Hi Folks,

We have more and more JPF members on Ourstage every day. In the Newport Folk Festival Channel, our members are dominating the top of the charts. So I thought it might be interesting for folks to post how they are doing here and we can track.

Please tell us what category you are in, your song title and where it ranks currently.

Let the success stories (and the not so successful yet stories) begin!

Brian

Ok, 4-13-08

Folk It's a cold day in Bradenton 23
Newport Folk Fest 20008 Whut I learned at work 31
Radio922 Earthfest H'oponopono 41
Newport Folk fest 2008 Broken Shells 128
New age/World El Maskara,the luchadore song 170
Folk Depleted Uranium 267


PB

What is the Newport Folk Festival station all about? (I really wish they had a better on-line description of the stations, versus just the little bit in the FAQ).

My stuff:
Let That River Flow 162/339 in Folk (high of 44)
Sitting By The Fire 520/577 in Country (high of 282?)
Dark Recess 522/1199 in Alt Rock (high of ?)
Roll Daddy Roll 992/1164 in Indie Rock/Pop (high of 676?)

I guess I am not making much of an impact over there. The only one I am disappointed with is Sitting By The Fire. I realize it is an old style country waltz, but I thought it would so a little better.

Back to the drawing board.

Kevin

Kevin, I think the winner gets to play at the festival.

"These Old Shoes" 51st at Newport folk festival

Jazz: "I Remember Your Smile" is currently 38th out of 354.

My best month for it was February where it ended up at 17.

Once I upgrade the production quality for my AI songwriting submission, I'll set it in motion in the pop category.

At Our Stage:

"A Hot Day In Havana": Latin, #18
"Ivory And Steel": Jazz, #87
"She's Hot And I'm Bothered": Jazz #109
"Escuchar A Mi Corazon": Latin #117
"Boonoonoonous JA": Reggae, #130
"Blue Monday": Blues, #224 (This one has been up & down quite a bit"
"Nefarious Noise": Techno/Club Dance #365
"Joyous Insanity": #377


I have nothing at the Newport Folk Festival. I assumed by its title that it was primarily oreinted to Folk muisc Music, one of my least favorite genres. So, I have not checked it out. Maybe I should?

Al

Last months results....

'Alienlandscape' - 38th in Electronic
'Sad Song for Your Baby' - 68th in Blues
'Synthetic Salsa Blue' - 184th in Jazz
'Someones Got A Better Hand' - 195th in R and B / Soul

There were a couple of surprises, but I'm happy with the results. It's probably in line with a random audience sample.

Don't think I'll bother entering them again. Sort of know how the field lies, and I now have an idea about what a non-targeted audience thinks.

cheers, niteshift

Currently:

The Graveyard of Songs
40th in Folk
Played: 143 Favorited: 4


Solve My Problem
297th in Rock
Played: 39 Favorited: 0


Just Another Day
1407th in Rock
Played: 37 Favorited: 0

Kevin,

Do you get the Just Plain Folks Newsletter? (If you don't then you're not officially a member as that's the official member list). We covered the Newport Folk Festival channel in it last week. You can read the full issue in my blog.

Brian

Here's how my current entries are doing...

"Throwdown" - Electronic - 4th
"Antigravity" - New Age/World - 6th
"The Art of Zen" - Instrumental - 4th
"Breathing You In [feat. Jillian Goldin]" - Techno/Club/Dance - 45th
"Mindbender" - Techno/Club/Dance - 75th
"Warhead" - Electronic - 168th
"Drum and Bossa" - Instrumental - 263rd

It's interesting... "The Art of Zen" did pretty poorly last month, not even making it close to the quarterfinals. Meanwhile, "BYI" was #3 in the FINALS (#1 in semis) and Mindbender was #2 in the semis. This month, they're not even top 20.

Different judges and different head to head competitors should produce different results... if the results were the same every time, those folks who won would never lose. It should serve as an educational experience really. It shows how you can get rejected over and over and then suddenly someone "discovers" you and you're a big hit. And in the end, you are the same person and writer/artist you were before the success after it.

