glenra wrote:
You know, the official page (http://nurein.songfight.net/index.php?title=Nur_Ein) doesn't mention when (or where, or why) one is supposed to post lyrics. Us latecomers are easily confused. I posted anyway. My song ended up light on plot, heavy on the "instructional" part in sort of a Thomas Dolby sense.
In other news, the Captcha for making an account on this forum is really hard if you're colorblind.
You're submitting these songs for considering by judges who don't necessarily know who you are. They're going to have less than 48 hours to give an objective critique of your song and up to 24 others. They don't necessarily have any knowledge about who you are, what you wrote about, or why, and I guarantee you, if they come across a spot where they're not sure what you're singing, most of them will not put forward the effort of listening over and over again until they understand it - they'll check to see if you posted your lyrics.
Also, though you didn't really have any way of knowing this in advance, in the case of one of the judges, English is not his first language.
"Warren Zevon would be proud." -Reve Mosquito
Stages, an album of about dealing with loss, anxiety, and grieving a difficult year, now available on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms! https://jonporobil.bandcamp.com/album/stages
glenra wrote:
You know, the official page (http://nurein.songfight.net/index.php?title=Nur_Ein) doesn't mention when (or where, or why) one is supposed to post lyrics. Us latecomers are easily confused. I posted anyway. My song ended up light on plot, heavy on the "instructional" part in sort of a Thomas Dolby sense.
In other news, the Captcha for making an account on this forum is really hard if you're colorblind.
Hmmm. I should put some sort of faq on the Nur Ein site.
As for the captcha, i think we universally hate that thing.
Well, the deadline is a half-hour past now. How crowded is the field?
"Warren Zevon would be proud." -Reve Mosquito
Stages, an album of about dealing with loss, anxiety, and grieving a difficult year, now available on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms! https://jonporobil.bandcamp.com/album/stages
The Round Zero songs are up in the Titles, Songs and Comments thread. As always, Round Zero is the no-frills round. You pass through this round, you get all the bells and whistles. Since we have a smaller pack that usual, everyone gets a pass into Round One. All bands should send me a picture of themselves for the Nur Ein site.
Don't feel too bad that there is such a small pack this year. There are some great musicians here and I am looking forward to listening to their songs.
Generic wrote:
Also, though you didn't really have any way of knowing this in advance, in the case of one of the judges, English is not his first language.
Hey!! The way I speak resembles English. Sometimes
I'd like to take this opportunity to express how intimidating it is to be in competition with not just one, but TWO past Nur Ein champions. Eek!
Anyway, here's some brief notes for the first few that I listened to while driving to work this morning. My mp3 player interacts sort of idiosyncratically with lists of heterogeneously-tagged entries, so it'll be mostly alphabetical, but not completely. Standard disclaimer: I AM NOT A JUDGE, so these are just one man's opinions. They are not relevant to anything.
Bram Tant - Please please please check your recording levels and your mix. Your guitar is clipping, resulting in unintentional distortion, and your vocals are wayy too low. I couldn't even hear the words.
DJ Ranger Den - Risk pays off. I really liked this.
Embers of Autumn - There's a pretty good song somewhere in here, but you need to take a little more time during your recording process to make sure you're singing on-key the whole time. Also, you've got some cumulative buzz in the track that gets louder with each extra instrument added. If you can't fix that background noise, then at least make it constant; it's most noticeable when it changes. (Also, I didn't catch the challenge relevance, but I'll pay closer attention to the lyrics on a second listen either during my lunch break or after I get home from work tonight.)
Frankie Big Face - I absolutely love this track, but I'm not sure what that clicking noise that comes up periodically is, or whether you intended it to be out of sync the the song's tempo. There's a section where the clicking and instrumentation halt abruptly and I thought the song was over, but then it started back up again - possibly not the best-executed pause/transition in your ouevre. (But hey, listen to my song this week; yes, I'm a hypocrite.) Also the switch from triplets to straight-beat for the last part isn't as effective as it could be; I'd recommend keeping that ride in there.
Glen Raphael - Your song demonstrates that you've got a good ear for euphony and harmony - a trait that tends to be a good predictor for Nur Ein progress. The vocal doesn't match the rest of the recording, though; it sounds like the instruments were recorded in a studio, but the vocal was recorded with a cheap microphone. This is usually indicative of using music bed loops, which only get you so far. One last comment: for some reason it bugs me that the spoken-word portions are clearly being read by the same voice that does the singing. If this had been my song, I would have asked a friend to read that part, for sonic variety.
John Kloberdanz - A very good song, possibly my favorite so far. There's some awkward scansion issues, but I like how you took the educational challenge and went with it, but still gave it an emotional core by relating it back to yourself.
...and that's as far as I got. I'll try to have complete reviews before I go to sleep tonight.
Last edited by JonPorobil on Mon Apr 18, 2011 6:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Warren Zevon would be proud." -Reve Mosquito
Stages, an album of about dealing with loss, anxiety, and grieving a difficult year, now available on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms! https://jonporobil.bandcamp.com/album/stages
Generic wrote:Embers of Autumn - There's a pretty good song somewhere in here, but you need to take a little more time during your recording process to make sure you're singing on-key the whole time. Also, you've got some cumulative buzz in the track that gets louder with each extra instrument added. If you can't fix that background noise, then at least make it constant; it's most noticeable when it changes. (Also, I didn't catch the challenge relevance, but I'll pay closer attention to the lyrics on a second listen either during my lunch break or after I get home from work tonight.)
