... And They're All On These Boards!! (Half a Million Nerds)

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Rabid Garfunkel - Worst entry of the fight.

Hooray! Balance is restored!

[ElaineDiMasi]

Rabid Garfunkel - Worst entry of the fight.

Hooray! Balance is restored!

Oh, I'm totally all about balance!

[Steve Durand]

Steve Durand - Sounds like you knew what you wanted and executed it fine, but it's not charming me.

Too bad. Maybe next time.

[ElaineDiMasi]

Steve Durand - Sounds like you knew what you wanted and executed it fine, but it's not charming me.

Too bad. Maybe next time.

You make arranging sound easy, and I know that it's not. I wanted just a snippet of horn sound for City in Fog that would say "big band", I had the horn sounds ready, then realized I had no idea what chords to use to make it sound like I'm not a keyboard player. I played in school bands forever too (oboe etc), so it was a real downer to feel so clueless! I was in Boston a couple weeks ago and walked out of the Berklee bookstore with a book on jazz arranging in hand. Maybe get a chance to page through it and do some of the exercises next week on vacation ... see if I can recognize the techniques you're using when they're all spelled out for me! (What? Well it's the nerd fight, I'm allowed to talk about studying...)

[Chadderandom]

I’m not a fan of music without cord progressions or harmony.

There's a lot of things going on in that song to hate but this is just a non sequitur that doesn't really have any relevance anywhere. There might be very little variation going on but that complaint doesn't hold water because it might not be getting delivered to you in your usual beautifully wrapped package with a pretty, intricately tied bow and instead its getting driven to you in a clunky, old beat up car thats seemingly making random noises and you want to hide in your house and pretend its not getting delivered but its driving straight up to your door and saying sup, bro, I'm here, deal with it and if you don't answer the door, its just gonna chill on your porch until you recognize whats going on because its not really going a lot of places if you hadn't noticed and if you never do acknowledge its existence, it'll probably get distracted by something else eventually and head off in some other direction through your bushes, but it was there, regardless, and if you didn't like it, you didn't like it, who likes cars driving up on their porches anyway, I don't know, but honk honk, come out from behind the sofa and tell the car its not pretty enough for your garage and you never want to sit in it in the daylight without coming up with excuses that aren't applicable because if you wait too long your bushes will get ruined and who wants ruined bushes? I mean, really.

Nawmsayin?

[rone rivendale]

I’m not a fan of music without cord progressions or harmony.

There's a lot of things going on in that song to hate but this is just a non sequitur that doesn't really have any relevance anywhere. There might be very little variation going on but that complaint doesn't hold water because it might not be getting delivered to you in your usual beautifully wrapped package with a pretty, intricately tied bow and instead its getting driven to you in a clunky, old beat up car thats seemingly making random noises and you want to hide in your house and pretend its not getting delivered but its driving straight up to your door and saying sup, bro, I'm here, deal with it and if you don't answer the door, its just gonna chill on your porch until you recognize whats going on because its not really going a lot of places if you hadn't noticed and if you never do acknowledge its existence, it'll probably get distracted by something else eventually and head off in some other direction through your bushes, but it was there, regardless, and if you didn't like it, you didn't like it, who likes cars driving up on their porches anyway, I don't know, but honk honk, come out from behind the sofa and tell the car its not pretty enough for your garage and you never want to sit in it in the daylight without coming up with excuses that aren't applicable because if you wait too long your bushes will get ruined and who wants ruined bushes? I mean, really.

Nawmsayin?

You remind me of someone I know.... *scratches chin* Nah, who am I kiddin. You do it much better.

[ElaineDiMasi]

I’m not a fan of music without cord progressions or harmony.

... getting driven to you in a clunky, old beat up car thats seemingly making random noises and you want to hide in your house and pretend its not getting delivered but its driving straight up to your door and saying sup, bro, I'm here, deal with it and if you don't answer the door, its just gonna chill on your porch

You remind me of someone I know.... *scratches chin* Nah, who am I kiddin. You do it much better.

I'm really becoming a fan of Chadderandom's posts. I adore the image of the junker chillin on my porch! But I don't mind being too, er, not present to get it without some kind of ribbon on top ... please, a beat that carries me along ... or a compelling vocal that I want to understand ... meanwhile, you're reminding me of this:

Like a white snail the toilet slides into the livingroom, demanding to be loved.
It is impossible, and we tender our sincerest regrets.
In the book of the heart there is no mention made of plumbing.
And though we have spent our intimacy many times with you,
you belong to an unfortunate reference, which we would rather not embrace...
The toilet slides out of the livingroom like a white snail, flushing with grief.

