Vote for the Nov/Dec 2015 "Originals" festival

[64Guitars]

It's time to vote for our next two festivals which will run from November 1 to December 31. Voting starts now and runs for 5 days. You can change your vote any time until the closing of the poll on October 30th. To do so, click "Remove vote" to cancel your previous vote, then vote again.

This poll is for the "Originals" festival. There is a separate poll for the "Covers" festival here:

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=24084.0

Please vote in both polls.

As always, we encourage you to write an original song for the Originals festival, but covers are welcome too unless otherwise stated in the festival's description.

You may have noticed that we've changed the category names. The former "Artists/Covers" is now simply "Covers". The meaning hasn't changed though. Any festival with one or more specific artists as its theme is always a covers-only festival, so it made sense to shorten the name. The former "Theme/Genre" is now "Originals". It's a bit of a misnomer since, although we encourage you to write an original song if you can, covers will be allowed too in most cases. We just wanted to shorten and simplify the name.

So, "Covers" is covers only, and "Originals" is originals preferred but covers welcome unless otherwise stated in the festival's description.

• ItDoesn'tHaveToRhymeFest - Write an original song where the words don't rhyme. Or do a cover of a song where the words don't rhyme, if you can find one (there probably aren't many).
  
  
• gimme some skins fest - Members provide the drum track from one of their songs and other members create a whole new original song from it.
  
  
• DopeFest - Songs about drugs. Originals preferred but covers allowed. Here are some examples to inspire you:
  
  • "Don't Bogart Me" (from the film "Easy Rider") by Fraternity of Man
  • "A Passage to Bangkok" by Rush
  • "30 Days in the Hole" by Humble Pie
  • "Don't Step on the Grass Sam" by Steppenwolf
  • "The Pusher" by Hoyt Axton / Steppenwolf
  • "Sweet Leaf" by Black Sabbath
  Note: These examples are just for inspiration. You should try to write an original song along these lines if you can. But covers will be allowed too.
  
  
• One-word-titled songs - Songs whose title is a single word.
  
  
• PhoneFest - Songs about telephones, telephone numbers, or telephone conversations. Here are some examples to inspire you:
  
  • "Hanging on the Telephone" by Blondie
  • "5.7.0.5." by City Boy
  • "867-5309/Jenny" by Tommy Tutone
  • "Telephone Line" by ELO
  • "I Just Called to Say I Love You" by Stevie Wonder
  • "Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)" by Jim Croce
  • "Sylvia's Mother" by Dr. Hook
  • "New York Telephone Conversation" by Lou Reed
  • "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" by Sugarloaf
  • "Private Number" by Babe Ruth
  Note: These examples are just for inspiration. You should try to write an original song along these lines if you can. But covers will be allowed too.
  
  
• Lullaby Fest - Write an original lullaby (preferred) or cover a lullaby.
  
  
• GrumpyFest - Be a grumpy old fart and write a grumpy song about a pet peeve or anything that makes you feel angry or grumpy.
  
  
• Hand-off Fest / Producer Fest - You write a song, just the basic chords and vocal and pass it off to another member for them to produce.

[ODH]

• Hand-off Fest / Producer Fest - You write a song, just the basic chords and vocal and pass it off to another member for them to produce.

Cards on the table, I've voted for this option.  I have no idea how it would work though.  Any suggestions / guidance?

[Hook]

• Hand-off Fest / Producer Fest - You write a song, just the basic chords and vocal and pass it off to another member for them to produce.

Cards on the table, I've voted for this option.  I have no idea how it would work though.  Any suggestions / guidance?

I record my uke/vocal track to a click then I send it to you to produce. I would assume that by doing so I. Giving you free tea be to do what you like with it. Use the track or re-record and see where you take my tune. Sounds like fun...I voted for the no rhyme one.
Rock on!

[bruno]

I voted for the grumpy old fart fest :-) I can relate to that, perhaps its an age thang!!!! 
B

[64Guitars]

Voting closed.  The winner is Hand-off Fest / Producer Fest.

You write a song, just the basic chords and vocal and pass it off to another member for them to produce.

