New Song to be Sung?

[Ice Weasel]

On the strength of the positive reaction to "Smaug O'er the Water", I've done a new one, maybe appropriate for an Ales and Tales appearance?

In my Dropbox, in the NotAuditioned folder, and inside CUSTOM_Lyrics.

"Lobelia" is a song based on Kool and the Gang's "JoAnna"... a seven part remediation of the song is in the folder with the lyrics.

Comments? Proceed? Stop? More? Less? Thoughts?

 

 

[Siltharan]

I think it should only be for special occasions, i.e. appearances at Ales and Tales, or other certain performances, not a normal thing. As has been said previously, some onlookers like to ignore the lyricist due to cluttering their chat tabs. It's pretty cool, and we got great reactions from Smaug, but probably not something to make a regular thing. :)

[Hobbelion]

One thing I wondered if we could do like a custom channel for our lyrics. We would advertise beforehand to join channel Remediators and those that want to watch the lyrics can do so without having it mixed with the conversation and continue to have a conversation. Perhaps asking people to join a custom channel when there's only four (I have three already) would not work, but it's something to think about and experiment with. That way we could have a lyric heavy set without really interfering the conversations.

[Ice Weasel]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of lots of "singing" in LOTRO concerts myself... 

My idea is to do *maybe* one song with lyrics during big "event" concert sets... like we did with Smaug. It stops being fun if it's every other tune, I think. 

I'd target Ales and Tales with this one, just because I think it is the right audience.   Or maybe we should perform Smaug again, if they want...  

I wouldn't try to do more that four or maybe five songs a year. This one popped into my head as I was mucking about with some Kool and the Gang that might be right for Valentines dance music.

More to the point... I can never assess the quality of my own work. So, don't hold back, if the lyrics stink, tell me. LOL

 

EDIT: Just saw Hobbs bit on channels.. that might be worth looking into, if we do want more lyrics.

[Briallan]

I pretty much agree with previous comments that occasional songs with lyrics is fine and also that different audiences have different levels of interest in lyrics. I *think* audiences like at Winterstock and prolly Ales and Tales (though never actually attended that yet) would have a higher interest in lyrics than people who just happened to pass by and stop to listen, or people that were engaging in serious roleplay or other conversations.

The idea of having a custom channel is interesting .. though I didn't see any bands at winterstock doing that (and I actually attended on several days and saw a lot of bands) .. though again, at winterstock maybe audiences are more receptive to lyrics so it's not an issue.

I like the Lobelia lyrics -- the trick to doing this successfully I think is that enuf people have to get it, so (1) we should do it at places where people are into and familiar with the lore, and (2) help people out -- I was a little lost since I didn't originally realize that Bracegirdle was the maiden name of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins -- so maybe in the introduction to the song, you could give some hints for people who are a bit lore-challenged. In our kinship prolly most people get it, but in the general LOTRO public I don't know. We really have to know our audience to be able to make a good guess how successful lore-related lyrics are.

Even if it bombs (well, that's harsh .. I really mean .. there might be a risk people don't get it) so what ... haha ... we have to take some risks and do what we enjoy doing. I kind of go back and forth between (1) doing what WE like and (2) doing what the AUDIENCE likes -- I guess I would like to do both at once if we can but ....

Thinking about this more -- well Smaug went over well, why wouldn't this?

EDITED: 1/24 1AM EST

[Trower]

Personally I thought Smaug was well done and in no way interfered with any other goings on during the concert. People are there for the music. I heard no complaints or any negative comments at all during your presentation, in fact I heard many that were positive. Creating a separate channel, I believe, is overkill and unnecessary, at least for an event like WinterStock.

As for critique, the only thing I think and also heard was that some of the songs were a bit too busy, specifically citing the bagpipes as they tend to stand out. There were a few tunes that they seemed to fit really well though-- I just wish I wrote down the names.

[Ashigaru Trecalia]

I would suggest against a separate channel, just because you can only have 4.

[Briallan]

 

Trower wrote:

As for critique, the only thing I think and also heard was that some of the songs were a bit too busy, specifically citing the bagpipes as they tend to stand out. There were a few tunes that they seemed to fit really well though-- I just wish I wrote down the names.

Thanks, Trower! If you (or anyone else) has additional feedback in general, or regarding particular songs, I would really appreciate that info as well -- you can always PM me (or other band members) as well as discuss it in the forum. We have not been at this for very long and are looking to improve our music and bandsmanship as we go.

