JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum So Where Does Your Song Rank On Ourstage?

I am talking registration.. as for the link on our page at the top right (are you not seeing it Tom?) I have told Daniel multiple times to change that page so it takes registered users to the site, but he (or his tech team) haven't changed it. So we're leaving the registration link up so at least we capture the registrations that are new... better than nothing.. I am not as worried about using that link to get to their page, though I'd rather it worked for that too...

The truth is that their membership has exploded since we partnered up and both months the winner has been a JPF member. I think Daniel realizes the value of it all, but I know that corporate folks are often only paying attention to a number on a hits page and not neccessarily reality...

Brian

Hi Tammy. Whilst it might be reassuring to think that a high percentage of people agree with your decision to vote songs the same think about why some people would do that and how people feel who have entered a song that is in the bottom half of the positions. They want to know realistically where it stands so will compare it to similar placed songs. So their song is not as good perhaps as the crackly recording of the guy with the lisp yodelling. I adopt the principle that if we judge songs we are duty bound to give an honest and proper decision. If everybody votes same then songs could be hundreds of positions out of placement. A bit unfair IMO. I would urge everybody to think and try to vote for the slightly better song rather than just say they are the same because they do not like either that much.

If you vote "same" then a song doesn't move up OR down.. so it would be in the position where the voters put it. Your theory doesn't hold up Jim.

when it says how many times a song has been played does that include how many times it has been judged?

Sorry to keep harping on but if you vote a number of sames and so does everybody else what happens then? Nothing moves up or down THAT IS EXACTLY MY POINT I think you will find my theory does hold up. I have experienced it with my songs a Waltz made for two and Just another day. Both finished way way way below where they should have. NEITHER MOVED MUCH FOR DAYS.

well back to my question about the number of plays.
My song has not been played for 36 hours but it is still jumping around.
So, do number of plays include number of times judged?
Because if it has not been judged how can it move?

Bill the number of plays has nothing to do with the number of times judged. It is just how many times someone has chosen to play the song either by visiting your page or playing it from looking at its chart position. The number of judgements is an unknown factor. It would be interesting to find out this info however. It might answer some of the questions about voting anomalies

So nobody is listening to my song?
I think I'll go sit in the corner and sulk.

Jim,

You have to be willing to accept that it's possible people didn't like your songs as much as you think they should. But I don't think you are willing to even consider that possibility based on your comments. So you'd rather people randomly choose one song over the other which may well result in you ranking even LOWER than you do now.. which would make you even MORE unhappy. On the other hand, if they chose your song instead, then someone else may be ranked lower than they deserve. That's not good either. By voting a tie when you have no opinion of which is better than the other, you don't harm or help anyone who doesn't deserve it.

Brian

Bill,

Number of times played is totally separate from judged. Judging numbers are not included. The number of plays you get indicates the people who chose to just listen to your song for the sake of listening to it outside of the judging process.

Brian

Brian Please do not think I do not know my place or worth. I have been in this business too long to have delusions. I can accept better songs than mine are plentiful and know where my songs should place after hearing the opposition. What I have difficulty accepting is songs that really suck being placed better.
Re the randomly judged songs above each other. I cannot accept that you of all people cannot judge two bad songs against each other and come up with a proper winner. I would like to think that most people with any music background can assess each song regardless of how bad it is against another and pick the best one. As for people with no backround in music I would rather take my chances than just let them be classed as all equally bad.
I thought judging was meant to be judging ALL and not just looking at the best.

At least you guys get to play, I can't. Boo hoo.

I have not posted any of my songs on "OurStage" and truly wish all who have the very best. I'll be lurking in the wings listening to some of my fellow JPFrs songs. Everett... we've gotta do something to get you better "net" service. I know how frustrating dial-up can be.

Dave

Here's the one thing I do not understand...No one is required to post anything at OurStage. You post there, enter "music contests" there, participate in whatever activities they offer, exclusively by your choice. It is an opportunity to have your music heard by hundreds or thousands of new listeners at absolutley no cost to you. Why are you complaining? If you feel the judging is not fair or has too many flaws for your comfort...don't do it! You can simply load your song onto their site and not participate in any of the other activities. Or, you can just not do anything there.

