That's a postmark deadline. Because of the Sunday deadline, we'll likely accept anything postmarked on September 1st as well. We're pretty flexible. We just have to cut it off somewhere or we can't possible ever finish all of this.

Brian

Thanks Brian...

Beth

Brian, 1 September is a holiday. Mail ain't moving then, either (not to say it moves very well the rest of the time). Since 31 August lies in the middle of a long weekend, your call whether to have the actual deadline be before (8/30) or after (9/2). But if you manage to get anything postmarked on 9/1, you and the postmaster (or postmistress) are *awful* friendly.

Joe

Well, I will include a note in our September 2nd newsletter that anyone who has a postmarked entry by that day is fine. I'd keep taking entries until Dec 31 but people need a deadline to get motivated and we can't get a zillion new CD's into the process that late.. a handful of new releases at the end of the year is fine though.

Brian

Brian...I'm on the late end of things too!!...Have been procrastinating on asking a question.

Back in 01 or 02 (whichever year the next to the last contest was )..we sent in a few of the children's songs on a home-made CD and it was listed as Demo Submission. Can the Actual mastered CD (which was never submitted)...be submitted? even if it has a few of the previously submitted songs on it?

Regardless, will be sending in the new CD....but wondered if
we could send the First CD in too.

best..
Kaley

http://cdbaby.com/found?allsearch=kaley+willow

Kaley,

You can send it in. We've had awards in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006 and next is 2009.

Brian

Hi Brian, When is the deadline for entering cds for the 2008 competition? I thought you can still send in cds released between September and December. Thanks for your kind reply.
Karalie & IJenNeh

Hi, I was a nominee in the jazz categories in 06 and I've been scrambling to get an entry in here, but my CD isn't ready. Should I wait a month and send you an official CD or send a copy of the master labelled?

Also 4 of the songs are packaged on the disk along with 8 new ones and I'd read that old material wasn't allowed to be entered into the contest. I'd gotten both a best jazz cd and best jazz song nomination so I wasn't sure what I should do about these tunes.

Send the actual CD. Deadline for new releases is the end of the year so you have time. The songs previously entered would not be eligible again, but the others would be. You might notate on the CD which were previously entered with a sharpie so that the screeners (who may not have been involved previously) will know not to consider those tracks.

Brian

Dear Brian-

I followed the directions in this FAQ document when I just mailed my physical CD yesterday. I put all the requested info ON the CD itself with a sharpie, and on the back side of the front cover page of the CD case (inside left page when you open it).

Now I am not sure I did it right. I was assuming that when the case is separated from the CD/"liner notes", that all the printed pages of the CD are considered the "liner notes", and would, perhaps, be stapled together. Is this correct? If the tray liner/back cover only is considered the "liner notes" and the front cover page is thrown away, then I may have screwed up, and clarification about what exactly is considered "liner notes" might help eliminate this problem in the future.

Secondly, I think there might be inconsistent info about the shipment instructions on your site, which also makes me wonder if I screwed up. Here in the FAQ (which is where I was "dropped in" on a google hit/what I followed), it stresses info ON the CD and ON the liner notes. However, when I came to the home page this morning, I see on the JPFolks main page an additional requirement not mentioned in the FAQ, about the album title being listed on the "outside of the package". If you mean the outside of the shipping package, then that is the one requirement I didn't do; I could resend another CD before the deadline if I need to-Please advise. Kelly

Kelly,

You'll be fine. We just try hard to get people to realize how important it is that we have all the contact info we can get so that things can't get lost or confused. Our goal is to simply make sure we know who sent the music in so if it get's into nomination contention, we don't have to eliminate it because we have no idea who sent it. We've had many people send us really good music with absolutely no info whatsoever included. I mean literally. A blank CDR, no return address, no artist name.. nothing... but music on a CD. And when that happens there's nothing we can do. In your case, you got enough of the redundent stuff done that we'll know who you are.

Thanks,

Brian

Hi Brian,

I just wanted to confirm what I think I read above to confirm I am correct in my interpretation.

May I still enter a song for this year? I think I read the above to believe I would be able.

A cowrite and I wrote a song that she submitted sometime ago, but am I allowed to submit another song or songs on a CD that would be songs where I was the writer and there was no cowriter??

