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I'm increasingly impressed with OurStage and also with their related events, sponsors (and partners ). I love the addition of the John Lennon Educational Tourbus and Songwriting Contest as another possible prize...
imagine ( ) recording in that bus. Very cool. Got a feeling this thing is going to get Huge...

You're right, it did say 741 for the finals, but several people I know attempted to judge all the rounds earlier in the day and were stopped somewhere between 600 and 700. 741 would have been the number if there were 38 songs, so I suspect that a song got removed but the total battle count was not 'refreshed'. Towards the end of the day the number was finally synchronized properly. I ended up voting in all 666 rounds myself.

I have just spent a mammoth session judging. I looked at the various categories and it seems there are huge discrepancies in the totals in each category. Some only have a couple of hundred or so entries whilst others have over 1300. Is this fair? I have an entry in rock and have judged over 400 battles IMHO fairly as I wanted to see the competition. I take into consideration a variety of things including originality, quality of musicianship and recording quality. I try to put my own preferences to one side as there are distinct styles within the genre and one man's meat is anothers poison. I try to rate two songs side by side without being influenced by sub genre styles. Currently my song is lying at the bottom of the pile near the 1300 mark with only a dozen or so songs rated worse. This is embarrassing and frustrating and has made me quite angry as I would honestly rate this song on what I have heard so far from the competition as at least in the top 50% of the several hundred songs I have heard. I am sometimes surprised by the amount of people who apparently vote differently. On several occasions I have seen very very poor pieces in every way against relatively good pieces and most people disagreed with my preferance. There is no accounting for taste. I feel for a few of the guys rated worse than ours whose stuff is not all that bad because some of the real rubbish is holding its own mid table several hundred places above us. I hope that by the end of the month things get sorted out.

It's totally fair actually. It represents which genres are more popular and just as in real life, those categories are going to be more competitive. Rock music also gets a lot of the commercial business out there for music and concert sales, so it attracts more people in the first place to do it. If you want less competition, make music in a less popular genre. If it were me, I'd test my abilities in some of the other genres just to see how it would go.

I think the judging is pretty fair, even though I often vote differently than the majority. Keep in mind if most people vote a tie, and you vote one over the other, it's possible for you to be in the minority even though the song you picked may be ahead of the other. (i.e. one song could have 20%, the other 35% and a tie could get the other 45% of the vote. So your vote for the 35% song may look like a minority when it's really not. I can see how a few songs might get more positive attention because they have recruited a bunch of people to vote for them (like JPF for that matter) but I think you should get a pretty fair idea of where people rank your music in more general terms as the bottom third, middle third or top third. If you're in the top third, then you know your materially is appealing to the mainstream. If not, then you have work to do if you want to reach that level. I can't imagine a more fair tool to gauge where your music is. Not friends or foes opinions, but a lot of people who don't know you and have no agenda for or against you. It can't get much more fair than that.

You also can't get too worked up early or even in the middle of things. The month has just gotten going. Give it a chance.. by the end of the month you should have a fair unbiased assessment on where your music ranks against that collection of music.

Brian

Thanks Brian you are probably right. Too early to get excited. But it sucks when you see kids grunting to sci fi fx 300 places higher.

I just judged 30 battles in the folk genre. Was an interesting experience....

I'd place maybe 20% of what I heard in the folk category. I wonder if people enter there because its smaller, not because the song is a fit?

There were some instances where (all my opinion, naturally) a well written folk song came up against a nicely written pop or rock song. In these cases, the latter seemed to win with the large majority of voters. I don't think they were better (or necessarily worse) - it's just that with folk you have fewer weapons to knock people out with.

There are some parallels between this kind of judging and competition photography. There, judges have about 10 seconds to score an image, before going on to the next one.

We found that we had to judge black and white before color, because when they were mixed together, color images almost always scored higher. Not because they were better - but simply because of a physiological response to seeing an additional visual component. This is not a factor when time is taken to contemplate a piece - but most definitely is when you have only a few seconds.

Bottom line - I think it's more critical for some genres than others that the entries fit the genre. They have to be on the same sonic playing field.

Yeah, I know there is a "doesn't fit category button". I didn't spot it until I was halfway into my session and didn't think it was fair to start using it at that point.....

Guess this might read like I'm grumpy - actually I enjoyed it and plan to do more. No system will be perfect - in fact no system CAN be perfect. But this seems to work far better than most.

Scott

I'm hesitant to use the "doesn't fit category button"...as a competitor I sort of don't want to show a sour grapes attitude.

