Why aren't you starting your own SongFight! type site?

Post by **Lunkhead** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 12:25 pm

Personally, SongFight! is good enough for me.

john m · Post by **john m** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 12:39 pm

The titles and dwindling community have chased me away from participation, but I don't have the time/money/desire to do anything about it.

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 12:41 pm

Dwindling community. How so?

john m · Post by **john m** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 1:01 pm

Stated without any "I'm fucking old-school" self-fulfillment, the community isn't nearly as good as the old days. Reviews are too careful, newbies don't really learn anything, there is no more close-knit feeling of half-competition and half-support. While the multiple fights were derived out of perceived necessity, it led to the low quality of the titles that we've had for so long, and that leads to worse music. (Yes, I'm the first person to laud Frank for Crinkle Binkle, but the point still stands that most of the time, bad titles lead to difficulty writing good songs.) There's also a ton of useless drama over things that should never warrant it, and it's driven several quality people away from the site.

That might elicit some negative responses from some of you, but keep in mind that I am still here to even type this post, and have stayed with this community for five years now. I voted the way I did because I have enough issues not to give a vote of unabashed support, but I am obviously still loyal to this place.

Post by **Lunkhead** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 1:23 pm

I hear what you're saying, John, though I haven't been around as long as you have. I don't want to get into the title quality debate as there is a whole thread for that topic, but personally I don't think the quality of the titles has been lowered that much (at least not consistently) for the sake of quantity. It's been 7 months since we had anything as virtually unworkable, in my opinion, as Rockopolous yadda yadda. Barring the title issue, I think the fluctuation in the quality of people/participation/songs, beyond being pretty subjective, is just an element of the site being open to practically any and all comers.

Post by **Spud** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 1:25 pm

I tend to agree with Lunkhead. The multiple titles give you more choices, not less. I am saddened that the antics of a few have driven away some quality people. But there is ebb and flow. We have some new quality people, too. Get to know them, John.

Niveous · Post by **Niveous** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 1:36 pm

Okay, I can understand your feelings. There has been a change in the feeling of the boards. It was bound to happen. Nothing stays the same forever.

As for the reviews, that's easy to fix. Do more reviews yourself and don't be careful about it. It's called SongFight for a reason. It's not meant to be a mutual head club. Give out good constructive criticism whenever you can.

The lack of competition feeling...I feel that one too. I think part of that comes from the almost randominess of the voter participation. One fight can have 90 votes while another has only 36. That doesn't help the feeling of competition. And for a long time, SF has had the view that it's not the votes that matter, it's the reviews (thanks to various friend floods) and when the reviews drop off, it hurts the competition aspect. If you're not getting the reviews and the votes don't matter- what are you playing for?

I disagree with the statement on the newbies. We are getting better and better newbies all the time. And they are learning. Look at someone like Jolly Roger. His music is growing all the time and his experience in SF is helping that.

Title quality is up for debate. Occasionally they get really weird but as you know good things can come out of that weirdness. I know the SF song I've been listening to the most lately is "Applesauce Baptism" by Those Meddling Kids. When that title came around I literally said "what the fuck". But then the song came out and there were some really good ones. Plus, with there being 3 fights, there is a lot of chances that there will be a title you'll like.

And I think the support aspect is still there. As noted all over this forum previously, I have been struggling with music since being in the hospital. When I went to SF:Wayne, I felt so reinvigorated. It was great to be around fellow musicians. There was so much support and love for the music. It was great. I can't wait for the next one (who's up for a SF:NJ?).

Nothing's perfect but SF is pretty good.

Post by **Lunkhead** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 1:46 pm

So, whoever voted "I actually am starting/have started my own site, please see thread for my URL", want to give us the URL so we can check it out? Or were you just fucking around?

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 2:42 pm

I'm puzzled by the "bad title" comments. I really don't think there is such a thing as a bad title. Are "Space Oddity", or "Bohemian Rhapsody", or "Monkey Gone To Heaven" good titles?

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 2:57 pm

Niveous wrote:It's not meant to be a mutual head club. Give out good constructive criticism whenever you can.

I think that SF has become a mutual head club, at least with regards to the opinion that the community members should actively encourage doing reviews, which are almost always done as critiques. Needling people into giving "constructive criticism" leads to people constantly thinking of how to justify their opinions, and to constantly looking for negative things to say about songs, so that they can say how to fix them. It makes for shitty reviews. I'm not even suggesting that everyone should focus on the positive instead, that would suck too. I think people should focus on whether they like the song or not, without getting so damn hung up on being able to suggest ways to change the song.

"Strongly encouraging" constructive criticism leads to the idea that SF is a workshop for songs/musicians that need assistance. That leads to more people submitting songs of merely-average quality, which in turn leads new people to think that they can enter their songs-of-average-quality, and then there are alot more bland songs on SF.

Which may not bother people who care about reviews and support and making people better musicians and blahblahblahblahblbhablhalhblah, but some people just want to roll up and have their good song compared against 12 other good songs and a week later be presented with a number which represents how many people thought that their song was better than all the other good songs.