Thanks Brian for indulging me in my "blonde moment".

Best,
Lynn

The deadline to enter something new (i.e. released in the year 2008) is December 31st. The deadline to enter older material was August 31st.

Brian

Thanks Brian, for the reply, and for all you do! I am proud to be living in the same state as someone who obviously devotes a lot of time to his fellow musicians, and (amazingly) at no cost to us. You and this site are a huge service to this industry.

Kelly Domino

Hoosier's rock baby!

Hi Brian-

I came to the site to verify my entry after 12/31/08, per the contest rules, and I see you are into round 2 of judging already! Did the post of entries/grace period happen? I couldn't find it on the site....

"We do not verify receipt of entries. Once the entry deadline has passed, we will post all entries received. At that time if an entry is missing, there will be a grace period in which you can re-submit an entry."

Thanks for all you do!
Kelly

Kelly,

We got your entry. No worries. = ) We received thousands of entries at the deadline and not all are checked in yet. But yours was.

Brian

Uh-Oh, I am judging Contemporary and about 10 albums in a row kept coming up with every song listed as "Traditional Folk" -- although the album is in Contemporary. Seems like a problem there. I stopped for tonight (I was hoping to finish this category by this weekend).

Kevin

It sounds like someone moved those albums FROM tradional folk TO contemporary which would be a problem. I don't know why people do some of the things they do.

Kevin,

I just returned those albums to the original categories so you should pretty much see Contemporary albums there now.

Brian

Thanks Brian! I appreciate the response. You and your organization are amazing.

I feel bad, because I see that you still need help with judging, and I haven't volunteered. As a songwriter, I have a big fear about doing so; I don't want to subconsciously copy someone's lyric or melody in the future, and I am sure I am not alone in this.

I am, however, just a few hours away from Indy, and could be available to help physically with cataloging CDs, helping with paperwork, etc. by driving down for the day(s) as needed. I am more than willing to do so. If my timing is bad on the offer-please keep it in mind for the future.

The best musicians and writers take in influences and inspirations from all types of things and then filter them through their own talents and viewpoints to create their own works. All of them have done that. All ideas are inspired by something. If you aren't listening to lots of music, you are making it impossible, in my opinion, to ever find success commercially and making it quite difficult to find artistic success as well. It's like being uneducated and thinking you can become an expert in something.

Artists and writers should be listening to as much new music as possible. It will teach them where the bar is truly set. Without that knowledge, at best you're taking a random shot in the dark and likely will never have an appreciation for how good you really need to be and thus fall well short on your own efforts.

But that's just my opinion.. I could be right.

Brian

Wow! Interesting perspective-Thanks. OK, I'll give judging a shot...

Kelly

Just a sad observation - I'm critiquing a rather large category. I've listened to 127 CDs so far and only about 38% through.

Of the recordings Ive listened to, I don't recall ever seeing one of the contributors participate in any of the online forums. Not one (yet).

Tom,

There's many reasons for that. First off is that only a small number of the active posters have entered anything. Second is that in general, most people HATE or have no time for message boards. Some of our most active members have never or have rarely visited the message boards. Third is that most of the folks who entered CD's are at least part time musicians making part of their living from music. That means they are rehearsing, traveling and gigging and have very little free time to post on message boards. And fourth, about 7K of the 42K CD's entered came from people who just joined JPF upon entry for the first time. Fifth, many of the folks who DO post here and DID enter this year, sent their CD's in directly to us instead of through CD Baby and that music isn't even in the online system yet. All those CD's will be screened for Round 1 & 2 here and then combined with the online stuff in Round 3.

We have 52K members, but there are in truth only about 1000 active posters of the 17K registered users. Of those, I think less than 50 entered anything into the awards and 25 of those folks sent their CD's in directly. So how likely are you to come across a 1 of 25 Albums in the 32K that were online? That's one out of 128 albums. Then add on to it that most of the albums from members here fall into only a handful of genres.

The odds of coming across something is very small. I'd be more shocked if you said you'd found a bunch.

