Subject: Critics Circles

I think you are severely misconstruing the intent.

In recent days several folks have lamented the lack of critical feedback they receive on song postings. Critic Circles is like a volunteer service. If someone desires some critical feedback he or she can contact one of the people listed here and that person will try to offer some constructive comments.

Also, no one is claiming to be an "expert." I know practically nothing about folk rock. If someone asked me for feedback on a folk tune I'd have very little to offer. However, I've spent many hours learning about and trying to improve my own production skills and might have some substantive observation to contribute in that regard. The categories merely indicate in which areas the volunteers are comfortable commenting.

This isn't "tell me what I'm doing wrong," but rather, "hey pal, can you lend me an ear on this and give me your opinion."

Right. I think of it more as student critiques, where you sit around and give pointed comments based on what you know. So often the comments on the song page are overly polite because we want to be social rather than critical, and there's nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but for some people that's not enough and this will give people the opportunity to relate to each other in a different way. It's still peer-to-peer.

It's up to each Critic. But I suspect if a requesting members wants to focus on certain issues, the Critic will try to oblige.

Then the requesting member will ask, using the NOTES, hopefully. Actually, I get that sort of specific request often.

Up to the Critic and how much time they spend. Part of the experiment.

Again, only time will tell. Every Critic is free to ignore a request, pull his/her name from the list, etc. As one member said, he doesn't know which tracks to listen to cuz there are so many; he hopes this will focus his listening and helpfulness/utility on the site.

Cheers guys
Those are all useful clarifications...
It is going to be interesting to see how it all unfolds
Regards

b

Put me down for anything in Acoustic Rock, Indie Rock, Folk Rock, Alternative Rock,Hard Rock categories, and Industrial. Basically anything that is rock based. I'll try and give constructive comments on basically anything (performance, production, song structure, etc.).

Thanks,

Adam (8piscean8)

Critics Circle Jerks:
bonnieprincejohnny
biba_nov


Hey it's a pretty poor turn out for the Circle Jerk - there's only two of us -c'mon guys n' gals where your sense of decorum?

Heh!

I think Jim has the right take on the Critics Circles.

An analogy:

When I was in college taking English Comp, the prof broke the class into several groups of six students --- "writers circles." We would meet for an hour to critique the drafts of compositions of those in our group --- extra work, no doubt, but we did our best to read each draft and prepare comments so as not to disappoint the others in the group. We got as we gave, so to speak. At first, people were shy to say anything negative ("I really liked it."), but after a few sessions everyone loosened up and the discussions became very lively with a lot of back and forth, and no ruffled feathers!

The feedback I got from the groups somewhat helped my work in a direct way. The profs written and detailed comments (it was a fairly small class) on my work were always on the mark, and helped me tremendously. I improved my writing style dramatically over the course of the semester.

So, what purpose did the writer's circle serve? I finally realized that by reading someone else's work several times, I was forced to think about virtually every aspect of writing --- what is being said, how is it being said, does the first paragraph need to grab me or should there be a patient, slow build, is the vocabulary too ornate for the context of the piece, is it too repetitive or is repetition being used as a clever device, does the ending have a twist so that everything falls into place, or is the ending too much of a deus ex machina, were emotions conveyed, did the humor work or was it merely distracting, was it too long or too brief, and so on ad infinitum. I realized that by reading and analyzing, in parallel, Dostoevsky and student writing that the crucial elements of writing were being laid bare, and that the awareness that exercise provided indirectly improved my own writing.

I think there are obvious analogies in the musical realm.

Some people will object that they don't want to feel like they're in class, that they're in this just for fun. No problem. They have the choice. Others seem to really want to have their work scrutinized in the interest of improving. What better way than to submit your work to volunteers with similar interests?

The Critics Circles should not (and will not, based on some of the comments on this thread) see themselves as self-appointed experts (the professors) but as groups of peers (student circles). Actually, by the above analogy, the members will probably end up benefitting more than those who are being critiqued. And that's fine. I envy them. I would sign on myself, but it's little early for me.