It's their game. If we want to play, we play by their rules. If we do not like their rules, we should find a different game! You certainly are not getting ripped off in any manner. Your music is not being inappropriately distrubuted or misused in any manner what-so-ever. You are not being being denied any just royalties according to current law. They are not doing anything with your music that you have not given them permission to do.

It's kind of like me inviting you to dinner...I purchase, prepare and serve the food...then you complain that I have ugly china and that my salt and pepper shaker don't match!

Come on guys and gals. A friendly recommendation to them would serve the same purpose, and in a more gracious manner, than constantly beating them up here on the boards. They cannot tailor the rules and the contests to meet the wishes and wants of thousands of people. If they implemented everything that you wanted, they would have a thousand other people complaining whose ideas are different than yours.

There are several things I do not like about the way they run their "contests". But, I choose to play knowing what their rules are. So, I shouldn't complain too much.

Just my thoughts.

Al

PS: Other than a contract, what do we want most for our songs, once they are ready? Exposure, right?? Guess what, at OurStage, you get LOTS of exposure. One of my songs has already been listened to 600 times. Only "favored" twice, though...can't have it all! But think about that.

Brian - I saw the Community Partners logos, but I guess I never realized that they were links to their sites. I just discovered that last night. When I lclicked it, it did take me to the registration page as you pointed out.

And my one song "The Fields (of Balbriggan)" has moved up into the top 100 in New Age/World. I posted some songs just to see how they'd do. I haven't listened to them in a long time, and when I did, I kept thinking, "Why did I mix them like that?" I continually hear ways to improve them, and it's really hard to release anything. I'm not thrilled with my own stuff, but I'm not in any position right now to be able to record them "right." So I only posted stuff as a whim.

Al you are correct the minute wads of cash are involved the competetiveness of everybody comes out. It can sometimes be pretty ugly. My comments are only designed to try and improve what I think is a great site. I enjoy listening to all the great music. I would post stuff regardless of cash prizes. I admit that I sometimes have a good laugh at some of the not so good stuff as well. Shame on me.

Big Jim,

This wasn't aimed at just you and you alone! Yeah, you've been pretty vocal...but it applies to all who participate and then get upset with the process. We simply need to apprecaite the opportunity for "new ears" the site provides and just go with the rest, if we choose to be there.

No need for shame, Big Jim. You have spoken your opinion and I just offered mine. You will always be one of my favorite JPFers. Heck, it wasn't your fault thay you were born a Scotsman!

You ugly? With an adorable face like that...never!

Take care, Big Jim. All the best.

Al

Shame on me too Big Jim. I do get a chuckle out of some of the songs. You should hear the one where the guy is verbally introducing the song. I should have voted him better for his shear nerve to bore me before the song started.
But what the hell, people might be laughing at me too. Ben

Re: Use of photos/images to effect song judging.

Problem:
I think sometimes a "bad" or off-topic image could hurt a song more than help. And other times, a really great photo or image could maybe help a song, even though it's not that great or well produced.

Possible solution:
One possible solution is to take the image completely out of the judging criteria. That would be very easy to do and might also speed things up with the song loading for each battle between two songs. All that's really needed is the song title. They already strip out the song description, so that doesn't effect the voting. I'm not sure, but maybe they could also strip out the name of band or songwriter to provide for a truly "blind" vote.

The result would be that the music would have to be judged only by these two criteria:
1. The song itself.
2. Name of song. This is fairly mute because a least some reference is needed to identify the song.

Again, ideally there would be NO images displayed during the judging/voting process and possibly NO songwriter, band or composer identitity as this could also influence the vote based on the popularity of the artist.

Currently I bet many fans are voting for their favorite artists based on their image, name and past contest reputation with other songs. For example, they may have heard a great song by an artist and then later vote for the artist again in another contest or channel because they're already familiar with that artist.

If OurStage was purely a marketing & popularity contest, it could work like that. Just encourage every artist to bring in droves of friends and fans from MySpace, SoundClick, PureVolume, Garageband, Broadjam, CD Baby and JPF, etc. and then see who's got the biggest crowd of fans and loyal supporters.

It would be a "no brainer" to predict who's going to win these kinds of popularity contests. Boring, boring... but that's how real music marketing often works. The artists/labels with the biggest promotion budgets and fan clubs will normally win because they know how to play that game.

