It looks and sounds like this:
Here's a write-up, including an "OMG" headline which I'm too proud to reproduce: [LINK]
"Dr. Lindyke" is the nom de plume of Dave Leigh & William Hoover. We're songwriters, not performers. Everything here should be considered a demo, and we'd love for someone else to perform it better.
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Sapeh front, side, and back (click to embiggen) |
String 1: Tune like the middle C of the piano
String 2:Tune like C one octave lower than middle C
String 3: Tune to A, a minor third below middle C
String 4: Tune to F, a perfect fourth above middle C
This is a lyrical imperative. It doesn't ask you to imply counting, and it doesn't say the song must be about counting. It says plainly that you must be counting in the song, and to me that means discrete units in finite quantity. The more discrete, the more it feels like a countdown to me. Seconds, minutes, hours, years... yeah. Sand in an hourglass, less so. I don't care if there are all sorts of lyrics in-between the counts, but they should be there. Just saying you're counting down might get you through on a technicality, but very weakly. Showing beats telling, so I'm giving a lot of weight to showing us, in some way, that the person in the song is counting down to a distinct goal.2. Musically the song should imply that time is getting nearer to whatever you're counting down to as well.
This is a perfect opportunity for rubato, accelerando, ritardando, key change, or some sort of building or decreasing of tension. I don't care what it is... the song should sound qualitatively different as the event approaches, and in a way that indicates that approach. And personally, I would prefer if it happens during the song as it progresses. Here's an example of a technique not mentioned above: in a song in which a person is counting the years to his death, the number of voices in the chorus diminishes each iteration until he's alone.3. Once again...avoid going meta.
Easy, don't write a song about the song.4. As an added challenge, you need to collaborate with someone else on your team
Also easy, and well defined.So those were our thoughts prior to hearing the songs.
Collaborator: Brian Gray
To us, this didn't sound as though the music were getting closer to the event. Nevertheless, this one wins on the strength of the lyrics, which are closest to the challenge of all the official entries. And as the countdown is integral to the "plot", this gets the top spot.2. Bubba and The Amiable Kraken - Tired Of Counting Down
Collaborator: The Boffo Yux Dudes
It's about counting down, it contains counting down, so it strongly meets that portion of the challenge. It still doesn't sound to me as though it's getting nearer to the event. To us, the fade out makes it sound a bit like the opposite is happening,3. Governing Dynamics - The Dream is Winding Down (Lucid)
Collaborator: Jenny Katz
Grammar Nazi strikes: "you've gone" or "you went". Pick one. Lyrically, this squeaks by on a technicality in the last line of the chorus. Other than that it doesn't really sound to me like it's counting down to anything. Also, doesn't feel like it's getting closer to the event to us.
I should mention that the technical challenge is something we judged before reading any song bios, because it's very important that the songs effectively communicate that countdown musically. I've read your song bio, and while I respect your interpretation, we still have to rank it for effectiveness. Your descending motif is a bit too ornate for us to have interpreted it as an approach to consciousness, and I think it goes in the wrong direction. Most people would describe a descent into sleep. We didn't catch its purpose on multiple listens.
That said, this is among my favorite Governing Dynamics songs now.4. Jenny Katz - Goodbye For Now
Collaborator: Travis Norris
Of all the entries, this alone does feel like it's getting closer to something, so that portion of the challenge is well met. However, though it does lyrically depict progression or anticipation it doesn't feel like a countdown in that the anticipation isn't quantified. You may be counting down, but it's not really depicted in a way we understood to be a countdown. So... I feel that if I have to choose between this approach and another, I've got to pick somebody who went straight for it. I feel like a heel for putting it here, because I love this song. It has a permanent place on my phone now. But we're not ranking based on simply which is our favorite (in case you missed it, it's this one), but on the challenge first.
No collaboration, so a DQ, of course. I like the ticking clock. There's a sort of nihilistic ambiguity about "countdown to nothing" that lets me imagine a singular event such as a nuclear blast or financial or political collapse. I like it better than I like it.Brian Gray - Off the Grid (Shadow)
No collaboration, so another DQ, of course. If you had collaborated... one shake of a tambourine or "YOPP!" from Zoe would have done it... and were an official entry, you'd have won our top spot with this. To me, this is the go-to example of how to depict a character who's counting down without saying it or just doing it explicitly. " 'Cause the digits flip at twelve o'clock" is a perfectly sound lyrical description of someone who is plainly staring at the clock counting down the discrete (and digital!) minutes to a well-defined target: midnight, January 1, 2000.
And top marks for "Time to never do the things I never did". That's possibly the very best phrasing of "time to die" I've ever heard. And Grammar Nazi doesn't mind that you split the infinitive because poetic license. Time to boldly go into my phone's mp3 directory.
Have they actually heard the song?
Listin' In: Write a list song about any topic you like. The song should be in the form of a list, not about a list.Ideally, we would love to see a “pure” list here. Examples would include “We Didn’t Start The Fire” by Billy Joel; or “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover” by Paul Simon. Our own foray into this type of challenge was “Harvey Ray”, which is simply a list of 3-letter acronyms, and the listener is free to provide his or her own associations and meaning for the groupings.
Easily Dr. Lindyke's top pick. First of all, it’s the most clearly delineated and organized of the lists. Jenny sorts her thoughts into pros and cons, and it’s a list. Secondly, the list tells a larger story that we piece together for ourselves. Jenny sings about feelings, and we are left to fill in the narrative with whatever events we imagine… and that makes it personal, and better. I love it when the audience is given something to do with their intelligence. Finally, I could listen to Jenny sing the phonebook.
