Hey Music Peoples!

[Mox]

(Just so you know, a decision was already made.)

[Stars In Autumn]

Oh damn I was at work when this was all discussed.

[Overkillius]

I tossed a few random gmail chat invites out from who I've seen a few times with gmail accounts. We can give it a shot!

I wouldn't say that this is the best way to handle getting a group of pre-listeners together, but I'm very glad to see you are atleast considering it as an option. I don't know... it just doesn't seem like randomly throwing people a responsibility seems like a good Idea.

What is a good Idea you ask? Well it is impossible to do this perfectly, but I'd suggest that it would be best (IMO) to have someone who knows the community to get together a group of people that
1. know what they are talking about when it comes to music
2. are as open minded as possible,
3. are rather diverse as far as genres go... so for instance you wouldn't make the team Makkon, Overkillius, Dr. Dissonance, Senator Myth, Orchestral_Design, and Piercing Sight. If you did that then it would just be a bunch of people who tend to lean towards making orchestral type music, and that would have an effect on decisions because of an overall bias... I don't know about what size would be reasonable, just as long as there is a diversity in pre-listeners whether it is a group of 50 or a group of 4.
4. People without the same schedules... Not everyone is able to be as awesomely dedicated as the people at EqD, so I think there would need to be a good amount of people available at any time so that music gets posted up in a timely matter after being submitted.

One problem I see with this though is that the group might end up with certain people that don't like Baschfire or something and don't pass his music (bear with me here) even if it is a good pony related song that isn't plagiarized.

Feel free to disagree with me on these points here... but I don't think random E-mails are the best way to go about this.

[Makkon]

Looks like we have a consensus. Wonderful!

Rant time:

I believe that, as evidenced by nature, there is such thing as 'quality' when it comes to sounds and aesthetics (harmony, frequencies in light and sound, golden ratio). It's obvious.

Therefore it is fair to be a judge of quality. That's the real world. It's the professional world, and it's the consumer world, and while it may seem to be a pattern of trends and popularity, a truly insightful person can transcend the gulf of personal preference and begin to understand and appreciate that beauty when it occurs.

Yes, music is subjective, but it's a lot like visual art. You can see confidence in lines like you can hear refinement in melodies. There is such thing as kitsch (bad art) and there is such thing as a masterpiece.


Anyway, good luck Seth. I'm actually relieved to see no invite in my email, I'd have to turn you down. I'm already making myself sick from sleep deprivation and too much to do.

[Sethisto]

When I said "Random", I meant people I recognized here that were stored on the equestriadaily.com account! If you guys want in, let me know over there.

Just toss an email.

[Interrobang Pie]

I come back to see 5 new pages of posts. Do you guys ever switch off?

As fun as I'm sure it would be, a position as a pre-listener wouldn't really be me. I wouldn't trust me in a seat of power.

Regarding only letting specific artists through: that is possibly the worst thing you could possibly ever do and you should hang your head in shame for even thinking that <3

Regarding everything else: I didn't really take it in. What's going on?

[PinkieGuy]

Regarding only letting specific artists through: that is possibly the worst thing you could possibly ever do and you should hang your head in shame for even thinking that <3

Agreed. All of the most musically acclaimed brony musicians that reside in MLR owe at least some of their fame to EqD posts. Whilst their talent may have always blossomed irregardless of this public attention, there is no denying their growth (if only in motivation and confidence) is due to exposure. To deny that to others is bigoted, narrow minded, limiting and a bunch of other naughty words I can't think of at the moment.

Tl;dr: I don't like it... I'm drunk, gimme a break.

[darksymphony]

As a new pony to this site my opinion hardly carries much weight, but here it is anyway.

I pretty much only make classical music, and as a result a lot of my music is open to interpretation; yes, there aren't many direct pony references in my songs, but I would hardly want to drop a rogue sample onto a cello piece I'd spent hours working on and recording just to increase the obvious ties to the show. As a result, it could be debated how close a link music like that has to ponies etc, but personally I would never have even tried recording any music were it not for this fandom, and I'm probably not alone.

I do quite like the idea of submitting a little bit of BG info with original songs, particularly those without lyrics to tell the story; when I submit to EqD I tend to write a little info in the email anyway, and if there was a proper system for background information which would be posted alongside music I think it could work well.

[PiercingSight]

I tossed a few random gmail chat invites out from who I've seen a few times with gmail accounts. We can give it a shot!

I wouldn't say that this is the best way to handle getting a group of pre-listeners together, but I'm very glad to see you are atleast considering it as an option. I don't know... it just doesn't seem like randomly throwing people a responsibility seems like a good Idea.

