john

Hey gang, Provisional title, incomplete (verse, lift, chorus), recorded on my phone today Thorn In My Side Verse Never thought that I'd be A thorn in your side From hero to zero in the blink of an eye, I won't lie. I'm surprised. Pre-Chorus 1 Each time that I hear, I'm outliving my fears Deep inside, I feel pride And I want you to know, no matter how it goes What the hell, I wish you well Chorus Raise me up Put me down You keep me guessing the game But my feet are firm on the ground Turning around I know my own mind I’m tired of you messing

Hi Gang It’s time for New Music Friday! Post up your current music projects, anything from just a melody through to a full production. As experimental as you want. I will post up yet another of the 1 take songs I recorded on my phone a little later. Cheers John

If you aren’t hearing from other artists, make sure: That you review the works of your fellow artists. Put a reasonable effort into each. People are more likely to return the favour if they see that you are making an effort. When people do reply to your posts that you reply to every single on. Try and engage them in conversation. They like to feel you respect and appreciate the effort they put in. Favourable comments or not, take them with grace. Comments should be about the work or the performance. They are not personally putting you down, if you feel you are being unfairly treated on Songstuff, speak to a moderator. Focus on being constructive. Ie conversations are about improving songs and skills. Try to find out what people think and why they think it. Love your song or hate…. Don’t take it personally. Everybody is allowed to have different taste. You too. Follow the community rules. This is true posting on a forum, Facebook groups… songwriting groups… anywhere. There are rules within groups, that everybody in that groups is supposed to play by. If you don’t play by the rules other artists tend to dig their feet in and not respond to your posts. I hope this helps.

I’m in a lot of pain right now, but I will get to this. I also have a partial song to record and post. I have verse1 pre-chorus and chorus. A bit late but hopefully tomorrow. I am pretty exhausted so if you don’t mind I’ll leave yours until tomorrow too?

hey Renato It is frustrating. Sure you can get feedback from other artists, and that can be like being given a cool, I fresh orange in the desert, but a lack of feedback from listeners is disquieting. On a bright note they don’t hate it. The public is not the most tolerant and nor do they really hold back. Another thing to consider, you are putting music out, releasing it. Listeners are there to be entertained, not give you feedback. Sure, it is fairly common to get feedback in some form, but there is no obligation on them to do so. There are many aspects of music that might induce listeners to give you feedback, and that includes you stimulating them to do so. I guess you are doing another thing. Getting feedback from your peers. I would suggest posting your songs, one by one to our critique boards (not all at once either or you may annoy others posting their songs for critique only to get buried.). Are you engaging your listeners? Making yourself available is an important aspect of performing. You get to meet your listeners. The last thing is, are you getting the plays in the first place? Feedback largely depends on them hearing. Silence could be more to do with failed marketing than anything to do with the music itself.

Hey I’ve long been a Foos fan. Taylor Hawkins was a character, a creative force, talented drummer and singer. He will be so sadly missed. As I write this the cause of his death has not yet been announced. If there is an afterlife my bet is he already has his kit set up and is ready to jam with his heroes. So long Taylor, and thanks for all the good music. Cheers John

I don’t use a Microsoft server, just giving an example of how seriously menus are taken and the impact, positive and negative that they make. It affects software programs, mobile apps, web apps…. Your car entertainments and sat nav, synths, DAWs especially, washing machines, smart watches and phones…. It’s a big issue and a well trodden path. We use Linux. Always have. Microsoft IIS sucks donkey butt.

I should add, I will go through a patch of changes, but not all changes at once. My back is killing me otherwise I would have started today on non-critical easy changes. Hopefully I can start tomorrow. I plan to re-absorb the off-topic board into the musicians lounge and re-title as musician’s lounge. I also plan to prepare for combining draft song critique with song critique.

Adding specific boards/subjects would be relatively easy if it is to the top menu. It was just a confusion with typical forum terminology. Actually showcase used to be in the top menu. Tagging is already there, just not commonly used. Neither do we really encourage it. If we reduce boards staff can apply tags so that if we later decide to separate the boards again, we can filter topics using those tags. It’s not the only reason, but it is one of the reasons. Boards are fairly dynamic. What makes sense when the boards are busy is nonsensical when they are quiet. For example. Our boards were busy enough that having two song boards made sense. With one board adding a new song post meant it was only on the front page for about an hour. Less on busy days. Splitting boards slows down individual board activity levels. Conversely, combining boards tends to create single busier boards. This expansion and contraction is a healthy way to manage community traffic, increasing activity in dead spots, and spreading activity in hot spots. Improving navigation is another aim. Busy boards frequently suffer from menu creep, where the purpose of menus dilutes and the number of entries increases. More choices means more complex menus. Splitting things can mean more appropriate compartments for info but it also means info can be harder to find. Microsoft and others use AI to create user specific contextual menus because overly complex menus can kill software and sites. Such is the site admin’s lot! Eternally tweaking on info sites.