Big Jim, since I entered our song, I can see some stats about it. Consider that it has only had 26 plays so far...and at this point in time, the rock category has 1345 entries. More time will definitely change some things. But, just to annoy you, I will say that my other rock song, "Solve My Problem" has had 20 plays and is currently at #287. This proves that Americans are better lyricists than Scots. (runs and hides, laughing)

Seriously though, another thing "Solve My Problem" has in its favor is that it gets immediately to the point...you have 15 seconds to hook them, and this song starts with a bang. The rest might be irrelevant for many listeners...they'll just click through and jump to the next one.

The folk category currently has 287 entries. I knew that, so I played the odds and entered "The Graveyard of Songs"...it has had 94 plays and is currently at #2. Will it last all month? I don't know...but the smaller number of entries equals more plays and more votes...and also, yes, better odds of doing well.

But all in all I agree with Brian...this is as fair as online judging is likely to get. A bunch of people give it a listen and say yea or nay. This is why radio looks the way it does...because most people really do prefer what we hear on the radio.

So how do you find stats on how many plays etc. Cause I wanna find out how the two guys growling to sc fi noises is 300 places in front. By the way I've said it before You can run but you cannot hide.

In Response to Al David's = # of times comment:

Yes. This engine is really sharp when it comes to distributing content fairly. Even so, I would opt to for early entry into a channel contest. Give the fans as much time as possible to listen and weigh in.

In response to Big Jim's post about stats:

Be on the lookout for A LOT of changes in the coming weeks. Including a dashboard that will give artists the most important stats at a glance. And we have some really big stuff in the works that is going to make OurStage even bigger. YIKES!!

Hi Mark,

I really liked your track. But the competition is a long one and anything can happen. Keep telling everyone you know to vote in Folk. I love the channel (thanks to Brian, we created it!)

To Scott's point about Folk being "On Topic" here's the rub. Folk should echo Dylan, and Mitchell, and Baez at a minimum. We put some samples of what you should expect in our FAQ. I'd like to give this channel some breathing room to grow. Each month we're going to be more and more strict about channel entrees being on topic per our FAQ. But it's an evolving process. We're not perfect yet by any stretch, but we're certainly getting better and better by being broader. Folks need homes for their tracks. I want to focus on that first. That said, please FLAG the off topic stuff and let us listen. We have ears dedicated to that!

Can someone please teach me how to get that blue box response effect in my replies so I can respond to each question specifically? Thanks for the guidance. Apologies in advance for my blatant Webnorance.

Hi Danny:

At the bottom of the post you want to respond to will be a series of boxes. Click on the one that says "quote". A new window will open and you can type your response below the stuff within the quote tags. Hit submit and the post will show up with the previous poster's quote in a blue box and your response below it.

Thanks for your response by the way. Like Mark, I might be uneasy in busting someone on their genre pick. But I suspect I could probably do it for the most blatant cases.

Scott

One can even just have a sentence or two or whatever be in the box for the reply by just keeping both the (quote) part of anybody's reply between the sentence or so you want to reply about. That way, you won't have to have all of the text in there,,,but only that of what you are really responding to.

John

Like this?

Danny,
Ok, we're almost there!
Here's some tips:
1. Start with the Quote button and then after the page (text edit box) opens, scroll down to see everything initially on the page.
2. Remove (or delete) anything you don't need.
3. Don't remove the important quote you want to keep. It starts with a quote code surrounded by bracks "[quote]" and ends with quote code like this "/quote" again surrounded by the open and close bracket.
4. Start typing your own text usually just below the quoted text.
5. Click the "Preview Post" button to check what your post will look like.
6. When satisfied, simply click the "Submit" button.

If there is still a problem, you can go back to "Edit" your post and tidy things up. For example, if there is more than one Quote, or like a Quote within a Quote, then you can simply go back and delete the un-needed quote.

Michael

Another OurStage question:

Once you post a song, can't you remove it? I don't see that option. (I can understand why updating it in the course of a competition would not be an option--although I would like to do that right now with the poorly mixed version of "Just Another Day".) Could just be my failure to see, of course.

I have a song that was in a previous competition, and I'd prefer to take it down...but as far as I can tell, it stays there for good.

Is this true?

Mark,

I had that same situation a couple of months ago when I put a couple of "junk" songs just to see how it works. They don't allow you to delete or replace a song once it is up there (they have to keep certain records for keeping track of songs entered). I ended up sending them an email asking them to remove those test files and they did (heck, those test files are doing better than my "real" ones now).

