The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Tell us what you think can be improved!

More clarity on the results. An average is useful for easily determining who won and who lost, but it is not particularly useful as feedback, which is the main reason I wanted to participate in this (though you'll notice I had a lot of positives to say in the other thread that were pleasant surprises). I haven't been in a band proper for a while where I haven't been calling all (or most) of the shots, as as a result I feel like I could use some good old fashioned feedback to get me thinking outside of the box that is my head. The misunderstanding in week five came about as a result of what I thought was a lack of feedback, not my score - scores are whatever, I was very much not in this in a competitive sense.

I don't think the oblique strategies were a good fit. Some were better than others, but it seems like they're intended as guidance during a moment in the creative process and not something to build a song around.

I liked the oblique strategies. I didn’t pay a great of attention to them. But I liked them. Then in the last round I worked out where they were coming from. And that was pretty cool.

I get annoyed in Nur Ein if there some sort of connection between the title and the challenge. Mind you - as a cranky old man a lot of things annoy me. - anyway, I liked the challenge idea and all six of these assignments were pleasing to receive.

I also liked the scoring system and lack of specificity. I like songs. Or I don’t like songs. Thats good feedback. I came last out of the 6 song people- but - I won a round! I’m good with that!

And I appeared to have put positive comments on the negative thread. Why is life so complicated?

Jefff wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 23, 2024 11:31 pm

I don't think the oblique strategies were a good fit. Some were better than others, but it seems like they're intended as guidance during a moment in the creative process and not something to build a song around.

That’s an interesting point about the OS. They are, after all, intended to unstick a stuck person during a creative endeavor. However, I have found them useful for spurring creativity from the outset. YMMV.

the idiot king wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 23, 2024 2:43 pm

More clarity on the results.

I’m not sure this would be very satisfying for you. It will lead to more questions like “How could one judge say my lyrics were good and another judge say they were bad?!” I thought having a rubric/scoring sheet would lead to more uniformity among the judges, but it wasn’t as pronounced as I thought it would be. People come from very different backgrounds and have different ideas about what constitutes good lyrics vs. bad lyrics. It gets even more complicated for things like “songcraft.” That’s why we wrote reviews—to give the feedback you’re looking for. But I’ll crunch some numbers and see if having scores in each category would help. I’m always up for making even more complicated spreadsheets.

Caravan Ray wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 24, 2024 2:17 am

And I appeared to have put positive comments on the negative thread. Why is life so complicated?

This gave me a good laugh - thanks.

I also hate when the title and challenge are connected. We didn’t purposely try to avoid that (Hapless Avenue and Idiot Glee seem pretty complementary), but we also didn’t try to match them up. Every judge submitted a title and challenge and then I matched them up in a way that made sense to me and made everyone happy. I was really pleased with the titles we came up with.

frankie big face wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 24, 2024 6:28 am

However, I have found them useful for spurring creativity from the outset. YMMV.

That would be a moment in the creative process. There were two songs I started with the OS in mind, but by the end, the connection felt very slight.

frankie big face wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 24, 2024 6:34 am

the idiot king wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 23, 2024 2:43 pm

More clarity on the results.

I’m not sure this would be very satisfying for you. It will lead to more questions like “How could one judge say my lyrics were good and another judge say they were bad?!”

I don't know if posting the full chart of rankings for each dimension from each judge would be useful or if it would be information overload -- but perhaps an average of all judges' scores for each of the elements (for example if you find you had an average of 8.5 for lyrics, you can assume mostly everyone thought you did well there, but if you are consistently getting 3s or 4s for production, you can at least know that's an area that could use more work?), beyond just the overall "you got a 7.33 on this song"?

Aciniform Artifice wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 24, 2024 9:20 am

I don't know if posting the full chart of rankings for each dimension from each judge would be useful or if it would be information overload -- but perhaps an average of all judges' scores for each of the elements (for example if you find you had an average of 8.5 for lyrics, you can assume mostly everyone thought you did well there, but if you are consistently getting 3s or 4s for production, you can at least know that's an area that could use more work?), beyond just the overall "you got a 7.33 on this song"?