I completely get you are trying to help, and it truly is appreciated. Unfortunately the forums are not a typical CMS. That’s true for most forum softwares. The www part of the site is as you describe in terms of the ease of the CMS. The www part of the site used to be as busy as the forums, but just now the www part is considerably busier than the forums. The trouble is, for the forums, there is zero visibility of how busy the site is. It should be said that the www parts of the site are still the biggest path towards getting new members. Although the board traffic is increasing a little and has a good regularly active membership, it is still much quieter than it used to be. The traffic will come back because we are not being complacent about it. What kills sites quicker than anything is complacency. The store as you see it is of little value, but We have a lot in development that will use the store as we build in self sufficiency for the site. The lack of depth to my pockets has several times acted as a choke and stopped the sites growing much bigger. The courses, advertising etc is content to be released. Ads are pretty well ready. Having topics (if you mean original posts, which is what forums call new threads) as the main menu system would be a nightmare once the boards get busier. If you mean topics as in “the subject of a board” that would make more sense. Hubs, the root hub, is a non member activity based view of publicly viewable forums, blogs, galleries and clubs. The member hub also contains several other assets. There are also currently hidden hubs that will become available as we introduce two subscription products with additional assets, like a 10,000 entry contact database and other features. I look forward to the dawning self sufficiency. It will hopefully bring with it several improvements and additions for members… as well as liberating my pocket for covering increasing energy costs and food! Lol

Hi Clay Thanks for your reply and suggestions. I agree about a video, any video. That’s why I said it wasn’t a solution. I’ve been running Songstuff for 22 years, so you’re very much preaching to the converted regarding people’s behaviour, their interests, changeable desires, skills and commitments. It’s always worth exploring and discussing as members do come up with interesting and useful ideas. I am thinking over what you are suggesting, trying to imagine it in practice. I guess one difference between our perspectives is that I am looking mostly to improve working within existing forum software. What you describe could be a significant redesign, possibly beyond the scope of what we can realistically do. Possibly not. I am aware of limitations of our software but also wary of menu proliferation which if done poorly can be one of the worst blights on a community. In many ways the issue is too many choices. Too many choices is simply difficult to navigate, period. Until about 2012 the www part of Songstuff was bespoke coded so I’m not afraid of coding, but I am cautious because of the ongoing commitment over and above the initial development. Our forums are customised forum software, built on several hundred thousand lines of code maintained by a large team of 3rd party software developers and software testers. The more we depart from the core coding, the more we potentially have to maintain and ensure compatibility with, for every single release of the forum software. Don’t get me wrong. Potentially very do-able but it raises a lot of questions. I would need to be convinced and work through a proper design. Seemingly simple suggestions can result in literally hundreds of hours of work behind the scenes. That means I have to explore options about the real need for features and the best way to deliver it. Several hundred hours spent here means several hundred hours not spent elsewhere. If it worked out at 10 hours that w outdoor be a very different consideration. Out of interest, if you look at the +Create drop down, it is menu driven creation for all community content. From what I remember, without coding, we can add menu items to the top menu only. I seem to remember that one issue was that it only goes 2 layers deep. If we could do it the way I am thinking, it is a manual process, but not coding. Still, that would be a compromise functionally. It’s also a fact that we can’t have a system, going forward, because it caters for longer term members, purely on the basis that they have acclimatised to the problem. That may retain some members but it would leave in place something that puts new members off. Meanwhile longer term members may be used to issues, but most would like to see the boards busier. These things don’t all sit together. It’s not an easy issue. Indeed it is several issues. Less forums would certainly simplify navigation. It’s like peeling an onion!

We plan to post some basic video tutorials on tagging. Not a solution but maybe a help. We already have a setting on the forum home page that switches the forums between 3 views: You can see the switch next to the “Start new topic” button.

