The Song Fight Bulletin Board

The Jury has selected the title:

Title: "Ties of Blood and Water"
Due Date: June 4th at 1PM EST
Challenge: Must include three different tempos
Send a copy of your completed song to nurein.sidefight@gmail.com

Adam Adamant
Billy's Little Trip
Bryan Kandel
Frankie Big Face
Glenn & Rachael
John Benjamin Band
Ken Mahru
Paco del Stinko
Ross Durand
The Worldly Self Assurance

STREAM ALL

The Jury will now deliberate. The Jury's decision as well as the new title will be posted on June 7th at 1PM(EST).

WE ARE HALFWAY THROUGH THE BATTLE!!! NUR EIN!!!!

I see a little silhouetto of a man, Scaramouch, scaramouch will you do the fandango.
Cool, fun challenge.
NUR EIN!

This may seem like a stupid question, but do you really mean three significant changes in tempo or three total tempoes (i.e. two changes)?

Actually - the way it is written you could have only 2 tempos, but change back and forth a total of three times. I wondered if they meant four total tempos.

As it reads, it sounds like 3 changes. Therefore you may possibly get away with only 2 different tempos as long as it goes forth and back and forth.

I interpret it as three different tempos within one song. Which must be the reason that Bohemian Rhapsody came to mind.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:I interpret it as three different tempos within one song. Which must be the reason that Bohemian Rhapsody came to mind.

Give BLT a kewpie doll. That's what we meant. Three different tempos.

Three different tempos, y'all.

Niv, can you edit that first post? Grazie.

Heyyyy, we're in sync!

Niveous wrote:

Billy's Little Trip wrote:I interpret it as three different tempos within one song. Which must be the reason that Bohemian Rhapsody came to mind.

Give BLT a kewpie doll. That's what we meant. Three different tempos.

.....

Okay cool. I'm going to use quarter note=132, 133, and 134. No wait, 131!

frankie big face wrote:Okay cool. I'm going to use quarter note=132, 133, and 134. No wait, 131!

The challenge says it must be "significant", so I'd say 131, 133, and 135 at least.

What if I have two against three at the same time? That's two tempos at once.

jb wrote:

frankie big face wrote:Okay cool. I'm going to use quarter note=132, 133, and 134. No wait, 131!

The challenge says it must be "significant", so I'd say 131, 133, and 135 at least.

What if I have two against three at the same time? That's two tempos at once.

jb - I'm surprised - that would of course be multiple meters.

Ross wrote:

jb wrote:

frankie big face wrote:Okay cool. I'm going to use quarter note=132, 133, and 134. No wait, 131!

The challenge says it must be "significant", so I'd say 131, 133, and 135 at least.

What if I have two against three at the same time? That's two tempos at once.

jb - I'm surprised - that would of course be multiple meters.

Yeah but the result is a different BPM for each meter. I guess the key is "changes"-- so to pull this off (not that I'm inclined to try) I'd have to have two parts, one for each meter, and then have them switch, resulting in a tempo change for each part.

jb wrote:

Ross wrote:

jb wrote:
The challenge says it must be "significant", so I'd say 131, 133, and 135 at least.

What if I have two against three at the same time? That's two tempos at once.

jb - I'm surprised - that would of course be multiple meters.

Yeah but the result is a different BPM for each meter. I guess the key is "changes"-- so to pull this off (not that I'm inclined to try) I'd have to have two parts, one for each meter, and then have them switch, resulting in a tempo change for each part.

By that standard I could go from 4/4 to 2/2 and change the tempo so that the rhythms line up and cal it a tempo change. Yes?

Ross wrote:

jb wrote: I guess the key is "changes"-- so to pull this off (not that I'm inclined to try) I'd have to have two parts, one for each meter, and then have them switch, resulting in a tempo change for each part.

By that standard I could go from 4/4 to 2/2 and change the tempo so that the rhythms line up and cal it a tempo change. Yes?

Nah, 'cause we already got word from Lunkhead that going from halftime to fulltime doesn't fulfill the challenge. I think the only thing to do is use three separate BPM tempi somehow in the song.

jb wrote:

Ross wrote:[
By that standard I could go from 4/4 to 2/2 and change the tempo so that the rhythms line up and cal it a tempo change. Yes?

