john

Interesting. I’ve looked at a few different NFT options. There’s been a few ideas and platforms trying to become established. It’s getting to the point that there are some that are quite viable and attractive. Definitely worth a more in-depth look for sure.

Very good Emily! I always enjoy your songs. You have a captivating and earnest sound. The subtle backing vocals add a nice depth, and the strings support the piano and vocal beautifully.

Hey Randy Sounding promising! Have you had much in the way of thoughts for what comes next? A full band arrangement? It has a post-punk sound that could go in a few directions. Instantly it gives me a kind of foo fighters vibe. Cheers John

crisper. It pops better.

The funny thing is how often a sanitised version of the outlaw theme is reintroduced to mainstream. It happened with reggae, with the establishment of a fanbase for genuine reggae acts with a subculture of fans, which then had a mainstream reaction to reggae (bands like the Police and UB40) and then much sanitised version of reggae added to mainstream pop with some once-original reggae acts smoothed and sanitised for a mainstream audience. A very similar shift happened more recently with Grime acts in London.

A bit late… but here you go. “Cry Freedom” Cry Freedom Verse I see, your hand, so clear Reaching out for me One touch, so soft, sparks life and that means all to me Pre Chorus Sometimes, I feel detached, unreal Confused, about what that means to me Chorus Cry, cry freedom Verse I hear, my name, so quiet and so far away Your eyes, so warm, hold me and make me want to stay Pre Chorus Sometimes, I feel detached, unreal Confused, about what that means to me Chorus Cry, cry freedom

Hi Gang It’s……… New Music Friday! wOOt! Post up your current music projects. Anything from a simple melody, a 1+1, beat boxing, through to a full production. Be as experimental as you want. Me? I will post up another of my 1 take songs I recorded on my phone a little bit later in the day. So, please post up your tracks! Cheers John

Hi Greg I have mixed feelings about competitions. Most of the larger competitions seem geared to make money for the people running the competition only. The winners of many categories seem to only be chosen to get extra social shares, and meanwhile the overall winners disappear into total obscurity apart from what their bragging gets them. We used to run a competition on the boards, that was managed by staff and some members. It has to be said that it was hugely time consuming and the only people who really follow it with much interest are the contestants (pretty well what I imagine for the basic paid for contests. Considering our contests were free we had some ok prizes. Had we invested more time we could have listed some great prizes. My main concern is the time it takes to do it justice. That we can make money from it is not in question. It takes a fair bit of time investment up front, but you rightly identify the amount of time listening to entries is the problem. Some big contest might list up to 30 substantial celebrity judges. In truth, those judges only ever hear a small pool of entrants. As I mentioned before, category winners only seem to exist to increase the number of people willing to talk about the contest on social media. Almost everybody else doesn’t give a damn, which is problematic. One of the key benefits for an artist or songwriter is to raise the profile of the winner’s music or video. Doing that in any meaningful way is difficult when people just roll their eyes. This has been made worse by suspicion of prize fixing within contests in general.. Delivering something meaningful in terms of prizes is possible once you get to be a larger contest, because you rely upon sponsors donating prizes in return for being featured. As a new contest it is possible to get a decent prize pool, but it takes a lot of upfront effort. Contests can also be a bit “build it and they will come” leap of faith. Lots to chew over and a few important things to think over! You raise some interesting points too. Cheers John

Thanks for your comments guys. Useful all. Oops! Did I accidentally start a new genre? Lol I’m damn sure someone must have done it before, right now I just can’t think of anyone!

It’s hard to forget that first thrill of being on a bike. You’re right. It never leaves you. I grew up listening to my dad’s stories. He rode in the army, and then raced for the army. Rode motor cross and speedway. He rode as a mobile motor mechanic when he got out the army. Like a lot of boys, I wanted to emulate my dad. I’m sorry for your loss.

A good chilled vibe. how did you create it? Ie what DAW, primary sound libraries / synths?

hey MP Thanks! I can’t think of another acoustic funk song? I had debated having a line after “say” or not. There’s no harm in trying a line out. I had left it hanging deliberately, like an old cliff-hanger in a tv series, but yes it might not work. I thought a rousing chorus of “We’re all going to die” (lol) might be too cheesy. Songs like this walk a very fine line in sounding too preachy. I was hoping to err on the side of it being engaging. I’ve a bunch more songs to post. I’ve really enjoyed posting the songs so far and seeing the reactions to each one. I’m looking forward to recording them as simple 1+1 songs and as more complex arrangements. Thanks for taking the time MP. Much appreciated.

