'd say that's because I used a generic drum sample from Garageband and because I kept the guitar parts straightforward (because of lack of time, I just wanted to come up with a quick and easy riff which would sound good and be easy to write lyrics to). I wanted to add another guitar part (solo-esque) during the part lacking vocals, but decided against it, which I regret looking back on it. And the lyrics are just bad, I couldn't come up with anything meaningful about colourblindness that would be easy to write lyrics about so I just wrote nonsense, basically. I just started way too late on it and didn't have time to assess my entry properly beforehand. Of course, you'll always look back and want to change things afterwards. Vocals-wise, I was pushing against my voice but had I prepared better (not in the sense of smearing my throat with honey or anything like that, I've never used such methods, but in the sense of writing lyrics in advance so I could practice singing them and would know them off the top of my head so the recording performance would go easier) it would've been less of a problem. My voice is somewhere between the baritone and tenor range, I think, so I can sing a lot of things well which are too low or high for others but also stumble into a lot of restrictions. My enunciation is a bit of a problem too, I am not a native English speaker and although my English writing is excellent my speaking skills aren't as good, it's better when singing but still not perfect. And I have a noticeable accent, of course.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Billy's Little Trip: Awesome gritty guitar tone; nice riff, too. Vocals are a bit off again, but not as badly as in Round Zero. You pass the challenge, but to the detriment of the song. It's an okay song, quite energetic, but it's not catchy, except for perhaps the guitar riff. Very sudden ending. I think perhaps you didn't give this song enough time to develop. The title... well. It seems like you applied more than just a bit of force to make it fit.

You are right on the money about everything here. I really couldn't think of anything that inspired me about the title by day 5, so I did what I've always done here and made the title of my song the subject. My favorite one I've done this with was the fight title "paper thin". I wrote a song about a librarian named Mrs.Paperthin lol. Yeah, I'm most unhappy with the ending of this song followed by my dislike for the overdone bridge. I didn't follow the old rule of keep them wanting more. I kind of wore out a cool thing by the end of the bridge, in my opinion.

[bambamoozle]

My 5 favorites in alpha order were:
DJ Ranger Den – I enjoyed your round zero entry. This one not so much. It reminded me of annoying ex-girlfriends that rambled complaints to me so quickly that I didn’t know where to start trying to make things better.

Except for the "ex" part, this type of Tendency has probably been the source of all my Inter-Personal problems for the whole Round One Week. Hopefully I'll get through and be more relaxed. Of course, in a competition of this nature; unless one is a woman of Quite Strong Mettle you are going to hear the pesky influence of Unruly Travelling Minstrels guesting on the track at least twice, should the lady continue through all weeks un-eliminated. [smooths hair]
[am sure I have breached some kind of Board Rule now, and yes, would like some cheeze with my whine.]

I don't think there are any actual rules in this place. However, my rule for myself is to never argue with anyone's feedback since music is so subjective, what one person can adore and worship another person can find intolerable.

Be yourself, and if you're really an annoying girlfriend type of person, well then, hallelujah!

[bambamoozle]

John Kloberdanz: Not sure I like how nasal those vocals are. The way you sing "colourblind" is cute, but why did you do it that way? Doesn't really fit the song as far as I'm concerned. As someone else already said, this is hardly an 80s mix, but it is an 80s song, sort of. Anyway. I can sort of appreciate this song, it's interesting in a way, but it doesn't grab me. Somewhat stupid lyrics, but it's the kind of stupid I can work with. (Afterthought: I'm not judging your song for how well you emulated some other band, I'm judging it on its own merits, and/or lack thereof.)

I am totally ok with this.

BTW, you are the first person to notice that I had a cold this past weekend. I was drugged up (the legal kind) and in bed and on my third try before I sang in tune. I didn't mention it because I don't believe in excuses.

[erin.]

Jan K said:
Merisan:
"You did work the title in, but it feels like a bit of an afterthought."