What is a good Idea you ask? Well it is impossible to do this perfectly, but I'd suggest that it would be best (IMO) to have someone who knows the community to get together a group of people that
1. know what they are talking about when it comes to music
2. are as open minded as possible,
3. are rather diverse as far as genres go... so for instance you wouldn't make the team Makkon, Overkillius, Dr. Dissonance, Senator Myth, Orchestral_Design, and Piercing Sight. If you did that then it would just be a bunch of people who tend to lean towards making orchestral type music, and that would have an effect on decisions because of an overall bias... I don't know about what size would be reasonable, just as long as there is a diversity in pre-listeners whether it is a group of 50 or a group of 4.
4. People without the same schedules... Not everyone is able to be as awesomely dedicated as the people at EqD, so I think there would need to be a good amount of people available at any time so that music gets posted up in a timely matter after being submitted.

One problem I see with this though is that the group might end up with certain people that don't like Baschfire or something and don't pass his music (bear with me here) even if it is a good pony related song that isn't plagiarized.

Feel free to disagree with me on these points here... but I don't think random E-mails are the best way to go about this.

That's a good point. Although you won't know someones preferences until you actually test it. I, despite writing only classically, love electronic, DnB, Dub, Rock and many other genres (despite not being able to write in those genres, I still think I can feel when music is good). I consider myself pretty musically open minded, and if I was given a position of gatekeeper, I would make sure that I'm more open minded than usual.

So would that really make a biased team? Possibly, if most of them weren't as musically open minded as I know they are. Would it looked biased? Heck to the yes. So variety is important when selecting pre-listeners, if for nothing more than the look of it. Unless Seth keeps the names of the pre-listeners secret like the pre-readers names.

Also, the size doesn't need to be too big because just a handfull of pre-listeners will do, as most songs are about 3 to 5 minutes most of the time, sometimes shorter. It's not like fanfics which take a lot of time to look at and create and analysis of.

About the Baschfire thing. If you're going to be a gatekeeper it's good to be aware of situations like that but also to give the BOD (benefit of the doubt) to artists such as Basch (we'll just say an ASAB). When it comes to music entries with the history that he has, it would be wise to do a little research on the song, and wait it out for a few days to see if any Youtube commenters recognize the tune as something (or as just a bunch of Garageband loops). That way, if an ASAB does write something genuine, he shouldn't get blocked for it because there shouldn't be any comments like "I think I heard this in a TV show once" or "Isn't this the tune to Such-and-such?".

Sadly, I believe the issue that Seth is trying to solve is that he gets too many songs to post and he needs to be more and more judgmental of whats makes the cut the more music he gets. So, will it be perfect? Never. Will there be hurt over this? Almost guaranteed. But that's the way it has to be if we want any kind of quality control.

[Tiaaaaa]

Regarding only letting specific artists through: that is possibly the worst thing you could possibly ever do and you should hang your head in shame for even thinking that <3

Agreed. All of the most musically acclaimed brony musicians that reside in MLR owe at least some of their fame to EqD posts. Whilst their talent may have always blossomed irregardless of this public attention, there is no denying their growth (if only in motivation and confidence) is due to exposure. To deny that to others is bigoted, narrow minded, limiting and a bunch of other naughty words I can't think of at the moment.

Tl;dr: I don't like it... I'm drunk, gimme a break.

I know this was a bad idea. I said I thought it was a bad idea when I posted it. I posted it because I thought it might help as a stepping stone to a better idea, and I kind of like the direction Calamus Dash took it in. That isn't a perfect solution either, but it's a step in the right direction.

Not that I have a problem with people posting that it's a bad idea or anything, but I really didn't mean to cause so much violent emotion over something I was offering to be taken apart rather than used as is. Sorry if this comes out sounding overly harsh or unnecessarily defensive (I have a habit of doing that), I don't mean any offense. I just thought I might not have explained myself very well.

[Tsyolin]

Well the situation appears to already have been handled but I'm gonna input my opinion as well anyways, even if I am new.

I won't really touch on the whole "What does this song have to do with MLP?" because you can ask this for a very large amount of the MLP music out there. This especially applies to orchestral music, how can you really tell if it's related to if it's an original orchestral piece.

I have only uploaded a few pieces myself that I did not write but am very thankful for the songs getting uploaded to EQD even if it was not deserved. These were my way of getting used to FL Studio and I take no credit for the songs themselves. I won't be doing this again though, it's time for me to get original.

Now about the idea of "pre-listeners", it's not a really bad idea (I might even volunteer myself since I have loads of free time I could spend doing this) but there are a few flaws. Not every listener is going to appreciate a song the same way and there is going to be some conflict, still it's not a bad idea.