Yes blind contests do work. They have been doing this for years. For example the Telluride bluegrass festival has a blind guitar contest. The judges are not allowed to see the performer, know his or her name etc. Their only job is to listen and judge accordingly. Ben

Thanks Ben!
I think that would be a great idea for OurStage to do. It would be very simple, they need only "hide" the artist image and name. The song description is already removed from the voting "battles", and all that's needed is the song title to accompany the sound track. This would also help good songwriters that don't have the talent or resources to prepare great looking images to represent their songs.

Michael

The judging is based on talent alone and no one can use flashy clothing or dance moves and attractive people have no advantage.

Hey Al I did not take it that you were referring to me alone.
I just answered your post as honestly as I could. Whilst my opinions may be misconstrued by some as sour grapes or perhaps delusions that I think my stuff is better than it is my real intention is to help improve the system which in itself is great but could be better with a twaek or two.
Al if you keep prasing me like that you better watch out you may turn into a born again caveman.

Ben,
Ok, good "tongue in cheek" point, but of course real show biz does depend on ALL factors being in place: Great music, stage appearance, clothing, dance, choreography, talent, image and marketing, etc. Again, in the real marketing world every advantage needs to be exploited to gain fan favor and beat the competition.

But if OurStage wants to be a "venue" to help the public find the best songs, they might decide to eliminate a few secondary criteria such as the artist's image. The image would of course still appear on their personal profile and on their music player, but not in the voting chamber, that's all. This forces people to judge the song's audio track rather than external things like a pretty or "sexy" photo.

If they want to judge images, they can vote in one of the video channels. For example, the music videos would be a good place to vote for the best "looking" and "sounding" bands. A bad video could ruin a great song and a bad song could ruin a great video production, etc. That's a whole different "ball game" than just writing and producing a great song for a music contest.

And I bet that's how every major song contest judging is done including Just Plain Folks, John Lennin, USA Songwriting Competition, and all the rest. None will give any points for having an attractive image on the song cover. That's Ok for marketing but NOT for judging in a serious song contest. If artists could win song awards at JPF (or anywhere) by having great images, they would simply hire the best graphics money could buy.

Michael

The world pipe band championship judges stand in small tents so they cannot see the bands and are therefore unbiased. However it is worth noting that this is a pointless exercise as they are such experts they can tell what band it is just by hearing them play.

No bagpipe jokes please !!!!!!

Good point Mike and I agree, but we need to differentiate a "Song" contest from a "Talent" contest. In my opinion, a song contest involves the lyric and melody of the song being judged and not the attractivness of the writer/artist. A talent contest is of the performance of the song weather the artist wrote it or not and the attractivness factor comes into play. The dancing also is judged in the talent contest. Ben

A bag of pipes?
is that like a box of hammers?

I wonder if people really are influenced by the pictures or graphics? I suppose they could be but I can't believe it would have that much impact.

Of course my song has a picture of a spoon....hmmmm maybe I should consider some nudity. Maybe that would help.

Whoa.. announcement...I just looked and I got favorited...Woo hooo...
Ahhhh I bet it was one of you guys....trying to make me feel special.

The only reason that I don't agree on the graphics thing is that I listen to the song and the song only. Anyone can make a pretty picture. But can anyone produce a good song? Ben

Bill,

You ARE special! That said, if you go the nudity route, I hope it's not a picture of you! Sorry, but.......!

Al

I have had a number of songs make it into the quarter, semi, or straight-up finals using nothing more than a picture of my album art; the text "zircon - Antigravity" with a green design, an upside-down iguana, and some bamboo. It's really not that amazing. sgx, the April grand prize winner, won with nothing more than a shot of his album art too, and while it's quite cool, it's not so amazing that it would have propelled him that far.

Having the album art shown is a great idea. It makes judging go a LOT faster, for one thing, because it's easier to see an image and associate it with a song than to actually read the smaller text underneath the image.

I don't know Andrew. Are we judging audio or a vision? I would assume that we are judging an audio sound. Adding visual only complicates things. Some people, me included don't care to add an audio effect to our music. The song should be judged on it's merit alone. Ben

I have to agree with Andy... and I was going to say it before I even saw his post, I swear! I think that having images is a positive thing for two reasons:

1. It helps to vote more quickly when the contest is narrowed down into the quarters, semis, and finals. I find it much easier remember a given song by its image, and then I don't have to spend hours and hours getting through all the possible match-ups when I've become familiar enough with the pool!