I disagree. I make reference to colors, shades and hues throughout the entire song. I am alluding that while youth and memories fade, that my love will not. I thought it was pretty spelled out, but I am a person who really looks into the lyrical content of a song. I can understand that connecting with the lyrics might not always be so important to a listener, and can be overlooked. I tend to not try and clobber the title by repeating it numerous times, but that is just my writing style.

[RangerDenni]

My 5 favorites in alpha order were:
DJ Ranger Den – I enjoyed your round zero entry. This one not so much. It reminded me of annoying ex-girlfriends that rambled complaints to me so quickly that I didn’t know where to start trying to make things better.

Except for the "ex" part, this type of Tendency has probably been the source of all my Inter-Personal problems for the whole Round One Week. Hopefully I'll get through and be more relaxed. Of course, in a competition of this nature; unless one is a woman of Quite Strong Mettle you are going to hear the pesky influence of Unruly Travelling Minstrels guesting on the track at least twice, should the lady continue through all weeks un-eliminated. [smooths hair]
[am sure I have breached some kind of Board Rule now, and yes, would like some cheeze with my whine.]

I don't think there are any actual rules in this place. However, my rule for myself is to never argue with anyone's feedback since music is so subjective, what one person can adore and worship another person can find intolerable.

Be yourself, and if you're really an annoying girlfriend type of person, well then, hallelujah!

I'm actually a somewhat-tolerable, mildly hectic wife to an Extremely Calm fellow. I think I was a little Concerned that oblique references to the Times of Trouble in which Mother Scary comes to me would ick-out the fine folks on the board, at the least.
I am telling TERRIBLE jokes today, which are leaking out everywhere (ohmygodstop...)

[Calliopeva]

[quote="glennnyA & H – Cute song. The timing is very shaky. You really need to get into the groove. I enjoyed this , but I don’t get the point of the lyrics.

There is a website, and videos on YouTube called "People of WalMart"...if you have a strong stomach and sense of the ridiculous check them out some time. They are kind of mean a lot of the time- one of the things that made me hesitant to write about it- but it went together so fast, lyrically

JoAnn

[jast]

I make reference to colors, shades and hues throughout the entire song.

I did, in fact, notice that. That's just using related terminology, though. I can write a song and mention lots of animals, then finally mourn the loss of my pet goldfish, and that still wouldn't make it any more than an afterthought, or at least not a very well-written story/exposition, at least by my standards. Yeah, okay, that's a crude example.

As far as I'm concerned, as a writer you either tell a story or you convey some kind of experience, or both. You do convey a bunch of experiences, but the part about colour-blindness lies more in the storytelling department, and to me a crucial element of any story is its development. There was no set-up, other than the choice of words and metaphors, of what the title suggested would be the main theme or highlight of the song. I might have appreciated, say, a slow deterioration of the character's ability to perceive colours as the song progressed, with the feelings still staying strong. Or the scenery generally becoming bleaker or less colourful. You did use something like that, but in a less connected, seemingly more incidental way. It didn't quite register here, even though I knew the title of your song. Or perhaps a story that subtly establishes the character's colour-blindness early on and hints at it throughout the song, only making it more obvious towards the end.
Just to make it clear, I don't consider the way you wrote the song a game-breaker. I just thought it might have spoken to me more if it had been a bit different.

[Paco Del Stinko]

Congrats to the WSA! The magic of the Mighty Melvin! (Amongst other things)

[JonPorobil]

Honestly, I'm a little surprised at how well my song has been received. Makes me wonder if I could have been a contender for the immunity, had I bothered to fix the glaring errors.

Ah well. NUR EIN!!

[jast]

Makes me wonder if I could have been a contender for the immunity, had I bothered to fix the glaring errors.

Nope.[1]

[1] This retrospective prediction has not been provided by a trained alternate history traversal associate and thus cannot be guaranteed to be accurate in any way.