[5 guys named Lars]

Some good ideas here. Thanks for the thread.
I prefer a challenge to a competition.
I like the idea of team writing but there is already a section of the board for collaborations & I don`t think its used as much as some of the others?
Love the idea of a profile section as it would be great to put some meat & bones & background onto the names. I think the zoom meeting is a great initiative (although I can never make it) & I think a lot of good ideas come from these so I hope that continues.
This forum is great but I don`t visit as often as I should..recording time (& free time generally)for me is limited as I have chosen to devote my life to my 64 hamsters & 8 wives.
Seems maybe a good time to say to the people who run the site & the regular contributors who keep it going a big thank you. 

[adamfarr]

Maybe there are two parts to this question - what do I want and what do I think might attract or keep more members.

Actually I can't answer the second.

I agree with most of what's said above. I don't care whether we call things "competitions" or "challenges" - the result is the same, you get to write a song to a brief which I always enjoy.

I'd be up for more co-writing - a lot of my own colabs have turned out to be more writing-producing which is fine and the results have been great but it would be amazing to develop an idea together with someone more often.

Sometimes I'd like a "like" button rather than having to write a full comment. The "views" statistic on a post seems pretty useless.

I do like it when people do out of their way to do something different not related to any particular song - like a tip or a theoretical question, that makes for more discussion.

Not sure whether we need a place for that. Perhaps we could have a "hot discussion" area where the current most commented posts show up? A lot of people tend to go straight to finished songs so it would be nice to have something that highlights to them (me) other things that are currently happening.

Some forums have a digest email that goes out e.g. weekly or monthly summarizing some of the highlights - not sure whether this would need a lot of curation or could be generated automatically. That could revive people's interest if they've been away a while.

But short of cloning some more active members I think everything works well and I get loads out of being here...

[Kafla]

I like the idea of a chat room...

Facebook for all it’s flaws has a great immediacy...for me anyway...it’s a pity we can’t integrate some forum features on social media...

Sometimes it would be good just to shoot the breeze 🥳

[CaliaMoko]

I keep reading this thread with interest. It would be exciting to have something come of it. There are two places I am most active musically (online). One is this forum. The other is with the Minnesota Association of Songwriters. My favorite activity on MAS is the writing challenge. I think it happens about once every two to three months--I haven't kept track. There's only one challenge at a time and they are specified as either solo writing or co-writing. Co-writing seems to predominate, and that one's my favorite of the two. You can choose your own co-writer or ask for one to be assigned to you. There are always some kind of specific guidelines. For example, one had to have a two-word title and both words had to begin with the letter P. Another also had a two-word title, and it had to be "Mississippi Moon". Nothing more, nothing less. It also had to include a specific chord progression (I V vi I ii) somewhere in the song.

They also have a monthly songwriting workshop (run by a Berklee instructor), similar to what cowparsleyman did a couple of times and maybe will do again. And they have a monthly circle jam session and a monthly song review meeting.

These are all done on Zoom and need someone to teach, facilitate or moderate and, of course, we pay dues so MAS has more resources to do such things, but pompeyjazz is already running a weekly Zoom social gathering. We could do more if enough want to.

Anyone can set up a Zoom gathering and invite people. You don't have to wait for John's Friday thing. Zoom is easy to use and there's a free version. You are limited to 40 minutes, but if you're having a great time and want to keep on, just click the link again to log in a second time when the 40 minutes is up. You'll get another 40 minutes on the same invitation. As far as I know, you can do this indefinitely. You can collaborate live on Zoom, too. If there are only two of you, there is no time limit. If you try to play together, it may not go so smoothly, but there are settings you can adjust to make that work better.

I've gone on long enough. Clearly, I don't get enough human interaction....

Vicki

[PeteS]

It's a great question John!  Here's my two penneth!

- Feedback on finished songs is great but as has been suggested a like or even rating system might also be useful.
- Feedback on Work in Progress is great but very few people bother with it so any way that could improve might be useful.
- Challenges are interesting, I take part depending on time and the challenge.  The genre one was great, the song in a day was it?  Didn't do that simply for lack of time to give to it.  I like the idea of themed challenges - Christmas, Love song, Ballad, protest song, football song or something else with a fairly generic theme.  The more restrictive you make it the less people (or at least me) might want to take part
- The recording section has been really useful and I'm very grateful to a number of people who have helped me with questions on kit or technique.
- Maybe a section on each specific DAW?  So those people with the same one could share ideas or solve problems.  The best tips could then be bought together into a FAQ style section for each DAW
- The Profile idea is certainly interesting with maybe a stock set of questions to get you started?
- I've not done any collaborations yet because I'm busy with my own stuff and I have enough trouble with one lyricist  . Might be interesting to have a section where we could ask for specific help?  Maybe on guitar part or piano section? For example I am working on something that is a slow Piano piece, problem is I can't play piano very well so. can cobble something together but I'm struggling to stop it being durgy so maybe help in that are would be useful?
- Chatrooms can be fun but they are only as good as people being on at the same time aren't they?
- Andy mention social media? I guess you could have a private twitter style feed (If that's possible) but is it really different than posting in the relevant section now?
- On that point what would be interesting about a twitter style feed would be if it was immediate and on your phone.  I look at the forum on my phone every now and then bnut it's not really usable.
- Tips generally are useful and longer items like @cowparsleyman doing the recording sessions are great.  Rich suggested some shorter items that could maybe be 10 minute youtube style vids that we could link to.  CowParsleyTips but i am sure others could do similar things
- SOTM seems dead but as has been mentioned, it is great to see the months efforts pulled together (thanks @pompeyjazz for recent Soundcloud playlists) so we can catch up on everything.  And the faves idea is good because it does give someone the chance to show their particular likings and reasons.