@Eddie Tucker just a head’s up for this week’s topic

Hey all We are looking to reduce the number of boards to make it easier to navigate our community. It is part of an overall rework of our site and social media. We will be encouraging the use of tags. For example, if we combine the draft song critique, the song critique and the lyrics critique board, into one “critique” board, then we would use the tags “draft song”, “song” and “lyrics” with “critique”. What boards would you happily remove/combine/change/add? Cheers John

This is a good chance to review what you do and evolve it into something better. Come on guys. We take knowledge, and the power of multiple motivated people, and we improve. Over to you.

Probably using a sub4sub exchange

Hi all As the title suggests… how do you currently go about marketing and promoting your music? I’d be interested in seeing if we can improve what you do. No cost to you. Let’s look at what you do, how you do it, and of course how successful it currently is. Then let’s work together on everyone’s marketing, promotion, design, strategy, tactics and then look at the change in stats. I am confident we can improve what you do currently! Cheers John

I’m good thanks No, I didn’t see a post from you Eddie. The locked topic doesn’t let anyone post there, if that is where you tried to post? That locked topic is there just to tell people about the weekly event and to point towards that week’s topic. If you look, at the bottom of the locked topic post there is a link to that week’s topic. I update that link, each week, when that week’s topic is posted. Something you could do, is post up a description of your music plans and what you are doing to try and achieve them, what assets you have as an artist (website, mailing list, 15 songs, etc.). I suggest an overall plan post in the marketing critique board. The marketing critique board is also useful for posting up individual marketing assets such as artwork, mail messages, social posts etc. No need to say sorry. it’s a big site and a vast topic!

Hi and welcome Eddie. Hopefully we’ll be able to help you move forward

I like your initial sounds and your effects…. It feels very watery. I struggled at the transitions. When the drums came in I felt it could do with downplaying the original sound and something more soaring or in your face would have created a bigger impact. When the piano came in, it just didn’t sit right. Maybe have the piano play some lead in notes in the bars before the transition. Otherwise… it’s strange… your chords are, I think, sectional, but your melody is more through composed. I would suggest 2 refrain like melodic hooks. If you do have repeated hook refrains, the fact that I didn’t notice them is more related to the fact your melody largely stays within the same smallish range of notes and largely similar dynamics. I hope this helps!

Many thanks Greg. For me, this makes the song a success. It seems to have evoked something and made you consider something, connecting it to something current. You picked up pretty well all the key messages, the futility of what is done and the hope. I couldn’t have asked for more.

A few quick questions: Do you practice vocals, without playing the guitar at the same time? Do you use vocal practice exercises? Do you have a vocal warm up routine, and do you use it? Do you make sure to keep yourself properly hydrated? All of these things affect your vocal cords and how they are being used.

The Independent Music Stage YouTube channel (also on Soundcloud and Spotify) and cross platform social media, supports independent music. We curate playlists, some purely independent, some a mix of independent artists and mainstream music. By creating playlists with mainstream artists, we aim to draw in fans of those mainstream artists. We mix in more and more independent artists. This introduces fans of these mainstream artists to new music by unknown artists. This is not about generating plays for big artists. It’s about acknowledging that fans are fans. If you playing music that has a similar appeal and audience to John Mayer, it makes sense to promote your music to John Mayer fans! By creating playlists with hits by similar/related artists, it maximises your chance of being discovered. So, we promote our playlists to what would be your target audiences. If we can get our playlists to have followers, then we can get your music in front of the right audience! Simple! So please help us, to help you! Please subscribe, like, comment and share! Singer-Songwriter Playlist - Example Mixed Playlist Singer-Songwriter Playlist (Mixed Independent Artists and Mainstream Artists. Good listening!) Independent Music Stage YouTube Channel Please Subscribe! https://youtube.com/channel/UCkEW8R8Bdu84VtR0Wv2-iqA Please like, share and comment. Music lovers of all kinds, please subscribe. To find out more, visit SSUK Many thanks!

Hey Rene You struggle a little in your falsetto and upper range. For different reasons. You seem to rein in your upper register. Some work on those areas would help. Apart from that perhaps dropping it a semitone or two might be less of a stretch. You have some great bass tones in your voice. Do you ever practice songs without playing the instrument? Try prerecording your guitar as a backing track to practice with. Then record the result and use your ear to work on vocal nuance and pick the versions that really work. You want to pick the lines that show of your voice to it’s best as well the tune. Then practice that vocal on it’s own with your backing track, and finally recombine. Then perform! It’s amazing how many singer songwriters practice guitar in isolation but never do the same for their voice.