Brian

Hi Brian,
Well, I am so embarrassed to admit, but even though I read the submission rules several times, I inconveniently skimmed over the part about putting all of my contact info directly on the cd itself. I don't know how i missed this, but I did. I was wondering if there was something I could do to rectify this. I sent 2 discs: one demo with only my name on the cd and the other is my band, National Ghost's, new release, with only the band name on it. I never put any other contact info directly on the cd's. Do you think this will be a problem?
Thanks
John

Brian,

Sorry, I know this has probably been asked bazillions of times by now, but where can we view the list of submissions to make sure ours were received? I have checked back periodically and haven't seen it, but I don't know if that list is just hiding somewhere special...or if I am just blind...the artists I would like to verify for are myself - Tania Hayward ("Demo from the Dunes") - and Chris Russell ("Two Dollar Show", and "Demo"). Also, around what time do you think the lyric awards will start? Thanks.

Brian,

Great post. One thing I might add, especially since I started judging today but have done it a LOT! It is actually kind of my business, listening to a lot of music, allows you to know what "not to do" as well. When you hear a certain subject, certain lines, certain, cliche's used over and over and over again, you know that you should make some changes to your ideas, going in. Saves a LOT of time.

MAB

John,

We have your music and it's fine. When someone doesn't put their info on there we write it ourselves.

To Tania, we have all 3 of those submissions from you and Chris. So you're all set as well.

Brian

Marc,

I agree. We've often told people that the education you get from listening to a LOT of other music, especially from your own peer group (versus just what is on the radio) is that you learn and get the best self education you can get. You need to be aware of what is out there to have a clue about where you need to be to compete. I really had my eyes opened early on when I toured around the US and really saw the talent level out there not only among writers, but also live performers. There are live artists I've met that are a million miles ahead of the average and even they struggle to get gigs. So if you're not focused on being top notch and you don't know how good you need to be, how can you find serious success? The answer is, you probably won't.

Brian

Brian,

Thanks much for confirming. It is always good to know when things make it from A to B...and didn't, say, get eaten by a t-rex en route. =) Much appreciated, have a good one!

Tania

Sorry Brian, you have not heard from me but I wanted to let you know that I am here and still screening songs. I was sick last week, but I'm back to work on it now!

Brian,

Life got in my way recently and had some work going on. I am halfway through. Will finish up in a couple of days.

MAB

Brian,

Ditto what Marc said, but I should have it wrapped up by the end of the month.

Still plugging away - I'm up to 70% in one of the big categories! WOOOHOOO!!

Hi Brian.

As of just a few minutes ago, I have completed 3 of the 4 categories assigned to me. But I've noticed, and you did mention, that even when you think you're done, new albums are still being added. Will this go on indefintely? I ask because I don't want to ignore any albums by not checking back.

Also, to comment on some of the problems that people have experienced, I found in one of my categories, where it said there were X number of albums remaining, many of them already showed COMPLETED with a date in January or February. And I know I wasn't the one who completed them. I can listen to them, but can't rate the album or songs. Haven't heard of this being mentioned before.

Also, today is the first time I've noticed, with albums I didn't know had been added, that many of the genres had been changed like you said. But a lot of them had been changed to genres that didn't even make sense, at least to me. If I liked a song, I took the liberty of changing the genre back so I could rate it, but I'm sure I passed on some good stuff because there were so many that had been screwed with.

All in all, I've really enjoyed doing this. Thanks for letting me be a part.

Greg

It will continue to happen until we shut off round 2. At that time we'll notify everyone so that you can make one last check. Some movements have been rather ridiculous which is annoying since we've begged people to be very cautious (and even have a warning pop up that double warns them before doing it). It's vital to be able to legitimately move stuff that needs it, but some people just ain't cut out to follow the rules no matter what you do. So I try, when I find them, to move stuff back to where it belongs. And we are tracking all movements so we can return stuff that needs it and review any problems that arise.

The complete issue that you describe sounds like trouble. I had a single album where that happened. I will try to get with the tech folks to see what to do there. I suggest just holding off for now until that is looked into.

That last thing is a problem when you have judges who have.. a problem. We try to monitor it, but some rougue judges have made things tough. Fortunately we'll get a list at the end of the round of changes and we'll also know who did it (I can't tell at this time making policing much harder). This is a custom system built solely for us so if we didn't ask for a feature, we didn't get it. I've learned a lot about how tough it is to program such a gigantic and complex system. We have thousands of judging processes going on and 1 or 2 problem makers can really throw a wrench into it.