And if she had, she might still have done pretty well: it’s a list, too.
This title (pardon the expression) cries out for a very listy list. This is sort of a list, but it’s not a very listy one. It’s a succession of questions, which I don't think is “in the form of a list”, as per the challenge. If you say you're going to give me reasons, then tell me the reasons. But with these questions, I don't really know if any of them are truly reasons. It could be none of the above. I know this sounds like sophistry, but we do have a challenge, and we have to rank these somehow. This is ranking high for song and production value, more so than for hitting the challenge.
It’s a great idea, though… particularly with a baby, every parent has gone through a checklist of things that always seem to happen at once and leads you to run through a list of actions, all necessary: change the diaper, and the wet sheets, feed the baby, burp the baby, where’s the bear, where’s the damned bear?!? It’s wedged between the crib and the wall. That’s where it always is... why didn't you check there first? And when everything else is satisfied, you still have to wake up the other parent, because you're just not the right one to sing the lullaby; and even if you are, you just don’t smell right.
With older kids it’s the same tune, different lyrics: the nightlight, the monster, the water, the story… and there’s still that same motherf--ing bear.
This has a high degree of “list-iness” compared to other non-Katz entries. And I like that MC Ohm-i tied it up with the Rodgers and Hammerstein tune from The Sound of Music. On the other hand, to my ears, the homage was a bit overdone. As a motif… yeah, go for it. But it needs to be a motif attached to a largely original tune. The rap is good, though it seems there were technical problems with the mix. I don't care much about those.
We've pored over the lyrics, and we're still looking for the list. While it’s true that “all the sentences in War and Peace presented in order of appearance” is technically a list, particularly in Lisp… it’s still not a list for this purpose. Likewise, the lyrics you wrote for some random song about being hungover is not a list. It's a nice song, sure; but it's not really an answer to this challenge.
Say goodbye to dear Aunt Gladys
She’s joining dear old Fred
She’s gone to meet her Maker!
Raised to Glory!
(I mean she’s dead)
Someone here is guilty
And we’ll find him ‘fore we’re through
All we need’s a little evidence
But we haven’t got a clue
I heard that it was poison
or possibly a knife
I heard he used a pickaxe
in the bedroom
On his wife
Someone here is guilty
And we’ll find him ‘fore we’re through
All we need’s a little evidence
But we haven’t got a clue
I heard she was stabbed with an awl through the heart!
I heard she was found dead sitting in a car
With a hose stretched to the window from the exhaust!
It was a car, alright, but it veered off the road
With the brake lines cut (or so I was told)
On a cliffside highway sheathed with winter frost!
She was pushed to her doom from a balcony!
It was a poisoned page, ‘cause she loved to read!
No, it was candy-coated mothballs for the kill!
I heard she was shot with a .45!
No, No! She ran off and is still alive
And she hides out in a casa in Brazil!
If he’s on the policy
Or mentioned in the will
There’s a chance that the murd’rer
Could be waiting
Among us still
Someone here is guiltyLyrical Notes
And we’ll find him ‘fore we’re through
All we need’s a little evidence
But we haven’t got a clue
The Final Step - Normally dance is inspired by music. For the final challenge of SpinTunes 10, you will need to write a song inspired by dance...and not just any dance...this one. We should be able to play your song over this video...and have people think it's what he was dancing to. (2:32 minimum length...the length of the dance routine) (your submission is due Sunday, March 1st 11:59PM)
Side Notes: The original audio was removed for a reason. The dancers name wasn't mentioned for a reason. Please do not attempt to look up more information on the video. We'll use the honor system here. I will be posting the original video & crediting the artists involved after your deadline.
And as usual...lyrics are still REQUIRED.What makes this a fantastic challenge is that it goes beyond artistry and expression. It's a test of the songwriter as a craftsman. It is an exacting specification of timing so as to make it look as if this dance were choreographed to the song and not the other way around.
Interesting technical trick: If you pull this video into an editor and stretch the timeline, you can map out the beat exactly. Adhering to that timeline in your DAW gives you precisely what you need to produce. But if you do that with this number it's immediately obvious that there's a lot of rubato in the performance, which supports the idea that a Sinatra-like number is behind it. |
Non-Stop Hits - Write a song that features looooong run on sentences. (2 minute minimum length) (your submission is due Sunday, February 15th 11:59PM)We've considered a lot of interesting possibilities. These include:
Example: "Albuquerque" by "Weird" Al Yankovic
Side Notes:- The originally worded challenge was, "Write a song that is one long run on sentence." Using 2 run on sentences would technically meet the challenge. But why go for the minimum when it's likely the judges will clearly be looking for more.
We needed a way to denote the passage of a lot of time... again, without a 10 minute opus. I imagine a time lapse with more and more candles. There's no mention of what kind of cake it is, because you get it without the bonk on the head. On my wife's 50th birthday we made the mistake of putting 50 candles on her cake. When the first one was lit, the flame jumped from wick to wick resulting in a 2-foot pillar of flame. That's what I'm imagining here... a life burning away. The second half of the bridge sums up the entirety of his activity in those years: working for subsistence and to put his children through college.And the candles on top of my cakeSpread like wildfire year after yearAnd the bills and tuition have made it their missionTo keep me imprisoned right here.
Not a bad way to end it, I think; and in fact, these were the lines that were written first.All of the dreams that I ever hadHave come home to say to me, "We love you, Dad."Not too bad...For a man...With no time for dreams.