[Ice Weasel]

There is a very practical reason we like feedback on songs, too... The conversions we do sound different, often, in the tool we use to convert, the stand-alone player, and in-game. Some of that may be "positional"... depending on where you stand, you may hear some instruments over others.  Add to that the odd factors in lag on different machines.... I know when we play in concert, half the time I'm cringing because it sounds all out of whack to me, then someone will say "oh, I really like this! It sounds good!"... and I'm at a loss. LOL

In fact, to avoid timing and lag issues, when we did Smaug, I used a stopwatch. I had recorded timestamps in the lyrics I had loaded, just skipped saying them. But I knew that when the stopwatch showed "01:32" I had to "say" the next line... I was too afraid to rely on my ears to tell me when to hit the "advance" button. 

Anyway, the more opinions we get, the better feel we have for the actual thing.

[Hobbelion]

Going back to the channels, I think people can just quit a channel for an hour to join a band channel then join back. Which brings me to a larger question (and sorry to go off-point, but this has always bothered me), are there that many channels out there that the four slots are always taken? I have so far: Coursera, GLFF and Ales and Tales, but I could easily quit Ales and Tales and shut off GLFF for the duration. Are there others that we should be aware of?

What I think would be really cool would be to do a Rock Opera. One idea that just popped up was "Frodo and Sam's Excellent Adventure" and have lyrics for each of the song to tell the story of Frodo and Sam journey there and back. We would just use existing rock songs as making our own songs would be almost impossible. The trick will be stringing together a series of songs that doesn't disjointed and probably having the same instruments throughout the song so that we could seamlessly go through the songs easily without pause as well as consistency. That would be a fun concert.

Doesn't even have to be the idea I propose as it could be something entirely new, but I think it would be a fun idea.

[Ice Weasel]

Killer idea, Hobbs!

That could be a gas!

[Briallan]

I like the idea of a rock opera -- while I can help with the music, I'm afraid the burden of composing lyrics may fall on Krokhur (and anyone else who is into it), as I don't seem to have any particular talents along those lines

[Briallan]

Hobbelion wrote:

Going back to the channels, I think people can just quit a channel for an hour to join a band channel then join back. Which brings me to a larger question (and sorry to go off-point, but this has always bothered me), are there that many channels out there that the four slots are always taken? I have so far: Coursera, GLFF and Ales and Tales, but I could easily quit Ales and Tales and shut off GLFF for the duration. Are there others that we should be aware of?

During winterstock there was a backstage channel I was on to communicate with the organizers. I am not sure how often and for exactly what it is used for besides winterstock, but I did notice that there were still people on it several days after winterstock was over.

[Hobbelion]

Bri, that is a realistic concern. Maybe we could start out with a mini Rock Opera with like two or three songs that we can tie together for a short story to see how it works out and whether we are committed to it. If we do a song once every two weeks or one a month, well by the end of a year, we have twelve songs to 24 songs.

Before we would do any lyric or song digging, we would definitely need to have a storyboard of what story we would want to tell, how we would want to tell it, and what tempo/song/genre would be best to tell it. This is something we can discuss at the band meeting this Sunday.

And we don't have to do it if we can't scrounge up the time, but it's the kind of music I like where albums all revolve around a motif (I'm certain there's a musical term for it). Coldplay's Vida la Viva is one of my favorite albums because the album ends with by tying it into Life inTechnicolor (instrumental track) at the beginning. Relics of the Chozo which is a OC Remix album remixing Super Metroid music is basically one long track with peaks and valleys. To me, that makes sense rather than an album of ten songs that have no relationship to each other or not even alike in genre and concept.

[Ice Weasel]

While you can't move (except to rotate in place... something that intrigues me with ideas) while playing in /music mode, you CAN move about while using Lyrical. That opens some real possibilities for "Rock Opera". 

Still, if you think we ought to test the water a bit, maybe having a 2 or 3 song mini-set would be the answer... using a "chorus" . The "singers" could stand in a row to the side of the band (or the band to the side of the singers, it's all relative), and could do the lyrics to the set. Some unison, maybe, where four people "sing" the same line (I did see that technique as a "duet" at Winterstock), some solo stuff, some counter-point (I do love Steven Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the other "counterpunctualists" in modern musicals). 

I am *very* keen on the idea, and as an experiment in remediation I think it fits our essence entirely.