- Russell Edson

Or how about this?

THE TAXI
—Russell Edson

One night in the dark I phone for a taxi. Immediately a taxi crashes through the wall; never mind that my room is on the third floor, or that the yellow driver is really a cluster of canaries arranged in the shape of a driver, who flutters apart, streaming from the windows of the taxi in yellow fountains...

Realizing that I am in the midst of something splendid I reach for the phone and cancel the taxi: All the canaries flow back into the taxi and assemble themselves into a cluster shaped like a man. The taxi backs through the wall, and the wall repairs...

But I cannot stop what is happening, I am already reaching for the phone to call a taxi, which is already beginning to crash through the wall with its yellow driver already beginning to flutter apart...

What? Well, it's the nerds thread. I'm allowed to jam poetry.

[Chadderandom]

You remind me of someone I know....

Well, the vocals on my verses share some common problems with your Rattlesnake entry at least, since I kept fucking up on the rhythm and added the jaw harp, despite not planning on having any jaw harp in the song, after saying fuck it since I couldn't get what I wanted down after what seemed like half a million takes, I decided to make it more no wavey, so my vocals wouldn't seem so out of place. So I'd take no issue with anyone commenting on not liking that part of mess.

[coder_lyte()]

instead its getting driven to you in a clunky, old beat up car thats seemingly making random noises and you want to hide in your house and pretend its not getting delivered but its driving straight up to your door and saying sup, bro

Man, I'll go cruising with you in your clunker. As long as it doesn't have a radio.

[rone rivendale]

You remind me of someone I know....

Well, the vocals on my verses share some common problems with your Rattlesnake entry at least, since I kept fucking up on the rhythm and added the jaw harp, despite not planning on having any jaw harp in the song, after saying fuck it since I couldn't get what I wanted down after what seemed like half a million takes, I decided to make it more no wavey, so my vocals wouldn't seem so out of place. So I'd take no issue with anyone commenting on not liking that part of mess.

As Elaine already figured out, I was talking about your posting style in regards to accepting crits. But thanks for the pot shot anyway lol.

[Märk]

Like a white snail the toilet slides into the livingroom, demanding to be loved.
It is impossible, and we tender our sincerest regrets.
In the book of the heart there is no mention made of plumbing.
And though we have spent our intimacy many times with you,
you belong to an unfortunate reference, which we would rather not embrace...
The toilet slides out of the livingroom like a white snail, flushing with grief.

- Russell Edson

Or how about this?

THE TAXI
—Russell Edson

One night in the dark I phone for a taxi. Immediately a taxi crashes through the wall; never mind that my room is on the third floor, or that the yellow driver is really a cluster of canaries arranged in the shape of a driver, who flutters apart, streaming from the windows of the taxi in yellow fountains...

Realizing that I am in the midst of something splendid I reach for the phone and cancel the taxi: All the canaries flow back into the taxi and assemble themselves into a cluster shaped like a man. The taxi backs through the wall, and the wall repairs...

But I cannot stop what is happening, I am already reaching for the phone to call a taxi, which is already beginning to crash through the wall with its yellow driver already beginning to flutter apart...

What? Well, it's the nerds thread. I'm allowed to jam poetry.

That is *exactly* what people say salvia divinorum is like!

[Billy's Little Trip]

THE TAXI
—Russell Edson

One night in the dark I phone for a taxi. Immediately a taxi crashes through the wall; never mind that my room is on the third floor, or that the yellow driver is really a cluster of canaries arranged in the shape of a driver, who flutters apart, streaming from the windows of the taxi in yellow fountains...

Realizing that I am in the midst of something splendid I reach for the phone and cancel the taxi: All the canaries flow back into the taxi and assemble themselves into a cluster shaped like a man. The taxi backs through the wall, and the wall repairs...

But I cannot stop what is happening, I am already reaching for the phone to call a taxi, which is already beginning to crash through the wall with its yellow driver already beginning to flutter apart...

I love that! I really need to expand my brain beyond Family Guy. That Russell dude writes like I do here at the mighty SF when I've had too much coffee and/or LSD. Awesome!

...*copies and/or pastes his name on tHe Google*.

[jast]

I wanted just a snippet of horn sound for City in Fog that would say "big band", I had the horn sounds ready, then realized I had no idea what chords to use to make it sound like I'm not a keyboard player.

