The Song Fight Bulletin Board

This is the Nein thread, for anyone who isn't in Nur Ein III or was in but got kicked out, and who for whatever reason is writing songs against the titles and challenges anyway.

My Round Zero non-entry "Kick Start", which didn't make it because I missed the deadline and sent it to the wrong email address.

My Round One non-entry "Sleepwalking". My wife preferred this version over a straight ukulele version (with bridge) and a creepy version.

My Round Two non-entry "Unnatural Disaster", which does not have the non-optional challenge (as I was on vacation for most of the week, and family trumps songwriting) -- also, there's something painfully wrong with my "good" microphone, so I FX'd up the vocal and will be replacing the mic shortly. Oh, and I tried something with my voice that didn't really work. But hey, live and learn.

And here's my 'Kick Start' for reasons previously stated on another thread in another universe....

Nur Ein is a warzone - when you get shot, you can't get back up and still tag along with the living. That's just not how it works.

Or maybe I'm the only one who hates this idea.

This reminds me of The Legion of Substitute Heroes, they saved the Earth once too in the future.

Reïst wrote:Nur Ein is a warzone - when you get shot, you can't get back up and still tag along with the living. That's just not how it works.

Or maybe I'm the only one who hates this idea.

I think you're probably overreacting a bit. Why would you ever discourage someone from writing a song? That seems pretty selfish and narrow-minded. If SongFight is truly the "community" everyone makes it out to be, you should be more supportive.

Make good music.

It's a simple mantra. For us songfighters, it's what we hope to do. It's what we hope that the other songfighters do. If the non-Nur Ein players wanna mirror it, if they wanna play along without the glory but simply for the fun and the love of song, there's only one thing I can say...

Make good music.

Reïst wrote: Or maybe I'm the only one who hates this idea.

I think you are. FBF hit the nail on the head - "Why would you ever discourage someone from writing a song?"

In fact - I think it would be good if there were for some reason excessive "no shows" in the real Nur Ein (ie 5 were to be cut, but 6 people actually didn't enter) - then someone from here could get a 'wildcard' entry back in.

Reïst wrote:If you write songs for later rounds and you're no longer in Nur Ein, I don't want to see them posted anywhere near the Nur Ein threads - because then there's no reason to remain in the competition.

You nutcase, they're not "remaining in the competition". Their just using the titles and challenges as inspiration. To bring it closer to home, if I missed a Frenzy deadline (which I most certainly would if I ever tried) would you get all up in my grill if I posted my self-hosted late song, just as proof that I'd recorded something? Well, maybe you would.

EDIT: I mostly posted this because I wanted to say "get all up in my grill"

Yeah! You nutcase!

It's obvious that I'm in the minority here. I just feel (from this thread and the situations surrounding late entries to Round Zero) that many people want Nur Ein to be a feel-good competition where even if you enter late you can survive, or if you're eliminated you still can still win "in your heart" by following alongside the remaining contestants. I don't like the idea because I love the competitive spirit of Nur Ein. I like the idea of being left behind and trampled by the cold, harsh elements if the judges hate my song - that's what motivates me to write better songs each year for the competition. Sorry to disappoint, but I'm neither selfish or narrow minded, as so bluntly put by FBF. I just have differing views on what makes good competition.

If I run the Boston marathon, I'm not really competing to win, am I? There are guys from Kenya to do that. And the men and women, though they run the same race, are competing in a gender-specific manner even as they run with the crowd.

I guess we don't need to beat up on you any more, but for some reason I felt compelled to weigh in on the side that thinks "more power to 'em".

And to call you a nutcase one more time.

What makes the Nein songs different from the Nur Ein songs, other than ineligibility in the competition:

1. They are self-hosted, rather than hosted by the sponsor, Niveous.
2. They are not listed in the official Nur Ein III-Round X thread
3. They are not listed on the the Nur Ein blog at http://nur-ein.livejournal.com/
4. Listening by the judges is optional
5. They are unlikely to be reviewed along with the others

I like JB's Marathon analogy. There are often people who run alongside for part of the course. No one pays much attention to how they do, and they usually drop out after a bit. What's the harm?

SPUD

Adam! wrote:if I missed a Frenzy deadline (which I most certainly would if I ever tried) would you get all up in my grill if I posted my self-hosted late song, just as proof that I'd recorded something? Well, maybe you would.

Feel free to post late entries to (euro/swap)Frenzies! (You can even submit them the normal way) You don't get voted on if you submit late, but you'll probably get reviewed anyway. Of course, if it's me running it, you might get a couple of sarcy comments.
The last Official Radnoise 55 minute Frenzy was 155hours long.

Personally, I like the idea of Nein, (Love German, Love wordplay) but I can't imagine where people get the time for to make all these songs. I guess that's why the songfight review threads are a bit sparse right now.