Brian

Some of my best recent enteries:

Indy - 18 in New Age/World, April 18, 2008 (still in progress)
Lion & The Lamb - 78 in Christian/Spiritual, February 2008
He Once For Me Did Bleed - 102 in Christian/Spiritual, March 2008


My "problem" is that I have other tracks that are just as good or better, but there's no suitable channel to enter them yet. For example, I have an instrumental pop/jazz fusion (Cafe Gourmet) which wouldn't do well in mainstream Jazz or Pop, but would do better in a Sub genre like Smooth/Pop jazz.

Another example is "Tower Of Bable" which is composed and arranged in a film soundtrack style. Other channels such as New Age/World, Instrumental and Experimental might work, but still not close enough to contemporary classical with a strong leaning towards Film score or maybe video game.

I also have some classic style hymns which are instrumentals, so they won't fit in the Christian/Spiritual channel which requires lyrics and vocals; and these won't do so well in Instrumental because everything gets tossed in there from folk, rock and jazz to bluegrass and hip-hop. There's a bit too much variety there now.

News Flash Update!
I just found out that now Covers are supported on OurStage. That's great news for me. I've got a few like: Adagio For Strings, Unchained Melody, White Bird, Be Thou My Vision, Carol Of The Bells, Claire De Lune, Good Tidings To Zion, etc.
Technically, only the first 3 qualify as legal (current day) cover tunes while the rest are already in the public domain.

If OurStage had these additional channels: Contemporary Classical, Children's Music, Film and maybe Instrumental Hymns, it would open more opportunities for much of my material.

I put up one to get the lay of the land.

"Arizona" is currently 32nd in Folk. It was at 130ish for ages, then jumped to 70ish. A few days ago it was 50ish.

Since most things naturally tend to oscillate, I expect it will start moving the other direction soon

Maybe I should probably put up a picture for it

Scott

Falling In - Music Video, ranked at 253 as of this posting.

Jody,

How come you don't have any of your songs entered?

Micheal,

You should enter those 2 songs into Jazz and Instrumental. They fit there and there's no reason not to. We have film soundtrack music in our instrumental each year and before we had Inst. Jazz, we had instrumental jazz songs in our Jazz category. If there's not a sub category yet, they won't add one if there's no evidence of people entering enough of that type of music to need a channel. So you're making a self fulfilled prophecy by not participating.

Brian

Definitely put up one of your cool photos Scott. It makes a difference... those generic Ourstage photos can confuse repeat voters into thinking they're voting for a different song (or against it).

Brian

One of our members is currently #1, 5, 6, 7, 11, 23 & 28 in the Newport Folk Festival channel meaning it's pretty likely one of our folks is going to get submitted for consideration to play there.

Brian

Hi Brian

I entered my song "Don't push my button" on "Ourstage" today, under country, I am a bit confused by it all, but I will see how it goes. One question I do have is I ticked a box that said do I want Ourstage to sell my song, and I ticked yes, should I have done that cause I don't understand it. Do I get money, or is that just if I win the competition?

Michele
Aussie girl from down under

My song Burning Down is currently #1 on the Newport Folk Festival channel!

I haven't added any other songs to OurStage yet, but I plan on it later today.

My song "Lonely Man" is 159th in Contemporary so far this month. It did terrible last month in the Alt. Rock channel. I just entered my song "Rivertown" today, 577th in Americana / Alt Country. It looks like no where to go except up for it right now, that is until more folks enter.

One person has that many highly ranks songs? That is excellent!

Aw, number 2 now... but the week is young!

Jack,

I meant that "one" of our members were ranked that each. Actually Seth Horan was both 6 & 7 at the time.. but they change a lot.

Brian

Darn Juliana! But I bet you'll make it to the semi finals and that's all that matters.. being number one in the early round isn't as important as being number one at the end!

Brian

Thanks Brian!
Ok, so Cafe Gourmet is now in Jazz channel (for all of April) but since it doesn't have vocals, it can't compete as well in this category.

So if I understand you correctly you're suggesting I try it in the Instrumental channel, right? Probably I should also try "Tower Of Bable" in Instrumental channel.

I think I'll wait till May 1st to do all my channel switching at the same time, or maybe I should do it now and get a little head start!

