roboctopus
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Madison, Alabama
Theta_Frost wrote:

I too have been thinking about better methods for CC.  It's granted that people will listen and comment to established artists with a following and such.  But kudos to the people who have managed to listen to every song and comment the large majority!  That's just a little out of the question most of the time - there must be a better way!  Maybe we could have buddies or groups on different weeks that critique each other or similar?

You could start threads/forums each week to talk about tracks of a certain type. "Post here to talk about/get critique on this week's noise tracks." That type of thing.

AndrewKilpatrick
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Worthing
little-scale wrote:

I listen to the majority of the WB stuff in iTunes via the RSS feed - so for the most part, my listens would not count towards play count. I'm sure I am not the only one doing this.

Totally forgot this was a thing.

And I was just about to complain about the level of commitment it'd take to plan that, but Roboctopopop's idea ain't half bad

Paul Wright
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Perth, Australia

I only just found out there's a "Music you haven't listened to" filter option on the Music page   uhuh

there were at least 20+ I missed in weeks one and two ... catching up!

george bowles
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St Louis

I tend to comment on things that fit into my own personal tastes. don't take offense if I haven't commented on your track, it's just not my "thing". but it's cool that you wrote this into a thread, I think it was at least somewhat on a lot of people's minds? since it is a fairly large community I think there will be people tending to "group up".

as you touched upon in this post, there are a lot of people without comments... maybe just comment on those and start your own commenting group? I dunno this thing is gonna evolve like crazy methinks. and I am going to do my damnedest to listen to all these tracks. someone might do something I love one week then do a track that I am not very partial to another week. I am totally fine with this being the case for my tracks as well. the best part is that it is really interesting, I never know what is going to pop out of the music player!

spry
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Cincinnati, Ohio

i think this whole thing could be solved by a complicated system of preferences and customization with lots of data on your song plays and stuff, but i feel like that would dilute this thing that we have just started (49 more weeks??!!?). it could just as easily be solved by making the playlist random and the display of music on the music page randomly oriented as well.  if there are artists you want to listen to you can always just search for them anyway.

george bowles
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St Louis
spry wrote:

i think this whole thing could be solved by a complicated system of preferences and customization with lots of data on your song plays and stuff, but i feel like that would dilute this thing that we have just started (49 more weeks??!!?). it could just as easily be solved by making the playlist random and the display of music on the music page randomly oriented as well.  if there are artists you want to listen to you can always just search for them anyway.

I like the random idea, and another thing which would be nice is the ability to have separate playlists for each week... as well as the main one with everything in it (which could benefit especially from a shuffle button)

fc
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Melbourne, Australia

It's a bit inevitable in any 'community', especially where aesthetic differences are involved. People will quickly learn which artists write stuff that they like - generally - and which don't. I try to listen to everything, but I don't LIKE everything and I don't expect everyone (or anyone) to like my music. 'Tis a personal challenge to release 52 pieces of music while doing everything else we're doing, and the benefits are clear for discipline and artistic practice, not to mention folio building!

GDD
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Seattle, WA

That may be true, but when you have a scenario where a person is not receiving any feedback of any kind, that is basically saying either A: Their song was terrible or B: No one in the community appreciates their genre of choice. To me that feels really isolating (especially if the person is legitimately trying). I think that as musicians, we should be able to learn and draw from multiple genres in order to enhance our own preferences and styles. We also should be able to give useful feedback on any style of music, even if its as simple as telling the artist how it made them feel or mixing tips, or something. We are a community after all and staying in clicks will only hinder that level of interaction and possibility of improving/feeling motivated to improve. Also, no great musicians have ever stuck to what they were familiar with alone.

Now I do realize that this is quite a big community and that not everyone has all of the free time in the world, but like you've said, the main point of this is to release 52 tracks, build up an awesome library, and improve as an musician. That can't happen if people are motivated to only create music that they feel will appeal to the majority and/or are too afraid to do something out of their comfort zone. I personally joined to experiment and see if I could commit to this. I can already say that I've gotten far better and far more familiar with my software and my ability simply by doing this every week, listening to others, and giving feedback.