However, what I think is a really good idea is dividing up the music posts by artist rather than random posts. Just like the method of fan-fictions being uploaded by a group. This way, people will be able to recognize music easier, find music by artists easier, and it's a lot more polished and organized, however this will take some more time to do.

Just my two cents....

[Overkillius]

When I said "Random", I meant people I recognized here that were stored on the equestriadaily.com account! If you guys want in, let me know over there.

Just toss an email.

All is well and good then!

[[voodoopony]]

I'm pretty overwhelmed by the massive response this has got by the community. I'll throw in my two cents.

I really don't think there's a true formula to being able to separate ponymusic from nonpony. Normally one would suggest pony-lyrics or a remix from the show would only count, but then you see people like NotACleverPony or Makkon who make some of the most amazing fan music out there, without throwing in that Fluttershy "Yay" sample in there somewhere in hopes the song will have an entirely new audience potential.

And then I look at my entire discography... Maybe two or three songs actually have pony examples, and the rest are completely original and have no lyrics. While I had the intention of composing the music for the pony fandom while basing it on themes of the show [The everfree, dragons, voodoo, etc] there's nothing that can prevent someone from plugging it into some pony-music determining formula and me being sent to the moon forever.

Bottom line[s]: We're kind of screwed, unless we're able to have a few musically knowledgeable handle all the submissions in a more organized environment. I can't imagine having to accurately determine the fate of the songs themselves as soon as they come in the email, so I feel it would only be logical [much like having to read an entire fanfic whenever someone sends it... no, there are people for that].

Anyway I trust you'll do the right thing Sethy amidst all the hugabaloo. Cheers ^-^

[zorg]

oh look, everything's been said that i could possibly come up with... well thats okay

[Solarsail]

This thread is very beautiful. Seth and the rest of you all care so much that any process is fair but effective.

<3 you guys.

[MYCUTIEMARKISAGUN]

text

WARNING: I am terrible at organizing my thoughts, so beware of an unorganized wall o' text:

I don't like the idea of pre-readers deciding whether or not a song is "pony-related"
Maybe it's just me, but I think that it would just pressure people to sample more. You could write a song inspired by one of the ponies or something else in the show, but if you know you'll have a much higher chance of it getting featured on EqD if you put pony samples throughout it, you're most likely gonna do that. This would, in my opinion, lead to otherwise great songs being ruined by samples from the show, which, awesome as they might be, don't sound good in every song. I just feel like it would pressure people too much to use pony stuff in their songs, instead of just writing songs that are INSPIRED by pony stuff.
So, basically, I think it would kind of lead to too many songs using the same tired samples over and over rather than original, awesome content being created (notably, New Lunar Republic and everything Dissonance makes, ever, are examples of great songs that were inspired by the show, but are otherwise original).

I deliberately didn't mention anything about vocals up there, because I think that while vocals are nice, and a GREAT way to link your piece to the show, they aren't necessary to make an awesome song ( again, see the examples above). Some people (read: me) aren't good at singing and don't want to soil a song with poor vocals.
I'm kind of going off on tangents here, but what I'm trying to say is that while I think there should be a minimum quality requirement, I don't think you should have to have samples, vocals, or copy something from the show to get it posted on EqD.

this

this

a thousand times this

I've been working on some Pony beats....and my reaction to this discussion was "WTF? So I have to slap more OBVIOUS Pony samples onto these things if I want to make EQD? Oh wait, now they're saying 'too many ppl are just slapping show samples onto songs', smh, i'm confused."

(note the word i used: "OBVIOUS". I'm out hurr Low End Theorying "Giggle At the Ghostie" mang....so there's another problem right there. If someone RZA chops up some show samples to the point where they're not recognizable, what, they get rejected by EQD now?)

Music is SUBJECTIVE AS FUCK, much more so than other forms of art imho. You go down this road of "Council of Wise Music Elders" deciding what Is and Is Not worthy...

it'll just serve even more to dissuade noobs like me from joining up

Like I said in the EQD comments for "Luna's Ruse", I'd rather see music submissions get their own big drawfriend style post instead of some new draconian policy that will (ultimately) stifle musical creativity in the name of Good Intentions™.

[ismbof]

Uhhh...



I'm feeling too lazy to say anything. I'm going to send a new song to EQD and see what happens.

[PinkieGuy]

Music is SUBJECTIVE AS FUCK, much more so than other forms of art imho. You go down this road of "Council of Wise Music Elders" deciding what Is and Is Not worthy...