Michael

Hi Michele,
No need to be confused... look, it's simple:

When you elect to make your songs available for sale it has nothing to do with the monthly song contents. Selling your songs to "fans" for downloads is just like selling your music at SoundClick or any other place around the internet. It's just a .99 cent song sale which enables your customers to download a copy of your song, that's all.

This works regardless of whether or not you enter your songs into the contest or whether you win or lose, etc. Doesn't matter, they're two seperate things. Obviously it's in most artist's interest to win as many contests as possible and sell as many songs as possible. Why limit yourself?

Hope this clears things up a bit for you!
Please let us know how it goes.
Cheers,
Michael

OK .. well I just joined .. I just put on my first song to the Newport Folk Festival channel.
Now I better go back and learn my way around the site!
Lots of good music to listen too!!!
Joanne

I wish I could listen, but listening to high bit songs while on dialup is next to impossible.

I'm surprised. In the first week or so, all the standings changed a lot and quickly. This past week, things seemed to hold their ground more, and "The Graveyard of Songs" was holding steadily somewhere in the 40's in Folk.

It was #40 yesterday, but it's #14 today.

So, just to see what happens, I threw in a late entry to the Singer/Songwriter category, "Hold On Strong To Your Love".

Hey Mark,

Yeah, it takes awhile for them to get listened to enough to make a difference. Mine didn't show up much at all until it had been up for a week and now it's between 1 and 2 off and on.

Hi Juliana, and congrats. I love your song.

I've been monitoring this process with interest...it had 140 or so votes yesterday when it still hung in the 40's...now it's had 158. I think that has a lot to do with which songs it goes against at which time.

Are you changing strings in your avatar? Good luck to you, Juliana!

Yeah, that's a picture my boyfriend got of me preparing to play at the Bele Chere festival. I'm bad about changing strings at (nearly) the last minute, so I figured this avatar would remind me to do it.

Come to think of it, I have a show tomorrow...

I personally find OurStage to be one of the clumsiest and most user unfriendly sites around.

The doesn't appear to be any way to delete a song or video once it has been uploaded. The first time I loaded my video, it didn't play too well on their player. So I saved the video with a different codec and this new one played OK in OurStage. But I can't delete the old one. I've also remixed some songs previously submitted but can't delete the old mixes. Does this mean that our songs and videos become their property forever? I don't like that.

I wanted to have some of my songs available for free download but can't figure out how to do it. It is apparently possible as they have free song advertisements on my OurStage page all the time.

I'm getting spammed (like 2 to three emails a day by one jerk) by some "friends" from this site but can't seem to remove them as "friends."

These are just some of the many problems I've had with this site.

Ok I will give it a shot.
Trying to figure out which channel to put the song in seems to be the biggest challenge.
I opted to put up my song (This Would Be) His Last Time

I first thought it should be in the Hard Rock or Rock channel but I have decided it is probably more suited to Singer/Songwriter. Even though it has a more distorted guitar driven sound.
We will see how it goes. It is my wifes least favorite song. Actually she plain does not like it. So this will be a test.

Looks like a test for an impending divorce Bill ! Good luck. ( with the song, not the wife, that is )

cheers, niteshift

Andy,

I am sure if you ask to be removed from their site, they'll remove you completely. If you do and they don't, let me know and I will call them directly.

Brian

There are some probs for sure and I do not like the idea of having songs up there forever. I think we should have an option for editing our profile and removing songs. All songs should be removed from the boards after a month and it is up to individuals to re enter in the next months battle if they wish.
Otherwise categories are going to be unmanageable and voting will not work properly due to high numbers of entries.

I do not get the whole friends thing either. It is creeping into every site. I am getting Soundclick and Ourstage requests from folk who want to be my friend. Some of these folk judging by their profile have very little in common and I have never even heard of them. It's some form of networking idea that they are using to publicise themselves.

AWWWW! C'mon Big Jim
Don't be such a prude.
They heard you was a Scot and Scot's don't wear anything under them Kilts. The want to be your friiieeend.

Hey Nite
She just rolled her eyes when I told her which song I was gonna put up.
I said "well, I figure it's one way to find out if you are right about the song".
Then I ducked, LOL.