Yeah, this is more of what I was looking for.

Yeah I think with all of these competitions, like most of the competitors are at least nominally adults, regardless of how emotionally frozen some of us may be (this is mostly a comment about myself), and most of us are looking for feedback, and not necessarily validation. I recognize that this might be a wildly overoptimistic statement, but at the same time what's most useful to me is knowing the thought train behind why someone liked or didn't like something, which gives me the ability to evaluate how much I want to use that criticism when I go back to the songs, and/or more importantly, how to use that criticism. So basically I think maybe some more depth in the reviewing would be grand if that's possible, even if it's just seeing your scores by category as previously suggested.

I didn't find the three day wait for the next title/challenge particularly useful, personally, especially with the way the cycle didn't always give me a weekend in the best spot to work on music. I think that we were the only act to enter as a collaborative band effort, and so the time was maybe more an issue for us.

Given that the oblique strategies are oblique, I don't know that I felt that having them as a scored challenge category felt entirely right to me, like, OTOH I get it, but also like, I don't know, I feel like a creative prompt or strategy to shape your approach is not the same thing as a challenge, call me crazy. Oh I guess I'm on a similar page with Jeff about this.

Anyway, I usually end up participating in these things for fun and feedback, and much less so for some sense of competitiveness, that's where I'm coming from with these thoughts.

1- Anonymous judges I don't like. I'd like to know who to write for. A lot of songwriting is knowing your audience.

2- Oblique Strategies are okay, but I like Nur Ein/ Spin Tunes challenges a lot more.

3- Running it at the same time as Spin Tunes was cruel, and such a strange choice.

4- 3 days of down time. That always drove me nuts when it was part of Nur Ein. There's no reason for it. These contests are not our primary purpose in life, so all the time we can get, helps with when there is possibly time to work on a song. I've never been upset that I started a song, then found out i was eliminated, and that's the worst case scenario.

5- Reviews should be required, this is a big positive of Spin Tunes, and a big problem with Nur Ein

glennny wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 25, 2024 5:07 pm

1- Anonymous judges I don't like. I'd like to know who to write for. A lot of songwriting is knowing your audience.

2- Oblique Strategies are okay, but I like Nur Ein/ Spin Tunes challenges a lot more.

3- Running it at the same time as Spin Tunes was cruel, and such a strange choice.

4- 3 days of down time. That always drove me nuts when it was part of Nur Ein. There's no reason for it. These contests are not our primary purpose in life, so all the time we can get, helps with when there is possibly time to work on a song. I've never been upset that I started a song, then found out i was eliminated, and that's the worst case scenario.

5- Reviews should be required, this is a big positive of Spin Tunes, and a big problem with Nur Ein

I can see this competition has really negatively affected you. It must have been difficult for you. Oh wait, you didn’t do it.

Feedback from those who chose not to participate can be valuable as well, especially if that feedback directly relates to something that may have kept them from participating...

glennny wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 25, 2024 5:07 pm

1- Anonymous judges I don't like. I'd like to know who to write for. A lot of songwriting is knowing your audience.

I think the solution to that is, write for yourself. Either way you'll have some new songs. And either way, you'll probably lose.

Lunkhead wrote:

I think the solution to that is, write for yourself. Either way you'll have some new songs. And either way, you'll probably lose.

Then isn't that just the regular fight?

Aciniform Artifice wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 26, 2024 7:34 am

Feedback from those who chose not to participate can be valuable as well, especially if that feedback directly relates to something that may have kept them from participating...

I agree. I take issue with the phrase “cruel and a strange choice,” which I think can be applied equally to glennny’s post.

A few negatives - The schedule being 9 days really was a challenge. It's difficult have a regular time for a listening party to promote within the 3-day judging window. A 9-day repeating window will cause that, but I get you wanted to shake things up.

So, it became Tuesday, Tuesday, Thursday, skip a week, Monday, Monday, Thursday over 2 months which is tough for an audience to find and listen to.