Are there cool new people at songfight? Yes
Is songfight broken? No
Is songfight different than it used to be? Sure
Do the attitudes of messageboard users affect the mean and mode for the quality of SF entries? Arguably yes
Is the opinion that SF should promote constructive criticism going to be an easy one for dissenters to change, given the number of people that are so vocal about expressing this opinion? Not easy, and urguably impossible

Paco Del Stinko · Post by **Paco Del Stinko** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 4:40 pm

From a less than stellar new guy: I hate to sound defensive, hopefully explanatory. I know that I'm no musical genius, but hope that I can contribute or offer something here. Whether a riff, tone, suggestion, mood. etc. I entertain no thoughts of winning by vote count, but rather winning by learning, enjoying, competing.

Not wanting to alienate myself from a community that I basically invited myself into, my reviews and comments are nearly nauseating in their positivity. This is not to be phoney, I am a cornball, but meant to be polite and not to kick open the door yelling 'Fuck YOU' to everyone in the room. We all can be nasty as needed, and a certain amount of ball-busting should probably be received by all, but you gotta have someone to talk to. (?)

I spent years writing songs to titles and was struck numb when I saw this site earlier this year. I hope that I am just getting going here and to improve on my skills both weak and strong, musically and socially. Won't always be pretty, and I expect to get slammed, but it'll be fun. I look at criticism as advice anyhow. The many people that blow me away are inspiring and I respect their talents while hoping to do the best that I can, even if it ends up as just competent this time around. Next one'll be better.

Sorry to ramble, I'll be glad to clarify or ...whatever. Lemme know what I can do to help. Thanks!

john m · Post by **john m** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 5:28 pm

I have nothing against being positive, but there are times when a song is -bad- and its writer isn't called out on it, and I can't stand to see that. I am a (the?) prime example of how someone can go from putrid to good through SongFight, and I damn sure didn't change through "it's not my kind of music, but I can see what you were going for! nice try!" reviews. I changed because of jeff's two-sentence review of a cover of mine: "nice arrangement. your vocals are terrible." Succinct, accurate, helpful. I'm not advocating being an asshole just for the sake of it; I'm advocating honesty, no matter how bad someone is. If people would just call it like it is, we'd have a whole lot fewer shitty mumbling-over-bleeps-and-bloops submissions. (I should know; that's how I started.)

Paco Del Stinko · Post by **Paco Del Stinko** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 6:20 pm

john m said:

Succinct, accurate, helpful. I'm not advocating being an asshole just for the sake of it; I'm advocating honesty, no matter how bad someone is.

I agree completely. I admit to contributing to the 'saw what you were going for' bit, and probably will again, as often all that you are presented with is a rough idea. I will, however, make an attempt to be more plain-spoken and direct, both approaches that I appreciate when directed towards me. I'm doing reviews tomorrow, and would gladly accept a review review.

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 6:23 pm

erik wrote:I think people should focus on whether they like the song or not, without getting so damn hung up on being able to suggest ways to change the song.

Is it impossible to do both? Wait, that sounds more dialog-y than I intended; I think it is possible to do both. See John M's example.

But more importantly, I think people should review songs the way they would like their songs to be reviewed. Makes sense to me.

Post by **Lunkhead** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 6:26 pm

This is all great, and shit, but could we not rehash the "reviews! should people write them? and if so, how? if not, why not? etc." debate here? Don't we have another thread for that? I actually think it's an interesting debate and want to chime in, but it's off topic here, that's all.

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 6:50 pm

Lunkhead wrote:This is all great, and shit, but could we not rehash the "reviews! should people write them? and if so, how? if not, why not? etc." debate here? Don't we have another thread for that? I actually think it's an interesting debate and want to chime in, but it's off topic here, that's all.

Lunkhead wrote:I am unhappy with the way SongFight! works but am not capable of creating my own songwriting community. (See thread for my explanation.)

Did you mean "See the thread for my explanation of why I am incapable of starting my own songwriting community."? Because I didn't read it that way until right now, before I read it as "See the thread for my explanation of why I am unhappy with the way Songfight! works." I thought I was on topic, sorry.

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 7:01 pm

I am not capable of starting my own music competition website because I do not have the time to find new people to participate in the beginning, nor time to run the weekly uploading of songs, nor the coding abilities to build a website, nor the disposable income to run it.

jute gyte · Post by **jute gyte** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 7:04 pm

Regarding titles: The second fight I entered was the first multi-title fight, so My experience is almost totally with those. I've rarely not found a title to be at least acceptable. "Stairway to the Moon", "Policy of Rape", "Biolumenescence", "Gallows Hill", and "Bullseye Girl" for instance come to mind as being full of potential. There will always be some titles that are more difficult to work with (the only single-title fight I've been in was "Happy Machine Ankle") so it's always nice to be able to choose.

Denyer · Post by **Denyer** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:03 pm

There's nothing wrong with songfight. people are pussies now because they choose to be.

Märk · Post by **Märk** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:25 pm

Denyer wrote:There's nothing wrong with songfight. people are pussies now because they choose to be.

Amen.

sausage boy · Post by **sausage boy** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 10:48 pm

i remember in the good ol days when I would click away from a review with strips of flesh dangling from my bones. I got savaged most of the time. Compared to Ween the rest. I feel like I grew from it.

But I digress.

I won't/can't start another song writing community because, as far as I am concerned, this one isn't broken. I agree with Spud's ebb and flow statement.

Ebb and flow, sounds like a female hygiene product.

john m · Post by **john m** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:23 pm

(Boing.)

Have you ever felt... not so fresh?

Ebb & Flow.