Thanks,

Brian

Brian,

I just "postponed" an album that had all covers except one song. I didn't move it. Would it be best to judge that one non-cover song and hit complete? I don't quite understand if I should be moving things or just judging the songs that are in the correct category on a particular album.

Kristi,

We've sent several emails to all judges about moving stuff. When in doubt, NEVER move something. The ability to move an album was and is meant for extremely obvious problems where (for example) a childrens album was mistakenly placed in the Death Metal category. Only an extreme mistake should be moved. And even then ONLY if it moves you.

Covers are a little different. But an album can have 100% covers and still be in any category (rock, Pop, Rap, Vocal Jazz, Country etc.. it doesn't matter). Albums are judged on the performances of all the songs on the albums. It's an Artist award, not a songwriter award. So it doesn't matter who wrote any of the songs. For Cover SONGS.. we do have a category for best cover song. But keep in mind it needs to be a truly AMAZING versions to have any shot in that category which will get gettings songs from ALL genres. In most cases, the only reason to listen to cover songs on an album is to determine if the ALBUM should be flagged... you should NEVER change the genre of a song or an album unless you want to FLAG that song or album, but it's clearly in the wrong genre. If you find a song in Roots and you think it's Amercana, that's not enough of a difference in genre to justify a move. If you find a Rap song in Roots and it's good enough to flag, then you should move it.

See what I mean?

When in doubt, DON'T move it. Flag it and we can easily move it (and probably will) in round 3, 4 or 5.

Brian

Brian,

Because of computer problems on my end, it has been several weeks since I was able to do any judging. Finally, the issues have been resolved and I am able to get back to it. When I got to the interface, I noticed that the category I am judging has shrunk by about 60 albums. It means less work for me, but I found it curious.

The big problem I am seeing is that I have come across several albums that I have already judged. (Fortunately, I have been keeping a written list of albums and artists.) When those come up, I am just hitting "complete" and going on to the next album. I hope this is the proper procedure.

Kevin,

That happens when something gets moved and then moved again. For example, it's in Rock, then someone moves it to Pop... then another judge in Pop says "nope.. this is Rock" and moves it back. It will show up as new in your category. That also happens if even 1 track from an album is moved into your genre. You should verify your votes are there and then complete it again. We've urged folks to be careful moving stuff and in general people have done a very good job. But a couple people out of thousands messing up can cause things to get moved around. So we try to fix them as we find them. We'll have a log of all changes and review them before finalizing round 2.

Brian

Pluggin away at this honkin' huge category Are there a few days of flexibility if we are not able to get them all done by Febr. 28? I'll be close, but we all had flu's this weekend and it put me way behind - sorry!
Cher

I finished my 2nd category last night. ...but there's a lot of listening to go yet.

Okay,I just re-read the first section from the January 15th e-mail - pressure is off - Whew!

Cher

... emails? I haven't received any emails.

hm

edit: Perhaps the "emails" mentioned in this thread are actually newsletters, if so, I jus' subscribed.

Actually we're nearly done with 80 of 100 genres. The other 20 have a ways to go so we'll keep plugging away at them until they are done as well. We'll start Round 3 once we have the new software version that includes round 3 (it doesn't actually exist yet and is being custom built for us...). So keep on screening while we wait.

Brian

I think I finished all mine finally Brian. It says 100% album, but I think like track says 99% or something, I don't know how to fix that.

One thing I do know, when I go back and listen just to the tracks I picked out, I am happy with what I did and wish I could have a cd of my greatest picks lol.

Let me know if I need to do something about those tracks not saying 100% please.

Thanks again for all your hard work Brian,

Letha

There has been a major software update. I will be sending out a note to all registered judges later today with details.

And to Letha: Don't worry about the 99% thing.

Brian

connected okay this morning, and was reviewing music in my BIG category. Came back after lunch and the Music Screen Center (welcome) panel is completely blank with the following message:

The Server method "GetSearchAssignmentsResults'failed with the following error: -- there was an error processign the request.

You need to go to page 2.. use the buttons at the bottom of the page to do so.

Brian