A Short History of Toast Beard

[Freewave]

So I made a list about Toast Beard awhile back but only decided to publish the thing now. For those who don't know what a "Toast Beard" is (it's this site here) and it (from the wiki) is a weekly event run by sci.

"sci suggests one or two themes and a set timelimit by which a composition has to be submitted to him, usually a week. The competition is open to anyone and explicitly encourages bronies without much musical experience to participate as an opportunity to have fun making and listenting to music. As a result, not all entries are entirely serious. Both submission and voting take place on a custom chan-derived website.

On the day of the deadline, there is a live chat called "sync-listen", which serves as an occasion to listen to all the entries and comment on them live. Participants in the chat have a set number of days to vote for their favorite songs, giving one point each to them.

To keep the sync-listen time from ballooning and sort out the website's stability issues, composers were first asked to not submit more than two songs per week, and since mid-February 2012, submitting more than one song has been disallowed entirely. Length limits were instituted in April."

What i wanted to do was reflect the intial 28 ones and just how instrumental they were at getting some of the top tracks from the community when it began. I mean Glaze, Tombstone, Aviators, Tarby, and Mumble all got their start there. It's how the community put the link between mlp and the music they made and how they collectively brainstormed to make the music influenced by the show and by the themes sci came up with. It's still running of course but bronies today who are just starting out aren't truly taking advantage of it and using it as a training grounds on how to make, listen, and bond together as a community.

The List

A longer list again is the wiki http://mlpfanart.wikia.com/wiki/Pony_Music_Compo but w/o a embeds and the same level of detail.

and of course here's the massive MF MLR thread viewtopic.php?f=8&t=15

If you want Toast Beard to be vital again people need to take part in it and get inspired by it again. It's a great way when you're starting out to feel like part of the community and to have fun doing so with your peers. I think a lot of new people could really use that comradery.

[Stars In Autumn]

Ah, my one glorious moment of victory. Never again v_v.

[CDPP]

I'm just gonna bump this because toast beards are fun as hell

[Freewave]

They really are. I have very fond memories of TB.

[ganondox]

Short History of Toastbeard:

It's awesome and EQD sucks for not supporting it in anyway.

Okay, it's not exactly a history, but it's the truth,

[Freewave]

I think one of the unwritten compleixities with Toast Beard is that you wait that week after to judge and rate songs and I'm not sure how EQD felt about highlighting select stuff that was still being scored. Would have been cool if they featured the top tracks from Toast Beard as voted afterwards in a small post and gotten non-musicians aware. Then again Sci never wanted Toastbeard to be where the mass public jumped in for a sync because it would be chaos.

What could have been cool is if they actually played it as an everfree radio show and let people listen in but then again half the fun is all the feedback and comments IN the chat. No easy answers i guess. What would really help now is new people being aware and simply taking part.

[Lying Pink]

I'm kind of glad TB doesn't end up on EqD or whatever -- way I see it, one of the really good things about Toastbeard is that you can put a lot of effort into something and people will appreciate it, or you can drop a WIP and you'll get some valuable feedback, or you can just do a gag entry and people'll probably laugh along. It'd feel a lot more pressured if there was a big window in the side of TB with EqD people looking through, imo.
But yes, good article And I need to get back to TB and to #bronymusic in general, it's a nice place

[ExoBassTix]

Thanks a lot for making this thread, Freewave. I never really knew Toast Beard, but this kind of helped to make me understand it.

Kinda agree with ya, Pink Liar. If one was to start his or her story as a producer on Toast Beard, knowing that it'd end up on EdQ, pressure would be too high. Nothing good would come out of that.

[Freewave]

You guys seems scared of being on EQD. What gives with that? A lot of people started out there and that's kind of where they got good before they necessarily got "popular" and moved on up. TBH so many of the big TB tracks DID become classic tracks and did make it onto EQD eventually. Rainbow Factory, Jackleapp's Season Tracks, Omni's- Pony Robots, etc, etc. That's kind of the point of the list is a lot of the time the origin of these great tracks came as a toastbeard theme or episode response.

[Lying Pink]

I'm not scared of being on EqD at all: I haven't submitted any of my tracks to it, but I wouldn't rule it out by any means. My point wasn't that EqD is a bad thing, it was that, in my opinion, it has a different purpose and atmosphere to TB; TB is more about sharing stuff you made with some other people in a laid back and more or less egalitarian setting, whereas EqD displays music to an audience: it has a lot of prestige and therefore pressure attached to it. With Toastbeard, I can put the effort in if I want to (my first TB entry is still the fandom track I'm most proud of) but I can also do really stupid stuff. Like you say, a lot of big tracks in the fandom were originally Toastbeard entries, but of equal value are the many tracks that have been released by people which, although nothing special in themselves, have garnered feedback and allowed them to grow as musicians, or opened someone up to an interesting spin on a theme, or just given someone a smile in the syncs. I personally believe that the relaxed atmosphere that TB has allows people to make good tracks when they feel it, and then gives them complete freedom to then release those tracks to a wider audience if they want to. Adding that extra audience to TB would, I feel, run the risk of smothering the 'anything goes, don't worry if your track isn't perfect or isn't finished' kind of atmosphere. It could work (I mean, having an audience doesn't always make something super-pressured and scary, I've performed poetry at open mics in front of small crowds and that's usually a fun and interactive experience), but it could... also... not.

[Freewave]

Hey I'll take the relaxed vibe and peer feedback of Toastbeard anyday over the critical judgement and glitz of a BP and R&R or the giant overbearing vat of RW too. If Balloon Party was Studio 54 then Toast Beard was the Paradise Garage. I would definitely say the latter was more important in both instances.

[JSynth]

I feel like I have been missing out. I have been intending to do this, but haven't really gotten around to it.

[Freewave]

I agree completely about sweating about what i was sending them and then feeling SO relieved when people liked it and yet still could recommend a few fixes. It really is the positive feedback that i wish the music subforum had. Those 1 or 2 responses on mlr aren't anything compared to having 30 people responding back in a sync all at once. Its so much more a communal and positive experience then anything else I've seen.

[ganondox]

I don't necessarily mean EQD should feature tracks from it. What I'm saying is TB has played such an important role in the development of the music scene and EQD has given it no recognition whatsoever. I think TB is waning because nobody knows it even exists. I guess it's good to keep it small and personal, but I believe TB itself needs to be given a bit more respect.

[Freewave]

I know Circuitfry stated in his ideas for MLR was to revive Toastbeard and i really hope he does review and fufill all those goals now that One Last Shot is over. Hope that happens.

[Symphon]

I did a few participations with TB, and I kinda regret not continuing to do it lately. I think I'll jump back into it. It is a great experience and I loved every time we got together and listened to all the music.