That's it from me for now, just to add, this is a great place and I've learnt a lot in the few months Ive been around!

Cheers

Pete

[Wicked Deeds]

It's always a great shame that songs are briefly on the board then they are gone for good.  How about a thread that revisits such songs. Members might have songs that they posted years ago that would once again be a welcome addition to the boards.

Paul

[Boydie]

That is a really interesting thought @Wicked Deeds

We could add to the 2 week rule - and add a 2 year rule

Ie the 2 week rule remains in place for all songs but members can “re-post” songs from over 2 years ago (and the post must include a link to the original post)

What do people think about that?

[pompeyjazz]

I think that's a really good idea. I've recently totally re-worked an old song that I posted on the forum maybe 4 years ago with my old band and it's pretty different to the original

[cowparsleyman]

@PeteS - You've got some good ideas Peter, I'm flattered by your idea CowparsleyTips, Well I would be up for it, say one per month, it would give folk time to try it, ask further questions and get some feedback how it went...

How about a marketing campaign to the members that aren't involved much, there is a huge potential for getting more people involved.

I guess most of them just want us to hear their songs and say how great it is, and not participate, but what's in it for them to stay, if 5 regulars say it's great, they think it is anyway, so they ain't got nuffink from it as they say.

A forum survives on giving and receiving in a friendly, inclusive environment.

How about a new member focus? kind of like the rookie of the month, totally random, invite them to do a short bio...maybe they'll get some kind of boost...

A Remix section, as you know I love a to remix members songs, but there is no logical place to to put them, as the originals have been and gone, and they are no Work in progress. It could also contain links to zipped individual stems from members that are up for their songs to be remixed.

Plugin of the month? more of a prod thing, but if there is a short review of a members favourite plugin, might be useful?

A 'How To' guide of what all those icons above a post do..what does YouTube Search or YouTube User actually do

A Glossary...some folk don't know what Stems are, what a plugin is, or what an Anacrusis is.

Rich

[adamfarr]

Not sure about the old songs. Wouldn't that crowd out new songs and push them down quicker and the attention gets even more diluted?

[MichaelA]

Not sure about the old songs. Wouldn't that crowd out new songs and push them down quicker and the attention gets even more diluted?

I agree with Adam. Plus people being as they are, you would possibly just get some attention seekers posting all their back catalogue rather than their best stuff, or something they have reworked.

But you could do a new board or child board - maybe called something like ‘Revivals & Reworks’. As long as there are strict rules. I’d be tempted to limit it to one song every three months, and there to be a reason for it...eg you are going to rework it, have reworked it, or it’s not been on here before and you’d like comments. Or there is some topicality to it all of a sudden, etc...

[PeteS]

Anacrusis?  Had to get that one there eh!  How many of us had to Google it 

I think remixes could work but need its own section.

Plugin of the month is interesting or you could have a plugins section where people just talk about them generally?  Slightly more focussed than the recording section? Or maybe a sticky thread in recording that we just chat on?

@PeteS - You've got some good ideas Peter, I'm flattered by your idea CowparsleyTips, Well I would be up for it, say one per month, it would give folk time to try it, ask further questions and get some feedback how it went...

How about a marketing campaign to the members that aren't involved much, there is a huge potential for getting more people involved.

I guess most of them just want us to hear their songs and say how great it is, and not participate, but what's in it for them to stay, if 5 regulars say it's great, they think it is anyway, so they ain't got nuffink from it as they say.

A forum survives on giving and receiving in a friendly, inclusive environment.

How about a new member focus? kind of like the rookie of the month, totally random, invite them to do a short bio...maybe they'll get some kind of boost...

A Remix section, as you know I love a to remix members songs, but there is no logical place to to put them, as the originals have been and gone, and they are no Work in progress. It could also contain links to zipped individual stems from members that are up for their songs to be remixed.

Plugin of the month? more of a prod thing, but if there is a short review of a members favourite plugin, might be useful?

A 'How To' guide of what all those icons above a post do..what does YouTube Search or YouTube User actually do

A Glossary...some folk don't know what Stems are, what a plugin is, or what an Anacrusis is.

Rich

[cowparsleyman]

@PeteS - Wouldn't be a bad female Artist Stage Name. I mean the name not the artist.

btw some plugins are so blimmin complicated that they need ages to find out if they are any good at all, some of the unfiltered audio can get a bit like that, others look complicated like iZotope Stutter Edit and breaktweaker, but aren't really. others are just plain simple and great, like the Waves CLA2 compressor.

@pompeyjazz - Thanks for kicking this one off.

[cowparsleyman]

@PeteS @pompeyjazz -  Oh yes one other idea....How it was done...a dissection of a members own song.

These are quite popular on YouTube, and maybe it would be interesting to know what instruments, who collaborated,how many BV tracks, what Amp sims, drum kits, mics verb etc. how long it took to mix, was it mastered? all that sort of thing...

Maybe one per month...

[shadowfax]

That is a really interesting thought @Wicked Deeds

We could add to the 2 week rule - and add a 2 year rule

Ie the 2 week rule remains in place for all songs but members can “re-post” songs from over 2 years ago (and the post must include a link to the original post)

What do people think about that?

Peeps can already re post a song whenever they want..