No worries Steve. Thanks for taking time to listen! Happy to talk about it wherever

I played it a tiny bit too fast and made a few mistakes, but it kind of gives you the idea. Say Verse It seems extraordinary we should have no fear Of the sun and rising tides Or that the world we live in and all its' glory Could turn to dust and die Chorus You don't want to believe me Don't want it to be that way I don't want to deceive you When I say Verse Like convenience junkies, pain of withdrawal Seems too high a price The pill is sugar coated, so it goes down easy To hide the bitterness inside Chorus You don't want to believe me Don't want it to be that way I don't want to deceive you When I say Bridge Why, oh why must we All toe the line Each want and need fulfilled for All to see, for all to see sometimes Verse In pathetic ritual we act out lives Numbed by our senseless greed Forever standing, our hands outreaching Always, always wanting more Chorus You don't want to believe me Don't want it to be that way I don't want to deceive you When I say…

@GregB I moved our convo about New Music Friday, and copyright protection to it’s own topic. Although highly related, it is also a very different topic with a very different purpose. I hope that’s ok.

I moved our convo to it’s own thread. Although related, it’s quite a long way from the NMF topic. I’ll link to it from New Music Friday 22 though. No worries Greg, I got what you meant. If my answer didn’t cover your question, I didn’t explain myself well enough. It’s not that all possible versions are covered. It’s if a song is identified to have incorporated or have been derived from a song, that is covered. It stops being covered when it gets beyond recognisable. Kind of mid thought but I’ll post more a little later… gotta go! I’m late!

Yep. I don’t really need to say this to you, but get creative with it. Don’t hold back, right from the concept stage. Be fully committed to it. The last thing a doom vibe needs would be something unconvincing. You have the creative mind to deliver it. The only reason .I mention it at all is because often when people step out from their comfort zone, their established skill base, they are in test the water mode, pulling their punches. It should a pretty exciting project!

Good stuff Steve. I wasn’t sure of the string sound on those first notes. More correctly the attack sounded wrong. After it got going it was all working well. The first sporadic drum rhythm felt too predictable. Rhythmically to steady, single note-ish. Otherwise, awesome dude! Great sounds over all. Love the second half in particular.

Yes! Nice one. Maybe high quality might be big file size and there’s been a slow cache issue in the chain between internet nodes. All it takes is one slow node timing out transferring a file part and you get a corrupt cache.

It would still be protected in copyright terms. Copyright exists as soon as it is created. Add to that your post here is time stamped but realistically only accessed by a relatively small number of people. In my case, my audio is also converted into video (time stamped) and uploaded to YouTube (time stamped). My lyrics are stored in the cloud in documents with version history turned on. When it comes to proving I had the earliest access with a provable development…. I am pretty covered. A more advanced level of recorded completeness protects your copyright? Where did you hear that? Every version has copyright. Protection comes from proof of earliest possession and a provable evolution/version history. The more ways you have of demonstrating prior access to something, the stronger your copyright protection. Copyright of a specific version of a song depends on the recording of that version. So say I write a song that is a single verse plus chorus. Copyright exists as soon as it is committed to a recording. Ok, copyright exists on written lyrics and written out music too, which can exist before the recording, though copyright on the combination of lyrics + music exists at the moment they are committed to a medium together. For someone to build upon that song legally (writing wise), it needs the permission of the original writer to do so. The original writer can create new derivative works any time. In the USA they can do a cover once a public version has been released, though they would need to acknowledge the copyright and pay the songwriter the appropriate license fee, the same as any song. Better recordings don’t protect better. Proof protects better. Proof doesn’t stop people stealing your work In the grand scheme of things a release downloaded by 500 people is no better protected than a song posted here. If someone rips off one of my drafts, it is still built on my draft. If they can rip it off in a way that the similarity couldn’t be demonstrated, then they could just as easily rip off the finished version. True, in the USA currently, registration affords you better compensation in terms of damages. If the artist made enough to make damages worthwhile I would probably have benefited more from publicity (and they lost more due to the same issue). PS. This topic is in a critique area! Over the years there have been a very, very small number of songs ripped off that were posted on this forum. In every case I have been aware of I have helped the writer/artist in question by contacting music sites publishing the copyright violating work and the offending work has been taken down. Often the site owners (Soundcloud, Google, Apple, Spotify etc) will suspend or ban the offending artist. Google will also stop that artist’s version and pages that contain it from being indexed by search engines. The result being their rip-off version goes nowhere and often the offending artist’s career is often damaged, if not over. Two types of such copyright theft I have seen online have involved ill-informed and immature writers passing the work of others as their own, based upon a flawed understanding of the term “fair use” and “freely available”, and disgruntled collaborating partners. Even registered copyright would not prevent such idiots from trying to steal your song. People who know better aren’t usually that stupid.

There are many, many levels. We start at electron… despite the protest from the folk and acoustic music lobby.

Hi Gang It’s dun dun dun… time for New Music Friday! Please post up your current music projects. Anything from a melody, to a 1+1, through to a full production. Be as experimental as you want. I will post up yet another 1 take song I recorded on my phone a little bit later. Cheers John

I see an error on the player Steve. Nothing plays.

We like to present a challenge MP! There have been a few changes, I think for the better. The site keeps evolving but it is slowly rebuilding and becoming more and more focused, which is pretty cool. We have some talented people. I love hearing the new songs and other new content people are creating. I'm back actively writing and recording which I hadn't done for years. There are a load of site improvements coming online. It's fun and useful. New Music Friday tomorrow! Woot!

Hi there OSheen. Welcome to our community!