Nah, 'cause we already got word from Lunkhead that going from halftime to fulltime doesn't fulfill the challenge. I think the only thing to do is use three separate BPM tempi somehow in the song.

I didn't see that post, thanks for the clarification

But I guess we're also clear that meter change - 3 to 4 doesn't count either if the quarter stays the same? yeah?

Ross wrote:

jb wrote:

Ross wrote:[
By that standard I could go from 4/4 to 2/2 and change the tempo so that the rhythms line up and cal it a tempo change. Yes?

Nah, 'cause we already got word from Lunkhead that going from halftime to fulltime doesn't fulfill the challenge. I think the only thing to do is use three separate BPM tempi somehow in the song.

I didn't see that post, thanks for the clarification

But I guess we're also clear that meter change - 3 to 4 doesn't count either if the quarter stays the same? yeah?

I can't speak for the judges of course, but I'm operating on that assumption until informed differently. Rhythmic feel != tempo.

jb wrote:Nah, 'cause we already got word from Lunkhead that going from halftime to fulltime doesn't fulfill the challenge.

That's stupid. That is a significant tempo change. These challenges just get better and better!

I'm sure I'll get flamed for saying that (and what I'm about to say), but I don't remember having any confusion (okay, very little) or difficulty with the challenges last year. No guitars? Easy. Only guitars? Also easy. Changing time signatures? I get it. And when I say easy, I don't mean "easy to pull off," I mean "easy to understand." When you only have a few days to write and record the songs, it would be nice if you knew by say, the end of the first day, what the non-optional challenge actually means. It makes educated and proficient musicians feel like idiots when they have to constantly rethink themselves and ask questions about the challenge.

What if you don't read every post ever made on the message board? It's conceivable that someone read the challenge, started working on their song, made a tempo change from q=140 to q=70 (which is a legitimate change in tempo and feel, even if it is commonplace) and will now get eliminated because a judge didn't think that was a legitimate interpretation of the challenge. It's just wrong people. IT'S WRONG! :insert one of BLT's outraged smilies:

P.S. JB, I don't see a post from Lunkhead stating this. Is this from IRC or some other private conversation you had with him? Are we supposed to READ HIS MIND????

I don't know where the Lunkhead comment came from and I'm sorry there's any confusion.

It's three significant changes in beats per minute.

Does that mean a change from 2/2 to 4/4 would count? As long as there's a change in BPM.

Can you change by 1 beat per minute. No, that wouldn't really be significant. Make it easily noticeable by the jury. No one is going to sit there and process the BPMs in your song.

Were the challenges easier to interpret last time? Yes but they were bound to get more complicated as Nur Ein's went by. But i'm pretty sure the next challenge will be very very straight forward. Right, RG?

Niveous wrote: Were the challenges easier to interpret last time? Yes

As long as people are bringing it up - I'm not sure I agree with this. Although I can't think of a time that anyone has been absolutely DSQ-ed for not doing the challenge. In the no-guitars challenge I got some crap for using a dulcimer - which is absolutely not a guitar - but folks loved Glennny's mandolin. In the "Let me in" round Merisan got away with tambourine and bongos even though we were to use no conventional percussion. Jim even used hand claps, which had already been discussed on the boards as not okay.

The challenges seem to have always been slightly vague and broadly interpreted - these days I take it as my responsibility to be clear to the judges that I am trying to meet the spirit of the challenge. I was more troubled to the see the challenge actually change in wording that changed its meaning.

PS - I was kidding about the 4/4, 2/2 thing based on the idea that you could do this on paper with no perceived change on the part of the listener, you just go from quarter=120 to half =60. It was just a joke.

frankie big face wrote:It's just wrong people. IT'S WRONG! :insert one of BLT's outraged smilies:

...by the way, I'm just going to have 3 obvious tempo changes that rock, come up with a sweet bridge that rocks, repeat. If I try to over complicate it, I'll fuck it up like I did with my Brownie Points song last year.

Does it have to be exactly three different tempos or can there be more, or at least more changes between the three? I get the feeling this is fine but please speak now because otherwise I might do it!