If Reist does Frenzies instead of Nein when/if he drops out - then I fully support his position. For him.

Reïst wrote:It's obvious that I'm in the minority here. I just feel (from this thread and the situations surrounding late entries to Round Zero) that many people want Nur Ein to be a feel-good competition where even if you enter late you can survive, or if you're eliminated you still can still win "in your heart" by following alongside the remaining contestants.

Here's the thing: if a contestant is eliminated in a given round, but then continues to write songs and show them to people for subsequent rounds, there is 1) nothing that can be done to prevent that, and 2) no way that the post-elimination songs can affect the official contest. For example, if there are 15 songs left in Nur Ein for a given round, and 3 other songs floating around with the same title, then the only thing that will determine who goes on to the next round is the comparitive rankings of the 15 official songs. If those 3 songs are (to everyone who hears them) undeniably better than any of the other 15 songs, it doesn't matter, because 1) they're uneligible to win, and 2) songs are given a score based on how much a judge likes the song compared to the other songs. If the songs were given a score from 1-10, I think you would have a point, because hearing a really good non-official entry might "blow the curve" as it were for the official entries. But these are like people auditing a class: they won't affect the rankings of the people actually in the class in any way.

erik wrote:But these are like people auditing a class: they won't affect the rankings of the people actually in the class in any way.

That's an excellent analogy. Reist, do you also think these castaways should not be allowed to listen to and review the songs? After all, this is a "war zone" and they're "dead." These words and sentiments may come back to haunt you if you make it to the final round when their "ghosts" get to determine the winner!

When I get knocked out, I will post a song for the next title here - and I will tell all who I can get to listen to me "...my song is heaps better than that other shit, those judges are all idiots...", and claim a moral victory.

frankie big face wrote:

erik wrote:But these are like people auditing a class: they won't affect the rankings of the people actually in the class in any way.

That's an excellent analogy. Reist, do you also think these castaways should not be allowed to listen to and review the songs? After all, this is a "war zone" and they're "dead." These words and sentiments may come back to haunt you if you make it to the final round when their "ghosts" get to determine the winner!

That's a good idea. Could we actually kill the people who get knocked out? It would give the whole thing more street-cred. I'm just thinking out loud here....

Caravan Ray wrote:

frankie big face wrote:

erik wrote:But these are like people auditing a class: they won't affect the rankings of the people actually in the class in any way.

That's an excellent analogy. Reist, do you also think these castaways should not be allowed to listen to and review the songs? After all, this is a "war zone" and they're "dead." These words and sentiments may come back to haunt you if you make it to the final round when their "ghosts" get to determine the winner!

That's a good idea. Could we actually kill the people who get knocked out? It would give the whole thing more street-cred. I'm just thinking out loud here....

....

*looks around*

I'm... going to go hide now...

EmbersOfAutumn wrote:....

*looks around*

I'm... going to go hide now...

For what it's worth...

Reist said: I just feel (from this thread and the situations surrounding late entries to Round Zero) that many people want Nur Ein to be a feel-good competition where even if you enter late you can survive, or if you're eliminated you still can still win "in your heart" by following alongside the remaining contestants. I don't like the idea because I love the competitive spirit of Nur Ein. I like the idea of being left behind and trampled by the cold, harsh elements if the judges hate my song - that's what motivates me to write better songs each year for the competition.

I actually don't disagree with you entirely. I certainly don't want it to be a feel-good competition, and if I were in it I'd be strongly against anything like the wildcard entry mentioned earlier -- Nur Ein is a competition in a way that SongFight! itself isn't, in that if you make it to the end you can feel a genuine, hard-won accomplishment. The funny thing, though, is that for me being in a side-thread like this is actually *more* motivational than SongFight! itself right now, because I'll get as much attention paid to my song as I would in the normal SongFight (which is to say not much) but I'll feel like a failure if I don't stick it out for the full duration of Nur Ein.

So if SongFight! is a class at community college, and Nur Ein is joining the army, for me this thread is a personal fitness regimen modeled after army basic training -- and hopefully one that will help me be up the challenge of Nur Ein VI. How's that?

Note: not slagging on SongFight! proper here, just making the community college comparison because it's open to all and the requirements for entry/competition are not particularly stringent. Generally speaking, that's a good thing.

frankie big face wrote:That's an excellent analogy. Reist, do you also think these castaways should not be allowed to listen to and review the songs? After all, this is a "war zone" and they're "dead." These words and sentiments may come back to haunt you if you make it to the final round when their "ghosts" get to determine the winner!

I've got two guesses I'll make here -

1. I probably won't make it to the final round.
2. Whether or not people like me or my opinions should not affect what they think of my song. That would just be stupid.

Go ahead with your nein mini-competition. It's not like I can stop you or anything.

Reïst wrote:It's obvious that I'm in the minority here.

Nah...... Melvin, Adam and Mark are from Canada too.