If you ask, they might do it. If they don't, just withdraw it from the competition and enter a new version with a slightly different name (Song Name #2 ?). I guess you can do that, but I don't really know. Better to send an email and ask.

Kevin

I have not put anything there yet.
It seems no one checks to see if the songs are in the right Genre.
Folk against rock, country against blues,
How is that a fair thing. Of course I suppose a good song is a good song but if they are going to have genres they should police it or do away with genres and just go head to head.

Another thing I see Chris Daughtry is ranked lower than Mark and Big Jim.
I wondered if "Daughtry" was the American idol Daughtry so I searched it and it looks like a couple of people have entered songs under his name. How does that work. It does not appear to even be Daughtry that is entering it. It looks like fans.
Is that what is happening or an I reading it wrong.

In any case Big Jim you are ahead of him on two songs.

You can't stop some idiot from uploading whatever they want. All you can do is remove it when it's found. Sames goes for out of genre music. If you find it, report it. If they don't remove it, it's possible that you simply have a different definition of what qualifies in your mind than they do. I've found them to be very responsive.

Brian

I agree Brian
It seems to be a very well run site.

The one Genre that always confuses me is Singer/songwriter.

I took that to mean a simple guitar/vocal or piano/vocal
or two guitars/vocal or Piano guitar/vocal at most. Where a songwriter is showcasing the song/lyrics not production. Seems like no one has a genre like that.
There are fully produced full band songs in there.

I guess it would be asking for too much to have a genre like that.

Here's what the OurStage FAQ says about Singer/Songwriter"



Kevin

Well Kevin unless my ears are really screwed up big time that eliminates about 80 percent of the songs in the category.
That's why I usually don't even bother with these things.

You put up a song that follows those guidelines and get paired against a song with a full band production. Who will win?

Hey Bill,

It seems like the "Folk" or "Acoustic" categories are more geared toward the guitars & vocals stuff.
But I agree that it seems weird that there's hip hop and metal bands in the Singer/Songwriter category. Personally, I'm not hesitant to use the "wrong category" flag because I think it'll make it a better website.

Hi Juliana
Welcome to JPF
I liked your song in the folk Festival category. It deserves to be where it is.

I don't mean to sound like I won't put any of my songs there. I will.
I like the idea of being able to flag a song as wrong category.

I am just a cynical old fart that doesn't trust anyone, LOL.

Our definition of Singer-Songwriter is signature songs written and sung by the same solo artist. Production level doesn't matter. We regularly have Solo Guitar/Piano and Vocal songs compete alongside with full productions and both have done well. John Mayer and Dave Matthews are full production, so their description certainly includes full production. Not sure what the 80% is that doesn't fit. If you're just acoustic guitar and vocal, you should definitely enter the acoustic and/or folk channel as Juliana suggested.

Brian

Why is it so difficult to get a category for single guitar or single piano and vocal

The acoustic channel has full band songs as well.

I cannot compete with those folks so I don't even bother anymore.

Why not listen to winners from previous months and see if anyone was similar to you? I'm pretty sure I heard some solo guitar + voice or solo piano + voice last month in the finals..

Give me James Taylor on an acoustic guitar and vocal and he'll have no problem competing with any full production in any number of genres. For that matter, give me JPF member Bob Malone on piano and vocal and he'll have no problem competing with full production. Production isn't an issue if you have a good song and good performance. Many songs are better on just a guitar and vocal. Singer Songwriter, Folk or Acoustic would all fit what you do Bill. Seth Horan has 2 songs near the top in the Newport channel and he's competing with full productions all over the place. He's playing bass and singing on one and bass and singing on the other with a little acoustic guitar added I think on a part of it. I think you're focused on the wrong thing. A great song and a good performance of it. That's what matters.

Brian

I agree. If we'd never heard "Blackbird" before and that one came up, I think we'd all be very enthusiastic about that dude with the guitar on that fantastic new song.

Thanks Danny, sorry I missed your reply.

Looks like the Singer/Songwriter Male & Female categories are still unisex...? In the Male category at least there are still just as many female artists.

Yeah.. there's a lot of stuff mixed up and there's also a lot of artists with 2 or more songs in a channel still.. hopefully those are being fixed?

Brian

Yes, it will probably take a week or two for things to settle in. The OurStage admin will be depending on the fans to report off-topic material, so hopefully the fans will be "good sports" about it.

Michael

They are working on getting all the out of genre stuff fix as well as folks with more than 1 song in a category and the males out of Female Singer Songwriter. I spoke at length late last night with Daniel.

