The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Congratulations to everyone who entered Round Zero! You move on to round one by default!

Title: The Average Circus
Non Optional Challenge: Use something from your garbage bin as an instrument
Songs are Due on: Monday, April 27th @ 12:01 AM EDT
Send your MP3 to nurein.sidefight@gmail.com

NUR EIN!

Did you hear that? T'was the sound of Kimi face-palming

We didn't have you in mind when we came up with it, but yes, it seems like a pretty good fit for you, doesn't it?

Hah, guess I should have been slightly less impatient. Love the challenge on this one. Gonna go trashpicking. Hopefully my roommates don't wake up and think I've gone crazy(er).

For this challenge, we went through a few variations on the verbiage to discourage loopholing. Here's a bit of clarification:

This is an open-ended challenge and I don't wish to influence the competitors by suggesting some of the items you might use. There are certain objects I anticipate we'll hear a lot of, but I'm looking forward to some of you guys finding ways to surprise us.

Personally, I don't care if you have to "bend the truth" a bit about what was in your garbage bin, so long as something is audible that sounds like it might have come from a trash can. So if you happen to use something for your recording before[/b] it actually ends up in your rubbish, just know that I won't care one way or the other.

Here are some of the possible loopholes that the challenge is worded to discourage: Telling us you just happened to throw away your perfectly good guitar (or worse, telling us that you threw away some guitar picks, then retrieved them to pick your guitar with). Sampling Shirley Manson's band Garbage. Using files from your computer's "Trash" folder. These things are not likely to curry favor from the judges.

I can't think of any classic songs (Song Fight, Nur Ein, or otherwise) that have garbage instruments, but I'd love it if some of you could think of some examples and post them here.

Good luck, and NUR EIN!

Found the perfect instrument in the garbage.

I just spent the weekend in Nevada, there's a lot more stuff that goes in the trash in Nevada than back here in California. So forgive the California question, but does the a Recycling bin count? Does the compost bin count ? Recycling bin has a lot of cardboard and bottles and cans that would be great for this challenge, but alas they are in my recycling bin.

Thanks

I'm cool with recycling bins and compost. To me, it's more important that you repurpose something discarded than that it literally come from a garbage can.

Recycling bin is fine.

So glad I am not competing this year. It is really hard to get a decent sound out of used condoms and fag ends without ending up sounding like Phil Collins.

Generic wrote:Congratulations to everyone who entered Round Zero! You move on to round one by default!

Title: The Average Circus
Non Optional Challenge: Use something from your garbage bin as an instrument
Songs are Due on: Monday, April 27th @ 12:01 AM EDT
Send your MP3 to nurein.sidefight@gmail.com

NUR EIN!

Does this mean I am in round 1, too? I thought about entering... I even wrote lyrics. My daughter was going to sing on the track. We just couldn't get the tune right. I'll submit two songs this week. Any of these pulling at your heartstrings?

-jd0

johndisk0 wrote:

Generic wrote:Congratulations to everyone who entered Round Zero! You move on to round one by default!

Title: The Average Circus
Non Optional Challenge: Use something from your garbage bin as an instrument
Songs are Due on: Monday, April 27th @ 12:01 AM EDT
Send your MP3 to nurein.sidefight@gmail.com

NUR EIN!

Does this mean I am in round 1, too? I thought about entering... I even wrote lyrics. My daughter was going to sing on the track. We just couldn't get the tune right. I'll submit two songs this week. Any of these pulling at your heartstrings?

-jd0

Strictly speaking - no. If you didn't enter a song for round zero - you are out.
Having said that though - I am a judge, and I am a kind hearted soul who would probably let you get away with what you propose.

Some of the other judges however are compete bastards. I wouldn't trust that Johnny Cashpoint as far as I could throw him.

Caravan Ray is correct. We are short of the usual 25, so I briefly entertained the notion of letting you compete, but in the end it just wouldn't be fair to anyone else who didn't get a Round 0 entry submitted in time. Sorry johndisk. Feel free to work on songs and post them as shadow entries (also known as "Nein" entries)!

just for future Round 0 reference... I Couldn't Get The "tune" right either. Yet there it sits. Just go for it! Do the thing!
NUR EIN!! / NEIN

Generic wrote:I can't think of any classic songs (Song Fight, Nur Ein, or otherwise) that have garbage instruments, but I'd love it if some of you could think of some examples and post them here.

I used garbage for the percussion instruments on "Sunny Again" and "Fool In the Middle," and I bet some of the "New Planet" entries did too.

This title really rocks. My song is coming along well and I even managed to get some good drum sounds out of a crisp packet and a torn up bank statement. I think it's almost all written now, just got to try and get it all recorded tomorrow morning - I'm away the rest of the week.

I hope we get more titles and more challenges like this one. Really good shout by whoever came up with them.

I agree. I thought this would just turn into another spoon and bottle fest, but I got some really nice samples from a bin that don't sound too kitchy at all.

adamadamant wrote: I hope we get more titles and more challenges like this one. Really good shout by whoever came up with them.

Well - I don't think I am breaking any confidences to tell you where the title came from.

I used a random internet "song title generator".

It returned: The Average Circus

*So* like a dog between two bones for this title. 'Cept with a better end result (I hope).

Thank you Internet Gods of Randomosity!

I suppose this just goes to show once again that the judges are less useful than a random number generator. Perhaps we should do the scores like that too? (Please don't break any confidences this time! For the sake of my sanity.)

Caravan Ray wrote:

adamadamant wrote: I hope we get more titles and more challenges like this one. Really good shout by whoever came up with them.

Well - I don't think I am breaking any confidences to tell you where the title came from.

I used a random internet "song title generator".

It returned: The Average Circus

Bear in mind, it also took a panel of human judges to look at the list of randomly generated titles and unanimously agree that that title was one of the best that had been proposed.

And to match it to a challenge.

And to run the entrants through a random number generator rank the competitors when the songs are turned in.

This is hard work!

Generic wrote: This is hard work!

Which is why I took the year off.

Generic wrote:Here are some of the possible loopholes that the challenge is worded to discourage: Telling us you just happened to throw away your perfectly good guitar (or worse, telling us that you threw away some guitar picks, then retrieved them to pick your guitar with). Sampling Shirley Manson's band Garbage. Using files from your computer's "Trash" folder. These things are not likely to curry favor from the judges.

What about trash talking, would that qualify as meeting the challenge?