Bump

I have taken the approach of making sure I understand constructive criticism on a song, and later applying it on the next song when the opportunity arises. I've rarely gone back. I'd rather be driven forwards I guess...

I believe the concept is strictly by-request-only. One person already contacted me to ask for a listen. I downloaded the song, listened about half-a-dozen times, and spent about 20 total minutes trying to write comments that the artist might regard as useful feedback. With that degree of invested time I can't afford to review more than about one song per day - so no worries that I for one will be spamming the charts with critical quips any time soon.

One of the things MJ2 is to accomplish is the ability to nest songs with versions, so that a single title might be given and all version list under it, perhaps all derivations even, so that you could keep early versions as instruction and/or informative archives.

In light of that, I've recently been a bit more outspoken about obvious failings of tracks I hear. It therefore amuses me no end to have gotten a note this morning that said

[QUOTE]Anyhow, it's obvious for all at MJ looking at your ridiculous comments around on MJ that you don't know much about music

I like the idea of circles. Let's see if it flies.

I would like join in, but I have two personal issues presently.

I'm not sure exactly how I could help in an "expert" manner, I feel that I am still very much on the learning curve myself.

Second, my lifestyle has changed significantly lately and I'm discovering that I can't manage my time very well in my new situation. My song output has suffered, but also my at-home task completion rate has dropped as well.

So signing on right now is probably a mistake.

Another thought.

The idea of student circles based on different disciplines makes a ton of sense, but it also prompted this thought:

Distilling the rating of a song to a single number is highly problematic. As it is, that number is aggregated from four separate ratings. Why combine them immediately on each song?

What if there were four separate lists, each one based solely on each of the separate four ratings? (Or maybe some weighted average - e.g. if the production is so horrible that the creativity can't shine through)

Listener-only MJ visitors could use (via a default setting?) the current aggregate number to find new songs to listen to, but MJ song contributers could monitor only one of the separate lists - based on the area that they are focussing on.

For example - maybe I care mostly about "Originality/Creativity" - so I look only at that list to quickly find the other songs whose strength is in that aspect of song writing. I would also likely watch the "Originality/Creativity" student circle for discussion in that area.

Likewise for others who care more about Production/Performance, or the other categories.

Aligning the circles with the voting categories makes lots of sense from this perspective.

To complete the concept - the number of categories needs to be more than four - but not more than 10 hopefully. Production/Performance needs to be split apart. Song writing might be split into Melody and Chord structure, Arrangement, Genre consistency, Writing for specific instruments (constraints), etc.

This would allow different people who care about different things to focus in to what they care about. They can aspire to get good reviews from the appropriate circle, and they can aspire to get their songs listed highly in the list they care about.

Some people will aspire to do well in several categories. Those going for "professional" status can get involved in additional categories until they are highly regarded in all areas. Then they are truly ready for market.

Yeah, I'm a dreamer. Thanks for reading this far.

Sorry. One more comment.

under Originality/Creativity 1-10

2 - Poor / Anti-creative

I could actually get into a really excellent "Anti-creative" project. Fertile grounds in my opinion.

That would be entirely different than "Poor".

Don't cha love the arts? :-)

I guess someone is clearly in favour of blowing sunshine.

Victor.

I guess someone is clearly in favour of blowing sunshine.

Victor.

well... I kinda like this idea... but it neglects one important point: not everyone here has the time to consistently devote to this type of thing. I'd love to be able to contribute like this, but sometimes I'll go 3 weeks without listening here due to work, family, recording, other hobbies etc. etc. I think this kind of thing will only work if there is a constant effort from people, and that's really asking a lot. Again, I'd love to do it, but I don't want to shortchange people by going weeks at a time with no input.

Mason

OK, I signed up to this and have just done my first review.

A few things to think about.

1) Give the person who is asking for a review a brief outline of your "qualifications".

2) The person who wants a review should say what they are looking for. Performance/song construction/lyrics/melody/production/mixing etc.

Cheers

Dick