See, the problem with this though, is that even the most subjective things can be objectively viewed.

There is clearly a difference between a 5 year old playing a recorder and a recorder soloist making up a part of full orchestral arrangement. One is quality music, and the other is the foundlings of future music.

Moreover though, it's been identified ALREADY that people are complaining about quality control of music on EqD. This isn't MLR as a community mentioning this, Seth has been having this issue brought to him by his patrons. So, there needs to be some system to deal with this.

The problem with the 'drawfriend' idea is that even for drawfriend, there is art that is rejected. Currently, music is the only realm of that site that doesn't have some established form of filter on it, and I (humbly) can't see any other system that will function without SOME group of people making value judgements about what goes on the site and what doesn't.

[Calamus_Dash]

snip

check what I said in the EqD thread
I don't think that there should be a giant drawfriend style post because with drawfriends, you can just scroll through and see everyone's work in a few seconds. With a huge musicfriend post, it would take forever to listen to them all, and most people wouldn't even check any of them out.
That being said, I think that music posts should continue in the way they've been posted in the past. I like the idea of pre-listeners, as they will probably increase the amount of actual listeners (more will listen if they know the stuff is good quality) but the problem with rejections is that if somepony gets a few of their songs rejected, they might end up feeling disheartened and stop attempting pony music (or stop music altogether, which would admittedly be a bit of an overreaction).
This is why I think there should be a system where once a song gets rejected on grounds of poor quality, it should get sent to a few volunteers who know a lot about music (dissonance, makkon, glaze, jackle, maybe i pie if he promises not to troll), who will listen to it and send a bunch of suggestions back to the artist.

[MYCUTIEMARKISAGUN]

snip

check what I said in the EqD thread
I don't think that there should be a giant drawfriend style post because with drawfriends, you can just scroll through and see everyone's work in a few seconds. With a huge musicfriend post, it would take forever to listen to them all, and most people wouldn't even check any of them out.

You listen to every new song all the way through? *shrugs* My ADD is strong.

Still, you can at least do more than 3 songs per music post....

There is clearly a difference between a 5 year old playing a recorder and a recorder soloist making up a part of full orchestral arrangement. One is quality music, and the other is the foundlings of future music.

true....but at some point you eventually wander into that hellishly nebulous zone of subjective taste. You know what I mean. "Prince is better than Michael Jackson, duh." "Pac is better than Big, OF COURSE!" And then that one creep shits the bed with "Green Day is better than Led Zeppelin dude!" or some other nonsense. I digress.

[Calamus_Dash]

snip

check what I said in the EqD thread
I don't think that there should be a giant drawfriend style post because with drawfriends, you can just scroll through and see everyone's work in a few seconds. With a huge musicfriend post, it would take forever to listen to them all, and most people wouldn't even check any of them out.

You listen to every new song all the way through? *shrugs* My ADD is strong.

Still, you can at least do more than 3 songs per music post....

nope! That's a fine way to illustrate my point though I'm saying that nopony has the attention span to listen to every song, and the more songs there are in a post, the less chance of them getting listened to.

[H8_Seed]

I like the idea of explaining briefly how your song was inspired by ponies. It causes the listener, screener, whatever, to basically be able to easily make the difference between, "Yeah, I can understand how this song element would represent X pony idea" and "No, I don't really understand how this fits in with the pony fanon in any way."

[Dr_Dissonance]

I like the idea of explaining briefly how your song was inspired by ponies. It causes the listener, screener, whatever, to basically be able to easily make the difference between, "Yeah, I can understand how this song element would represent X pony idea" and "No, I don't really understand how this fits in with the pony fanon in any way."

I'm not on the Music Honour Guard, but I'd like to say that this is a good idea, because explaining where you're coming from helps tremendously, not just in deciding whether it is clear for EqD, but also in order to give feedback!

[[voodoopony]]

I like that summary idea too. While I thought the pre-listeners was a good idea, it's too easy for it to slip into a corrupt shithole of a system.

On the topic of artists explaining their songs, what if it were more like that in the posts? There could be the song video and a comment from the artist.

[Thorinair]

Personally, this makes me very, VERY sad. Most of my trance tracks are inspired by ponies and have a few vocal samples in them. What I cannot understand is why would you get rid of pony inspired tracks. As many have already said, look at the "New Lunar Republic" and such legendary tracks. Would you get rid of those as well? That said, I bet that my music wont ever be posted on EqD again. This makes me very sad. Here is my latest track (and it was still not posted on EqD, so w/e http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2uU8Vp2hC0 ). Does this mean I can safely quit making music? I mean, if I am my only listener, what's the point in it?
Sad...