Minor board reorganization and Songcrafters' philosophy/direction.

[Oldrottenhead]

Or a new section for "Lady Banjos!".....

can i just clarify that mrs orh is not lady banjo.

I just posted these musings because I've realised that 64 and all are trying to get a feel for what we think and our aspirations are, etc...

exactly

[64Guitars]

And the next festival should be Acoustic Justin Bieber covers!

That will get us recognition from today's listeners!

I assume you're kidding, but I think JustInfest might actually be a lot of fun. It's kind of like Ted's idea for RescueFest except we'd be agreeing to cover one particular artist. I don't think I've ever heard him before so I have no idea what his music sounds like, but I'm familiar with his reputation as a no-talent teeny-bopper idol. It might be fun to take one of his songs and try to make it into something good.

[Flash Harry]

If it's a JustInFest, I'm leaving...

I think that Tim wouldn't be far behind

[launched]

And the next festival should be Acoustic Justin Bieber covers!

That will get us recognition from today's listeners!

I assume you're kidding, but I think JustInfest might actually be a lot of fun. It's kind of like Ted's idea for RescueFest except we'd be agreeing to cover one particular artist. I don't think I've ever heard him before so I have no idea what his music sounds like, but I'm familiar with his reputation as a no-talent teeny-bopper idol. It might be fun to take one of his songs and try to make it into something good.

Yes, that would be fun. I've always wondered what the songwriter demos sounded like before they were processed and handed over to the performer. My guess is they sounded a lot better and didn't lose their soulfulness in the process.

[64Guitars]

If it's a JustInFest, I'm leaving...

I think that Tim wouldn't be far behind

Oops! Never mind then.  

[launched]

If it's a JustInFest, I'm leaving...

I think that Tim wouldn't be far behind

Oops! Never mind then. 

Ha, I don't scare so easily! Oops, pretty soon I'll start talking about how I rooted for Boston... 

[Tony W]

I've seen my forum mentioned here, both by me and the members of both forums frequently enough, that I can't help but reiterate what I consider a valuable point, a mistake we should learn from.

I never intended to have a functional forum with an actual following. The last restructure of the newly named songcrafters is largely responsible for my site becoming active. Like it or not, believe it or not, feelings were hurt, and people turned to a place where they didn't feel ignored and substandard.

I was very much in favor of restructuring albeit 16 months later than it should have been. After several days of deliberation, and seeing different viewpoints, I still don't have a clear preference as to how each section is defined, or whether everything be lumped back into one board.

If this were a cell phone hacking forum, it would be simple, define each board by the Mfg and type of phone. We don't have that luxury, its too difficult to classify a musical artist into a sub-category, without them making that decision for themselves.

To me this is the ultimate problem with the first re-structure, and most likely the biggest problem with the second, an existing membership. If it were a new forum, it wouldn't be difficult to identify with where I'd want to be. I was happily going along, sharing what the members of songcrafters taught me (I learned to play music here) until my posts were relegated to a board with no activity.

Truth be told, I absolutely resented the last restructure. It took quite some time before I accepted the fact that so few people actually gave a shit about my musical journey, and the rest humored me because my posts were more or less "visible".

I'm left with resounding questions. Is a restructure even necessary? What's the real advantage? If it's to revive people who post backers... that ship sailed 16 months ago. Is it to further weed out posts out from the originals board due to use of loops, non-member input, etc?  Is it worth another round of potential bitterness and hard feelings? I really don't think so.

I suppose, if there were a poll right now, I'd change my vote to leave things as they are (for at least the next 15 minutes).

[64Guitars]

I do accept that the line needs to be drawn, and special rules can't be made for members who make a "significant" contribution with their bands. I suppose, however, you could argue that a song that has taken a month to write and record should not be placed in the same category as somebody who has spent 10 minutes noodling over a downloaded backing track, which effectively is what will happen with my posts and some others (False Prophets and MoO spring to mind)

That's a good point Andrew. It does seem unfair to have the band recordings in the same board as the karaoke. But I'm not sure what the best solution is.

I don't know if all of the admin team is 100% in agreement with me (I don't want to put words in their mouths), but my own personal main objective here is to have a place that's just for DIY recordings. But band recordings usually include non-members. That's the only reason I'd like to move them out of the DIY boards. I mean no disrespect to any of the bands or the band members. I love Tangled Wires, False Prophets, MoO, etc. and I want all bands to continue to feel welcome here and to continue posting their music.

If we're to have a DIY board, then we need somewhere to put the posts that aren't entirely DIY. My initial idea was to create a General board and put everything that wasn't DIY in there. The way I saw it, this was best because it would give more exposure to these posts than if they were in separate boards (bands, non-member collabs, backers, etc). Although, admittedly, they probably wouldn't get as much exposure as they had in the current Originals and Covers, but that can't be helped. As a side-benefit, I realized that having this General board would give a lot more exposure to backers than they're getting in the current Backing Track Jams board. But, frankly, I no longer give a toss about backers. Every time we try to help them, they throw it back in our face and stomp their feet. And, as Tony said, that ship has sailed anyway. So I'm now inclined to leave the Backing Track Jams board as it is and create a separate board for bands. Would that be any better for you than the idea of the General board? I could also create a jukebox to showcase our bands. It would work like the current Latest Songs jukebox except that it would only include songs from the Bands board. Every time a new song got posted in the Bands board, it would automatically be added to the jukebox. What do you think?

As I said, my own personal main objective here is to have a place that's just for DIY recordings. Most of the other stuff I've talked about is secondary and I'm more willing to make compromises. For example, it's been mentioned that the name of the Collaborations board shouldn't be changed. If that's what people want, I can accept it. However, that leaves us with the problem of where to put the posts from the Lyrics board, and the 'pre-release' mixes. I suppose we could leave the mixes as they are for now, but I'd like to get rid of the separate Lyrics board and merge its posts with another board. But which one? Or do we leave the lyrics on their own for lack of a better place?

One last thing I'd like to point out. The main concern that some people seem to have is that reorganizing the boards will mean less exposure for their posts. That might prove true but we won't know unless we try. For example, it's quite possible that showcasing the bands in their own board and giving them a jukebox might attract more interest and increase the exposure for those posts. And changes don't have to be permanent. If we try this and find that it's a disaster, we can always make more changes to try to fix it.

[T.C. Elliott]

My opinion is to try it as you originally stated. The less boards the better. Put the backers in the general (or whatever cool name we can come up with) as well as lyric etc.

Like you said, we won't know till we try. It is possible the the DIY boards become less popular if more and more people sign up who aren't 100% original in their recordings.

I'm not sure calling someone's effort noodling or karaoke is helping matters, though. I understand that most of the time those submissions are one or two take affairs, but a great guitar line, well thought out and played can be just as deserving (or more so) than a shoddy one take guitar/vox recording of a song. And I do my fair share of shoddy one takes and more than my share of guitar/vox recordings.

[Gnasty]

You`re still here? It`s over. Go home.  GO!