On an unrelated note, I didn't expect my first post to be something like this, lol. I'm sorry if it sounds harsh/whiny, but I felt like it needed to be said.

Last edited by GDD (January 25, 2012 1:53 am)

Lazerbeat
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A couple of random thoughts. My personal take on the project is a challenge but a personal one. Setting a short term personal goal for the week and trying to reach it, this seems to be working well for me. I would be loathe to add a likes button or a play count button and turn the thing into a popularity contest. To be honest, even removing the number of comments and just leaving a "comment" button would work for me. Im not super fussed about how many comments I get although it does make me happy when people saying that one of my tracks is "funky" or "groovy" cause that is what I set out to write, yay me!

I'm also not super active at listening to other peoples tracks unless they are friends of mine. The disclaimer here would be there were only about 4 or 5 people interested in WB when I signed up and I wasn't expecting it to be so awesomely popular!

A quick idea though, how about we start a thread where people can post tracks with under X comments (5? 10?) at the time of posting, that they feel should get a bit more attention. Each person can only suggest one track per week and call the thread "hidden gems of WB" or something?

For example Every Second by Unison is easily in my top 5 tracks on the site so far and it only has a handful of comments.

midimachine
Offline
Gosford, Australia

I don't think that many people know of me around here so I'm guessing that the reason I've been getting 10+ comments every week was because I listened to and commented on almost everything that didn't already have a comment on the first week. Perhaps it's a matter of "give a little, get a little"? smile

I plan on going through and doing this again for week 4, but I have to confess that I start with songs that have interesting titles first. So yeah, if you want guaranteed feedback from me next week give your track a pretentious and wanky name tongue

roboctopus
Offline
Madison, Alabama
george bowles wrote:

I like the random idea, and another thing which would be nice is the ability to have separate playlists for each week... as well as the main one with everything in it (which could benefit especially from a shuffle button)

Isn't there already a playlist for each week?  If you press the arrow on the corresponding link on the main page, and then just hit play on a song from the list, the songs of that week will just play one after another.  I've been using this site like internet radio to listen to each week's submissions.

fc
Offline
Melbourne, Australia

Pyronetiks: I definitely agree, and didn't mean to indicate otherwise. Conversely, I also agree with Lazerbeat, in that it's a personal challenge. I suppose it's much like any community, the more input the more output? Heh.

tIB
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Im glad I posted now, turned into a good discussion. smile

Picking out a couple of points I like the idea of a randomize on the weekly music page- I wasnt sure it wasnt already layed out in that way. I'd totally forgot about the RSS/radio thing so yeah, maybe we are all getting more play than it seems.

In terms reasons for doing this I think I need to clarify my purposes- the personal challenge thing is valid but from my perspective it is counter community. I guess I need to take stock of my own listening here and try and build on it, as without that aspect I don't really see here as a community. Of course, it's a very new thing here and that aspect will develop over time. Again, not to be overly negative but I guess my concern is that this place could become the worst aspects of soundcloud - lots of noise and little interaction.

I'll stop now! lol

EDIT: think that last part reads a lot harsher than intended.

Last edited by tIB (January 25, 2012 5:46 pm)

Solarbear
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Philadelphia, PA
vinpous wrote:

I suppose it's much like any community, the more input the more output? Heh.

Haha, this.

phesago
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I didnt really read the thread, but I assume it seems to be based on completely missing the point, the starting point anyway. I do not want to sound harsh, but I thought this was supposed to be about YOU, and what YOU can do with the allocated time each week. I joined to see if the challenge will help me become a better musician, not necessarily about sharing with other people, and def not caring if anyone likes the crap I have been putting up here so far.

I apologize if my comments seem harsh, because they are not intended to be, but at the same time I think it's essential to be honest.

spry
Offline
Cincinnati, Ohio
phesago wrote:

I thought this was supposed to be about YOU, and what YOU can do with the allocated time each week.


this is true but it is also obvious. once we have accepted that, the question then becomes, could the site be better at networking and exposure?  i think the answer is yes.  do we want to brainstorm and possibly do anything to improve it?  again, i think yes.