I actually think that if you use keys for something that's actually supposed to sound like another instrument, in the end it will always feel like keys. If it's not the real instrument I can't really get into playing it the way it should be played on the real deal. When arranging, I go almost entirely by feeling (I don't really write the harmonies, either; I evolve them half in my head when writing the lyrics and half in the recording/mixing step), but that feeling is pretty much destroyed if I use keys. My guitar riffs, for example, develop spontaneously. I could never create an authentic guitar riff without a guitar.
So, in general, whenever possible I'd go for the real instrument (or something very close to it) as first choice, followed by programming the individual notes in software (currently in Reaper's MIDI editor), and finally playing it on an entirely different kind of instrument. On second thought, I guess I would simply not do that at all, unless I explicitly wanted to get the feeling of keys combined with the sound of whatever.

[ElaineDiMasi]

I wanted just a snippet of horn sound for City in Fog that would say "big band", I had the horn sounds ready, then realized I had no idea what chords to use to make it sound like I'm not a keyboard player.

I actually think that if you use keys for something that's actually supposed to sound like another instrument, in the end it will always feel like keys. ... My guitar riffs, for example, develop spontaneously. I could never create an authentic guitar riff without a guitar. So, in general, whenever possible I'd go for the real instrument (or something very close to it) as first choice, followed by programming the individual notes in software (currently in Reaper's MIDI editor), and finally playing it on an entirely different kind of instrument. On second thought, I guess I would simply not do that at all, unless I explicitly wanted to get the feeling of keys combined with the sound of whatever.

YMMV but I disagree with you. For a sound that's part of a background texture, I'm happy playing horn lines on a keyboard. It's the chords that give it away as a "keyboard" arrangement, if I would have played keyboard chords instead of the lines that make up a more realistic horn section. The point is that had I three horn players in the room, I wouldn't have been sure how to score their chords. And I am a woodwind player, but not a jazz player, so I could've wiped off the dust off my 20 yr old alto sax, and played a "real" sax solo with sucky tone and pitch and also not written the right lines. May as well use a keyboard if that's the alternative!

[jast]

For a sound that's part of a background texture, I'm happy playing horn lines on a keyboard. It's the chords that give it away as a "keyboard" arrangement, if I would have played keyboard chords instead of the lines that make up a more realistic horn section. The point is that had I three horn players in the room, I wouldn't have been sure how to score their chords.

That's the thing, I don't write scores. I make everything up as I go along, and that works best for instruments that I play myself because then I can easily experiment with what works and what doesn't (plus I have experience with how that instrument works). As for the style of music, I typically don't do songs in a genre that I'm not into much. If I have little listening experience with, say, Jazz, I won't get any Jazz songs. A slightly jazzy song, perhaps, but that's it.
When I want to use an instrument I don't/can't play myself I let someone else figure out how to do that part. Of course I don't have any collaborators around here so I can't really say how well that works out (I would probably have to play with people who can "feel songs", e.g. people with songwriting aspirations), and that's also why I try to avoid the types of instruments I don't know well enough.
Anyway, I know how to play the guitar. Perhaps not as well as some of the others here but I do. Give me a keyboard and ask me to play something that sounds like guitar, and I won't be able to do it. My brain automatically switches to keyboard mode and wants to do keyboardy things. Programming notes on the computer is a hassle but works better because I am not in any "instrument mode". I guess that's why my goal for some time in the far future is to have lots and lots of different instruments and play all of them with a certain minimum degree of skill. I'd rather spend time polishing individual riffs played on a real instrument than fake the same riff convincingly on something else.

I have thought about going all out with fake instruments. I think I might be able to pull off something with that that gets me a lot more votes than the stuff I do right now, but in the end I just don't enjoy doing so and thus I won't.

Not that I have anything against your method, of course. I'm a fan of doing whatever works for whoever does it.

[Chadderandom]

Abominominous - I really like this. I don't know what it sounds like despite thinking it sounds like something though. Clutch meets HORSE the band? Not that it matters because this is great. Also if the long pause between the first riffage and the next at the beginning of the song is explained anywhere in the song, I can't figure it out but it just seems like it happened for some specific reason that I'm not getting. There wasn't anything wrong with it, regardless of reasoning or not, so I was just wondering.

Andrew Reist - The first time I listened to this I was waiting for a breakdown of some sort, kind of just begging for some yelling to start at some point or something, anything, and then nothing really changed even when it changes and listening to it again, I guess it doesn't need much else to happen but it sure would be nice.