I've settled into Monday evenings to play most of the LPs because other contests are due Sunday night 11:59pm. I'm up to about 30/yr now.
Not that you need to change dates, but if the goal is comradery and Chat feedback during the live show, we weren't successful with a lot of people dropping in live, but did have people listening after the show. Thank you to those contestants who did hang out and post feedback in the chats. I got some great tips on older groups in the SF archives! No one posted comments on the songs after the fact.

And for participating, it seems like weekends are the only free time BYD has to work in the studio, so we're limited in time/energy on getting a tune together. Not everyone's issue, but a challenge for us to get a finished song out.

BoffoYux wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 27, 2024 12:13 pm

A few negatives - The schedule being 9 days really was a challenge. It's difficult have a regular time for a listening party to promote within the 3-day judging window. A 9-day repeating window will cause that, but I get you wanted to shake things up.

Yeah, I would love to know from the artists' perspective how they felt about the schedule. Specifically, if they had enough time to write. Would it have made a difference if it were five days instead of six? Could the judges have finished their scores and reviews in two days? That's what it would take to get to a weekly schedule.

I was hoping the three days off would encourage listening and reviewing by the contestant themselves. Some of that happened, but not much. It was mostly quiet on the boards during the layoffs. I also hoped having a couple of days to disconnect from the competition might be nice, but maybe that slows one's momentum. I would like to hear more about this from the artists.

Thank you for the feedback, BoffoYux!

The 3-day gap didn't bother me. I like the intention for us to do reviews, and I wish I had, but I often used that time to get psyched up to do another song, especially if my previous one wasn't received well.

In terms of numbers of days, I don't really mind, as I mentioned above, my note about this was more about having a weekend inside the deadline, which I think was only a problem once, maybe twice because I think one round started on a weekend and so coordinating for us was a little more difficult that week also. It wasn't like, a competition-ending type problem for us though, and now having been through it once, probably I'd be more ready for it. Like, Songfight also has deadlines on whatever day, but I guess I was just in the mode of familiarity with other round by round competitions. But if it had been for sure 3 days to deliver or whatever, I probably would've been fine as solo act, but tbh as a group, Evermind and I probably would've washed out early too by missing a deadline.

As also noted above, in the Somesongs cycle we had, I would've preferred the new challenge/title to come out with the current round's songs going up, because for me anyway I didn't feel like it made a difference for my process in either reviewing or songmaking. I can see arguments against this, and I'm just spitballing here, but in order to encourage both reviews and participation even from dropping out rounds, maybe something like, if you review every round, you get to have a chance to make up a lost round or something. I recognize that there's no really uncomplicated and totally fair way to do that, because the people who did get their songs in on time shouldn't feel like they're losing out either, but maybe there's something there, maybe not.

mo wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 02, 2024 12:09 pm

It wasn't like, a competition-ending type problem for us though...

Yeah, I guess not since YOU WON.

mo wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 02, 2024 12:09 pm

But if it had been for sure 3 days to deliver or whatever, I probably would've been fine as solo act, but tbh as a group, Evermind and I probably would've washed out early too by missing a deadline.

The only way to do a 7-day cycle that's even remotely fair to the participants is to have five days of writing and two days of judging. One thing that has occasionally bothered me about some of the other competitions is delayed results. We got our ratings in on time, every time (+ or - a reasonable margin of error) and I hope that didn't go unnoticed. But if we had only had two days, we probably would have failed at least once.

mo wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 02, 2024 12:09 pm

I can see arguments against this, and I'm just spitballing here, but in order to encourage both reviews and participation even from dropping out rounds, maybe something like, if you review every round, you get to have a chance to make up a lost round or something.

I would never implement something like this. Reviews can't factor into the results. I can already see it now:

• ADD - sucked
• Caravan Ray - blimy
• Glenn Case - meh
• The Idiot Kings - 6/10
• Tomorrow - wtf

Okay, I reviewed - I'm back in the game!