2. I would also look on the picture uploading option as another opportunity to market yourself. People are more likely to remember you as an artist if you have some sort of visual that identifies you. Pixelated or poor quality photos do lack a certain appeal, but serious musicians should know to always put their best foot forward.

Ha!!!
And then there's

Ben, Andrew & Jillian!
I totally understand the benefits of using some nice pictures, and I'm really not against it. Matter of fact, I work very hard at finding nice images to go with the "mood" of my songs; or sometimes I use one of my own cover images such as "Michael Borges On Violin" featuring a still photo of a violin, notes, bow and candle to highlight the romantic mood of my musical style.

Anyway, I was just commenting that some songwriters/composers will not be "image experts" and sometimes a bad picture could hurt more than help. If OurStage wants to hide the images, then we'd have to go with their rules, but probably that won't happen so not much to worry about.

Meanwhile lets enjoy the music and yes... also the images which can help us connect with some of the great songs we are hearing!

Michael

Jillian,

I agree with both of your points. In your second point, you did a much better job of explaining my view than I did. I performed/played for over 35 years. During that entire period, I have repetitively heard it: "Always put your best foot forward...always. You never know who is in your audience". I think what you said pretty agrees with what I said, just different terminology. The care you put into your presentation of your musical package, which includes graphics for any public display of your work, says a lot about your approach and attitude of how you want to be perceived as an artist/performer.

Perhaps it all seems rather insignificant to some folks; but I feel it is an important part of your entire musical package. I truly believe that producers, A&R folks, labels, etc., do look at the whole package. I am 61 years old; so all of it means little to me as a performer. But for younger folks looking to move their careers ahead, I say leave no stone unturned. It certainly won't hurt; and it could help. Your insignificant item may be an important consideration for the guy or gal that has the ears of the publisher or the label. You have no way of knowing. So, why not cover all bases?

Certainly, one should NEVER vote for or against a song simply because of the graphic arts. My point was that when all else is equal, that might be ther difference.

And a belated congrats on your win last month!

Al

Thanks Micheal, and Jillian, I think that visual effects have their place. But not in a song contest. Period. What are judging anyway? The song. Not the writer nor the performer. The only thing that is at stake is the song itself. There is no reason to enhance it with a visual display. The song should speak for itself. Anything else is bells and whistles, and that's not fair. Ben

So.....
Has anyone been judging in the singer/songwriter channels?
They have them separated Male and Female.
I have had to report several being "Off Topic" Male in the female
and female in the male.

Anyone else have this happening?

Ben

I cannot disagree with you on the judging. The music speaks for itself 99% of the time. The main point I am trying to make in my comments is that IN ADDITION TO THE JUDGING, you have an opportunity to catch the eye of someone in the business with the benefit of nice graphics. Why not help yourself out with this indirect opportunity. Somany times, folks aspiring to success get the break the need/want in a most unconventional and unexpected manner. Why not be ready for the unexpected.

We as judgee should vote on the music. But, at the same time, the artist might be the benefactor of some ancillary factor. The people with the ears to the "big boys" can be pretty quirky sometimes!

Alan

Well, for anyone graphically challenged, you could always create an "image" that is nothing more than the song title, and maybe some text about it. If you save it as a graphic file, then we could READ something about the song as we're listening.

I have said this a few times and nobody seems to have picked up on it. I have been impressed with the artwork generally. Some people have gone to great lengths to produce a pro picture or graphic to accompany their music. It is sad however to see a great picture or image and then listen to some of the worst recorded stuff I have ever heard. Perhaps they should have spent a bit more time writing, arranging, performing and recording their music than worrying about image. Some songs are almost unlistenable because have been recorded so badly.

Some examples of the things I hate most.
Several seconds of hiss pops and clicks before the intro.
People talking to each other before the song starts (ARE YOU READY. yeah lets go for it. DO YOU THINK IT IS GONNA BE TOO LOUD. no 123.)
No sound from one side. (How did they not notice that one.)
A white noise snowstorm with a faint sound in the background (is that music they are playing)
Distortion Distortion Distortion everything recorded on max volume possible.