Berkeley Social Scene - The only thing wrong with this song is that I can't really hear the vocals all that well at times.

cattle bat - This sounds like something, I not sure what beyond something cool though. And then it just kind of ends and it annoys me because I'm not done trying to figure out what it sounded like. I mean, I guess there's something original there because I think I heard the words "half a million nerds" a couple times, so at the very least the lyrics might be new, but beyond that, I wasn't really paying attention to the actual song.

The Chadderandom Abyss - I should've sped up the verses musically and put death metal vocals on them to match the death metal kazoo before the first verse, then maybe I wouldn't've had the problems I had, then I could've slowed down the chorus featuring pretty melodica chords and menacingly slow growled vocals, maybe it would've been better. Or maybe not.

coder_lyte() - I don't like this when I'm paying attention to it but when I stop paying attention to it, it sounds kind of cool, then I start paying attention to it again and it isn't as cool as it sounds.

Heine - Similarly only sounds cool when I'm not paying attention to it except the vocals from "I was one of them" to "I'm happy anyway" which is something you tried earlier in the song and was almost as good that time too... no, actually it worked there too. Everything else though, I could do without, basically.

Jan Krueger - I was really put off by this song the first time I heard it because it came out of left field with the weirdness but listening to it again, I really like this. Do people really say IRC? Because I say erc. Well, I say merc, even though I haven't been on it in years, thus never think of it let alone say it, but regardless I also say row for ROH, acronyms shouldn't look like words if I'm not supposed to say them like words. Did I mention how great this song is? Because it is.

Jk Chrvt - This is absolutely great, regardless of your age. I can hear all the lines except for the first couple before "look a new exam" which I can't hear at all, so if its on the exam, I'm in trouble.

Manatee Matinee - The very beginning of this had me worried when I heard this the first time and I was about ready to start cringing heavily and then it started rocking out and keeps up the fun for the whole song without any post-burp please stop moments.

MC Milk-Plus - I want a whole album of this. Maybe it'd get old quick or maybe it wouldn't but this specific song is really well done.

Mr. Beany - "culture slips" sounds like it was said by Napolean Dynamite.

Paco del Stinko - This song might have multiple personality disorder or bipolar disorder or what ever mental disorder is currently appropriate. Vocally, lines like "stacked up to the sky" don't really belong in the same song as "you laugh and you scoff" as ones super cheesy and the other is vaguely badassy (while still also cheesy, I guess, but differently so), choose one... funnily enough, I accidentally typed cheese one. And, if you have the ability to pull off cheese, which you do, I say cheese it up... one type of cheese at a time though. How many cheeses do you use in your lasagna? Based on this song, I'd guess every cheese available to you. Cheeeese.

PositiveNegative - It feels like we're floating in space together and I keep having to pull you back to me because you're floating away and I want to listen to you but the stars are really distracting just not enough that I ever stop paying attention.

Rabid Garfunkel - I enjoy the funky grooves. Whats the cat? I don't know if anything in there sounded like an actual cat and I've heard some pretty odd cat sounds. Like last week one crawled up my body and curled around the back of my neck and sounded like it went to sleep because there was an odd vaguely snoring type sound being made that wasn't anything like purring but I couldn't tell what it was doing because it was cold outside, so I had my hoodie up, and I couldn't really see it until it got back up and decided to crawl back down me. But seriously, what was the cat?

R. Mosquito - Less loud, plz? I must've waited until the absolute worst time to turn it down because it seems like theres a section of song in there that is the right volume because I turned it down about 10% and it felt too low and turned it back up and it felt too loud again, so it didn't last long if it existed. The song didn't interest me enough to give it more listens to try to further figure this out though.

Slats - That voice doesn't go with the funky guitar, maybe not even the rest of the music, then again I'm not sure the funky guitar goes with the rest of it either, let alone going with each other. "There's a mathlete stuck inside me" was the only line that worked. Maybe a couple of the "Half a million nerds" lines too. But this song, there isn't a whole lot working in it. Well, I think I like the lyrics. Maybe if they were in a different setting.

Steve Durand - The first time I listened to this it was cringe city and turned it off without listening to the rest of it because it was just too slow (compared to what I wanted at the time) and the vocals weren't working for me but after giving it another chance, it felt like I was missing a lot and listening to it again gave me the whole vibe and this song is really, really good. And I can't even figure out what song I was listening to before because the uke starts off hot and should've hooked me right away before the brass even came in, let alone the vocals. I kind of feel guilty for not being down with this song on first listen. And it gets better with every listen.

the tee - Craig Finn! At least I'm going to pretend this is Craig Finn and that Craig Finn's middlename starts with a T, so he's Craig T Finn but this is an underground song, so he's just the tee for it and this song is better than any song off the new Hold Steady album. I wish you were always this awesome Craig T Finn, I really do.