Yeah, sorry. I wrote everything (music, lyrics, recorded, mixed-down) in about one hour, as I saw the challenge yesterday about 1 pm. It was as guerrila as I've done since I started Songfight four years ago. Round One will be cleaner for me, promise.
Educational relevance--yesterday was the day Jesus Christ died in 33 AD.
"Out of all I've learned in Life,
You always keep your friends close to your heart,
cause they'll help you if you're falling down..."
- The Ataris - Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, B, A, Start
Generic wrote:Embers of Autumn - There's a pretty good song somewhere in here, but you need to take a little more time during your recording process to make sure you're singing on-key the whole time. Also, you've got some cumulative buzz in the track that gets louder with each extra instrument added. If you can't fix that background noise, then at least make it constant; it's most noticeable when it changes. (Also, I didn't catch the challenge relevance, but I'll pay closer attention to the lyrics on a second listen either during my lunch break or after I get home from work tonight.)
Yeah, sorry. I wrote everything (music, lyrics, recorded, mixed-down) in about one hour, as I saw the challenge yesterday about 1 pm. It was as guerrila as I've done since I started Songfight four years ago. Round One will be cleaner for me, promise.
Educational relevance--yesterday was the day Jesus Christ died in 33 AD.
I just went to the lyric archive and read yours. It still would have passed me by if you hadn't capitalized "Son." Oh well.
"Warren Zevon would be proud." -Reve Mosquito
Stages, an album of about dealing with loss, anxiety, and grieving a difficult year, now available on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms! https://jonporobil.bandcamp.com/album/stages
Guess the educational reference is for me to be less lazy and invest more time in Nur Ein songs...
"Out of all I've learned in Life,
You always keep your friends close to your heart,
cause they'll help you if you're falling down..."
- The Ataris - Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, B, A, Start
Generic wrote:
Frankie Big Face - I absolutely love this track, but I'm not sure what that clicking noise that comes up periodically is, or whether you intended it to be out of sync the the song's tempo.
Clicking noise is the foot pedals of an antique pump organ. Out-of-syncness was intentional. There's a lot of deliberate noise in this track. It's supposed to be the "charm."
Generic wrote:
Frankie Big Face - I absolutely love this track, but I'm not sure what that clicking noise that comes up periodically is, or whether you intended it to be out of sync the the song's tempo.
Clicking noise is the foot pedals of an antique pump organ. Out-of-syncness was intentional. There's a lot of deliberate noise in this track. It's supposed to be the "charm."
Foot pedals, eh? I thought maybe you were trying to simulate the noise of medical equipment or something. Well, don't despair - it might grow on me yet. And even if it doesn't, I'm not the one judging this thing.
It's pretty loud for foot-pedals, though; did you stick an extra mic under there, just to get the noise more clearly?
"Warren Zevon would be proud." -Reve Mosquito
Stages, an album of about dealing with loss, anxiety, and grieving a difficult year, now available on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms! https://jonporobil.bandcamp.com/album/stages
Generic wrote:It's pretty loud for foot-pedals, though; did you stick an extra mic under there, just to get the noise more clearly?
You sound a lot like my old drummer.
"Out of all I've learned in Life,
You always keep your friends close to your heart,
cause they'll help you if you're falling down..."
- The Ataris - Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, B, A, Start
Generic wrote: John Kloberdanz - A very good song, possibly my favorite so far. There's some awkward scansion issues, but I like how you took the educational challenge and went with it, but still gave it an emotional core by relating it back to yourself.
Thank you! Yes, I do sometimes have prosody issues in my draft songs which I normally solve as I work them out. We're down visiting family on Long Island so I was very rushed in this writing and didn't have time to scrub behind my musical ears.
signboy wrote:mumhumper! round zero is due tomorrow?! crap. work is not gonna let up, and we just got a new puppy. There is almost zero chance I'll be in this year. Almost
No, it's due tonight. As in, just over seven hours from now.
Better hurry.
NUR EIN
Dammit! I thought it was due tonight by 10:00pm my time!!! I was done yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was just getting ready to do a final sound check and send it off.
Is there a "below the red line" entry area?
....this is so depressing that I'm going to miss this years NUR EIN!!!!!!
Billy's Little Trip wrote:
Dammit! I thought it was due tonight by 10:00pm my time!!! I was done yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was just getting ready to do a final sound check and send it off.
Is there a "below the red line" entry area?
....this is so depressing that I'm going to miss this years NUR EIN!!!!!!
I know I'm not a judge and don't technically have any say in the matter, but I'd vote for letting BLT in, for the following reasons.
1.) He's a Songfight mainstay, and he makes good music.
2.) There's only 19 Round Zero entrants so far, making this the smallest Nur Ein yet.
3.) It's round 0, and the deadline isn't supposed to be as draconian anyway.
4.) He was actually finished before the deadline (giving him the benefit of the doubt there; see also #1)
5.) He wasn't the only one confused about the actual deadline (for reasons that I find mystifying, but that's a different discussion entirely...)
6.) BLT deadline woes are a long-standing Nur Ein tradition!
"Warren Zevon would be proud." -Reve Mosquito
Stages, an album of about dealing with loss, anxiety, and grieving a difficult year, now available on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms! https://jonporobil.bandcamp.com/album/stages