Do some of these people actually listen to what they have recorded before posting it?

Jim,

Yeah,I have encounteredall of that. You would think, given this opportunity, that they would do at least a little bit of clean up before posting. And, how hard is it to cut 15 seconds of silence from the beginning.

The ones that really get me arewhen the vocalist or someone in the band takes 36 seconds to introduce the song...before we hear one single note!

Of course, all of that is professionally unbforgiveable errors of the artists, not OurStage. I think my overall biggest heartburn with OurStage has nothing to do with the judging per se. They just need to have more relavant genres/categoroies/channels. In Jazz, one of my most prolific genres, you will hear everything from, fusion to smooth jazz, to latin jazz to straightout jazz to beautiful vocals to cheap sounding lounge music to rap etc.

Perhaps a good analogy might be in the rock genre where you could have The Carpenters, ABBA, AC-DC, Grand Funk Railroad, Pink, The Stones and Maroon 5 competing against each other. They're really not very similar; but all are classified as one sub-genre of rock or another.

Other than that, I think that the judging is about as fair as we can expect. Take care Big Jim!

Al

I entered my tunes for May... I'm wayyyyyy down in the stats

1) Lady's Mist - New Age/World (287th out of 289)

2) Space Station Sunrise - Instrumental (I would prefer to be in Orchestral, but they don't seem to have it) (340th out of 695)

http://www.ourstage.com/epk/vikkiflawith

I haven't read beyond this post yet, but if you vote SAME in a contest between the #1 song and the very last song, doesn't it stand to reason that this vote would boost up the bottom song and pull down the top?

Regarding photos, I think that judging a bunch of songs with no visual to look at would be more boring. Yes, more fair...but not as random and colorful.

Rather than get immediately flushed down the toilet by posting bad pictures of myself, I've opted to do a quickie Photoshop piece on each of mine. I'm hoping it gives a visual cue they can remember, but hopefully not too "homemade". Here are a couple:

Yes Mark I agree. There is another way of looking at it if you vote a bunch of songs the same and most other voters do like wise then there is no way of telling which song is slightly better than another. Then some, not many, come along and do not vote same but vote better by far. That can make a huge difference on positions especially if there is a large entry.

No.. it's a zero sum game. Think of it this way... a vote for "Far Better" would result in +3 points for the winning song and -3 points for the losing song. A vote for "same" would result in no points for or against either song. It's like the vote never took place.

Brian

Mark,

I like the first and fourth images. The bomb going off and the superimposed car look a bit cheesy and typical of home mage graphics. At least that is how I see them.

Brian

Thanks Brian...considering they are ALL cheesy homemade graphics, I'm very pleased to hear that!

Here's the songs I've entered for May:


Claire De Lune - Solo Instrumental


Flower Duet (aka Aria) - Cover Bands


New Every Morning - New Age/World


Walking In The Rain - Guitar Solo

Michael's Profile on OurStage

I also posted this in a new "MAY OurStage Contest Entries" topic in the General Message Forum, but evidently Brian wants us to post these here. That's fine, but it's probably a bit early to discuss rankings for May since they will keep changing until the last day. Might be better to discuss May rankings at end of May or in June when all the votes are final.

Michael

Ben,
Good points, and generally I can't disagree! For one thing, I DO upload some nice images. It can be very time consuming to find the "perfect" image to go with each song's theme.

I'm not a professional photographer, so I have to license royalty-free images from places like iStockPhoto and ShutterPoint, etc. This is of course an additional expense, but I don't mind for general promotion purposes. I can license standard web-size images for .99 cents a piece which work perfectly fine on OurStage, so it's really not a problem, and if I wish, I can also add some text. But I've seen other artists post pure images with no text which also makes a nice impression for certain kinds of music, especially for instrumentals and certain channels such as New Age/World.

Beyond that, nothing needs to be changed except that the OurStage management could "gray out" images during the voting process. I've judged JPF song awards a number of times and have never seen any images, so if it's good enough for JPF, John Lennon, Great American Song Contest, USA Songwriting Competition, Unisong and all the rest, why not also for OurStage? Because the FANS decide! So you'll have to talk to the management... ha ha!

Anyway, interesting discussion!
Michael