Hey Bill the latest was bi-sexual. Could not tell from the pic if it was male or female. Listened to some of its songs as well could not tell what they were either. LOL

BTW there is a way to remove songs I just found it out. It comes under edit profile when you have clicked on your name.

About removing songs...

Your song will only be entered in the month and competition that YOU chose...it will not be entered in any other month unless you do so yourself. The issue with "removal" is that your song does remain on the site, searchable and playable, and there does not yet appear to be a function to take it down.

I say YET. Danny Palmer has been very interactive and appears to be keenly interested in bettering the site in any way possible.

Hey, "The Graveyard of Songs", #10 and holding for two days now. This close to the quarterfinals I am starting to think about maybe getting a little excited. Not for winning, but for being in that smaller group of songs that gets so much play. Fingers crossed for a week.

I was under the impression that removal was from the site but I think you are correct. It seems to be a problem if you cannot remove songs altogether. My other question is what happens to songs that are flagged as being off topic or offensive or copyright violation? I have reported a few.

They review whatever has been flagged, and if they agree, they pull it from the competition.

First of all, read the terms of service of any website before uploading your music. You can't complain about them after the fact.

Second of all, if you DID read the TOS, you'd see OurStage doesn't own anything of yours. Your music and videos don't become "their property". Don't be so paranoid. It makes you look bad.

Third, how are you being spammed by anyone? They removed the "mass mail to friends" option. You can only mass mail your FANS now. So if you are that person's fan, you should remove yourself from their fan club (takes one click.) If they are actually messaging you repeatedly and you're NOT their fan, then you need to report them to OurStage - simple as that.

I'm with Big Jim on the "friends" thing. I like the idea of having real "friends" like people who I know from JPF, but a lot of people "friend" farm or "friend" fish for the lack of a better term. In other words I get requests from hip hop artists mostly, I check their site and they have thousands of "friends". Why do they need me?
I'll tell you why. As a networking tool it is a way to build up a sort of mailing list. The more "friends" they have the more announcements they can send out. Chances are someone will bite and become a fan. It's the same way on Myspace.
I don't have a problem with the "friend" system but it is not my cup of tea. I will only accept people who I know, or have similar taste in music. And I do want to know what my real "friends" are doing. Anyone else is a phony "friend" as far as I'm concerned. Ben

I feel the same way, Ben. Except sometimes when the spammer is kinda hot.

OurStage provides a "Block Sender" option in the messages console. I've used it a couple times now.

Brian & Andy,
Actually, it's NO problem to request to remove any song or video at any time. I did a little customer service (tech support) test and they got back with me very quickly. Actually, I just wanted to "weed out" a few songs and a video that I didn't need displayed anymore, so it was also based on a real need. They removed my requested files and then sent me an email to confirm deletion. I had one song which was still entered into a contest (which I'd overlooked) so they even reminded me to first remove it from the contest so they could then delete the file for me.

So there's really NO need to remove your whole profile and completely leave the site. Each month just upload the few songs you want to enter into a contest. Then, after the contest is over (or even before), you can request to have those files removed.

It would be nice if in the future they would allow us to do this ourselves, just like at other sites like SoundClick. It's very easy there to overwrite new recordings over existing song files and also remove them (completely) at any time.

With OurStage, they have to be careful about "overwriting" existing song files if they've already been entered into a contest and are being actively voted on. It wouldn't be fair to change the recording in the middle of the contest, so they don't allow that, though you could remove it from the contest, ask them to delete it and then upload a new file with same or similar song title, and re-enter into a contest.

So that's what I've learned there in the last month or so!
Michael

I've written a couple times about how I understand not letting you change your song due to the voting process.

But now that I think about it, I can no longer think of a good reason...if it was improved and began to do better after being updated...how is that unfair...? Maybe they should allow it after all...

The voting on the Newport channel has been fickle for me. My song was around #200, went down to #51, then down to #21 now it's back up to #140 all in a few days. I just reentered it for next month for another roller coaster ride. Ben

In my experience, if your song is jumping around it's because the channel has received relatively few votes. Thus, one vote carries more weight than it would elsewhere. Techno used to be like that two months ago, but this month has been quite stable.