[Oldrottenhead]

my interpretation of the hands off fest was a bit skewed it seems. https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=24114.0

my take on it was a bit like the old tin pan alley. songwriters would go to the publishers, sit at a piano and rattle out their latest song. if the publisher liked it they would get someone in to give it a full arrangement.

so i posted my rough track like that. expecting folk to use the chords and lyrics provided to their own ends. not actually using the rough track that i posted.

anyway.

hook asked me for the song without the drum track and i didn't understand why? to me that was like doing a collaboration. my idea was for someone to use my chords and lyrics as a seed for a beautiful flower.

anyway is my interpretation valid? or can the fest be interpreted in numerous ways? i need clarification.

[64Guitars]

i need clarification.

Me too.   I haven't been able to make the jukebox yet for this fest because I can't get my head around what it's actually about. I need a name for the fest before I can setup the jukebox and we can't really decide on a name until we agree on what the festival is about.

Here's Hook's original suggestion:

I was thinking for Theme we could do a "Hand Off Fest " or a "Producer Fest" . You write a song, just the basic chords and vocal and pass it off to another member for them to produce. I think it would be interesting to see where someone else might a song. Just a thought, I of course would have to go back to the metronome  .
Rock On!

To me, "just the basic chords and vocal" suggests that you're just recording a rough demo which someone else would then turn into a finished song. One way that they could do that is to simply add more tracks to your rough demo, then mix and master it. The trouble with that to my mind is that it sounds an awful lot like CollabFest which we did in 2012. I suppose we could just call this CollabFest 2. But that idea doesn't appeal to me personally, and I wonder if it's what people had in mind when they voted for this fest.

The other way you could turn a rough demo into a finished song is to learn the chords and vocals and record everything from scratch yourself to really make it your own. This kind of thing happens often in the music industry. There are lots of songwriters who make a good living without recording or performing their songs. Instead, they send out rough demos to other artists who will then (hopefully) record their song and the songwriter collects royalties from it. If the song becomes a hit, the songwriter can make a lot of money without ever going into a studio or performing a gig.

I like this idea better because then it's not a collab in the usual sense. It's a bit like our TributeFests in that you're taking one member's song and covering it in your own way. The difference is that all of the songs will be brand new for this festival -- you can't cover previously-posted songs. And the songwriter doesn't need to spend a lot of time perfecting their song. Instead, they can quickly throw together a rough demo and post it for others to re-record in their own way. Once the rough demo is posted, the original songwriter would have no further involvement with it, which is what I assumed that Hook meant by "Hand Off Fest". It's then up to other members to make something new based on the original chords and lyrics. We could call it DemoFest since the idea is to post a rough demo of your song, then let others re-create it as something new.

But I'm still not sure what this fest is about. What do others think? I'd be especially interested to hear from the nine people who voted for this festival. What did you imagine it was about when you voted for it and how did you imagine it would work?

[ODH]

I think the Demofest approach would be workable.  Someone posts a rough demo then someone else - or several someone elses - work it up into a finished item with their own stamp / take on it.  Would be good if a little of the original demo could be woven into, maybe, but not compulsory.

I was worried about the technical problems with taking someone else's track and building around it, just with getting it in to GarageBand as a workable thing, with the right tempo, tuning etc.  Worried is probably putting it too strongly.

[Geir]

If I were to produce another songcrafters song this is what I'd like to have:

* a vocal track
* at least one instrument track
* a chordsheet including which bar each section of the song starts (the more detailed the better).
* the tempo
* recorded in 440Hz tuning

The vocal + instrument(s) should be of good enough quality to be used in the final mix and recorded without any FX (at least no reverb or delay). It could be supplied as a stereo mp3 where the vocals and the instrument are panned hard left/right so they could be separated or even better as a link to a WAV file on Dropbox/google drive/OneDrive .... or similar.

Just my 2 øres.

[Greeny]

I assumed that we would be re-working songs that only contain basic chords and a vocal.

If you start off with a really simple base layer and build it up into a full-blown production, it feels quite different to a regular collab.

Seems like a chance to be Jeff Lynn.

I can see a need for the chords and the vocals to be separate, as there may not be a need (or room) for either in the final arrangement.

The tempo / drum issue is a tricky one. We've managed with the Jemima's Kite songs though. Jarle has coped with me either adding a basic kick drum (as a click track) or with a completely drumless track. If it's recorded to a click track and in time, it should till hang together OK. That's an amazing live drummer at work though - machines can't manually correct timing issues.