Brian

I figured it was a matter of inundation. That place is catching fire...

Hey Danny, got any jobs available?? My wife is out of work! Restaurants are boring me!

Brian & Mark,
Thanks & cool!

Michael

I wonder how this might affect the votes for the two singer/songwriter categories...there are a little over 200 entries in the female section, and 1100 in the male...but there are still a good percentage of females yet to be transferred. I can't wrap my mind around how it works...if you transfer a song today after a week of having been voted against songs in a different category...how does that work? Or do all votes get canceled and it starts from scratch again?

Well.. if people entered their song in such a clearly wrong channel, I think they should start at zero. I don't know how they are handling it, but I can't feel sorry for female artists who don't know they are females and vice versa (there are some males in the female category as well).

Brian

Well what happened to most of us is that we entered our May songs at the end of April, so those songs were locked and loaded for Day One of May. But there was only one category for us to enter at the time, even the night before May 1st. It looks like they decided to use the entire category for Male, and then moved a lot of the Females into a new category. The women still left over in the Male side were told everything was going to be moved by May 2 if they didn't do it themselves. So they probably wonder if withdrawing and re-categorizing on their own will hurt their "score" somehow...returning them to zero, whereas maybe some of their judging points will remain if they wait until OurStage does it.

Meanwhile, males currently gain and lose points in competitions against females...but the results of the vote will probably remain after the songs are removed...I think. ??

Kind of a cluster at the moment. But a ton of voting will cure all that by month's end.

Daniel told me they were tackling that on Monday when we spoke. I am a bit surprised it's not fixed already. But I know he's working day and night. (Half the time we talk in the morning and then again late at night an both of us are still working.. the only difference is he goes to bed and I still keep working! = ) )

Brian

The site is so full of action and color that we can easily forget there are only a few people behind the scenes doing everything...and not sleeping much. Hats off to Danny.

Okay, hats off to you too, Brian.

EDIT: Wait, that wouldn't look right...better keep your hat on.

Remember Brian, rest is very important, your body needs time to recuperate, especially as you get older.

Hi all:

Well here's the "dealio". Yes, we changed the channel rules for May. Now limiting to 1 song per artist per channel. Tens of thousands of items had to be reviewed (Brian I know that's light for you!). We ran the scripts, moved stuff around, and we're now cleaning up the last remnants of the Singer Songwriter channel to ensure males are with males and females are with females. All said, there was a LOT of logic in the scripting process to:

1. Pick which song we'd leave and which we'd remove
2. Move the thousands of items we reclassified as better fit for our newer channels
3. Email everyone with what changes were made to their media
4. Log it all
5. Scramble a bit when we had an issue with the singer songwriter channel moves (it was removing even if artists only had 1 cut in the channel)

So that's the story. Because we did all on a "live site" any misstep was highly visible. The good news is that by mid-day all should be back to normal, you can continue doing what you're doing. Feel free to reach out to me via my profile:

http://www.ourstage.com/fanclub/danielpalmer

Thanks JPF for all you do.

-Daniel

Thanks Danny...any minor change on a live site is like moving a mountain.

Get some sleep!

Unfortunately, there was a pretty major bug that you won't be able to recover from for this month. The OurStage code was not properly registering withdrawn items as actually withdrawn, so even if people only had one ACTUAL song in the contest, if they had initially entered more (before the month even started), they were registered as still having those songs entered. Sure, we can re-enter our songs, but we've lost our rankings.

Some friendly advice... and believe me, I know how hard it is to run a large site... run a LOCAL copy of the OurStage site somewhere. Test out any sweeping changes offline first, so you can catch bugs before doing it a live situation. Alternatively, keep backups of the site at regularly intervals, so that if some big mistake happens (like it did yesterday), you can restore to the last good version of the site, fix the bum code, and re-run the change.

You guys are doing a great job overall, and the system has been remarkably bug-free, from my observation. Just trying to help.

Hi Andrew,

I can tell you that we had one issue with singer-songwriter, which we caught and corrected, preserving the battles/ranks for the artists we incorrectly pulled. And that for ever inquiry we've had as a result of these changes we have been able to provide answers to the artists that support our advertised rule changes:

1. One song per channel

2. If you have two, we said that we'd keep the one that was the higher ranking song from the previous month

We also covered the edge cases and tested it in our test environment before running the script. If you have specific examples where we didn't live up to our promise, aside from the bug we know about and corrected, we'll be more than happy to investigate.

Thanks!
Daniel