Trick Soup - Did you really have an ET shirt? I had an Alf shirt. Fictional alien shirts are almost as cool as multi-layered kazoos. The only thing wrong with this song is that there should've been a grand finale type thing at the end, after the last robot voice, with a stab of whatever sound you wanted to punctuate the end with and a "Nerds!" to end the number. Also, sort of unrelated, something in your song reminded me of the line "have more than the other guy" and I wasn't sure what that was from, so I googled it and its from a Bad Religion song called "Anxiety" which I do a version of and, so apparently your lines were giving me weird flashbacks of covers I've done which really don't sound that similar but apparently similar enough that it caused it to pop into my head.

The Weakest Suit - You build me up, buttercup, just to let me down. Did you mean for that to happen? I mean, for a strange, vaguely similar non-cover, this is a really good song, I guess, but the similarities are just bizarre and if they were intentional, maybe thats cool but just completely random.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Rabid Garfunkel - I enjoy the funky grooves. Whats the cat? I don't know if anything in there sounded like an actual cat and I've heard some pretty odd cat sounds... But seriously, what was the cat?

There was a bari sax, upright bass, and drums. Everything else you heard was...

l_842d31abd7868abffd7e0c6d1d27dddc.jpg (26.19 KiB) Viewed 2550 times

...who shredded some lyric sheets later that evening in retaliation.

[ElaineDiMasi]

...who shredded some lyric sheets later that evening in retaliation.

Next project! Sing the lyric sheets as-shredded.

[jast]

Paco del Stinko - This song might have multiple personality disorder or bipolar disorder or what ever mental disorder is currently popular.

Fixed that for you.

[Teplin]

Trick Soup - Did you really have an ET shirt? I had an Alf shirt.

The song is a mix of genuine and made up nerdiness from my past. The ET T-shirt is one element I'm actually not sure about. I think I had one, but it would have been when I was 5 or 6, and my memory of that time isn't reliable. Hell, I also have what feels like an honest to God memory from that time of hearing Santa Claus land his sleigh on my roof and come down the chimney, and that can't be right. It's pretty plausible that I did have an ET T-shirt because I was waaay into ET at the time. I had a plush ET that I slept with, which my mom had to throw away because I got really sick and threw up all over it and it wouldn't come clean . Anyway, real or not it's poetic license as used in the song. I don't think it counts as nerdy for a kindergartner to wear an ET shirt. I'm not even sure a 5 year old CAN be nerdy.

The truth about the other lyrics:

stayin inside, watchin Star Trek reruns - Yeah, I watched a lot of Star Trek, original and next generation during my full on geek out. Worse yet, I read Star Trek novels, which is something I probably shouldn't admit in public, but there ya go.

and learnin how to program my Commodore 64 - Big time. I taught myself enough BASIC to write some simple games. I would have been about 11 and I was all about programming. Later on I upgraded to an Amiga 500 which I composed some of my first music on (well, music that didn't involve a harmonica and a giant 80's tape recorder).

No longer reading UNIX manuals just for fun - False. By the time I had a PC I had switched over to being an art geek and wanted to be a professional cartoonist, so I missed UNIX. I did, however, start reading a set of encyclopedias cover to cover from A to Z. I made it to G. That's what the lyric should have been but I couldn't make the syllables fit.

The only thing wrong with this song is that there should've been a grand finale type thing at the end, after the last robot voice, with a stab of whatever sound you wanted to punctuate the end with and a "Nerds!" to end the number.

Man, you're sooo right. I can hear it now.

[Teplin]

Rabid Garfunkel - I enjoy the funky grooves. Whats the cat? I don't know if anything in there sounded like an actual cat and I've heard some pretty odd cat sounds... But seriously, what was the cat?

There was a bari sax, upright bass, and drums. Everything else you heard was...

l_842d31abd7868abffd7e0c6d1d27dddc.jpg

...who shredded some lyric sheets later that evening in retaliation.

All that noise came out of THAT little thing? I was picturing some big mangy tom with one eye, matted fur, and a shaved patch on its side. For what it's worth I really dug the track. It gave me fond memories of Mademoiselle Nobs.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Heh. Doubled her vocalizing, with one of the two tracks 'verbed and warmly distorted (Datube), and cut out most of the microphone swipes/smacks, but yes, she's a talker all right.