Contest November: Gossip

[Hellfog]

………………………………

[harvon]

Cover of a National Anthem

Choose any country except for your own that you are from, and make a less serious interpretation
They tend to sound so serious, so pompous, like an invitation for a reformation.

Germany, here I come! (Rammstein needs an antidote)

[Hellfog]

Are you doing a cover of Deutschland?, which is not an National Anthem song.

[harvon]

My apologies, I see I created some confusion. Rammstein/Deutschland may or may not inspire me in what I do, don't know which way yet. It's magnificent anyway, reflecting German history.

My cover attempt will be on the National Anthem of Germany.

[harvon]

Here's a little query to readers.

The voting uses numbers, thus unavoidably yields a winner and a sorted list of placements. But there's a possibility to vote using words. It would yield for every track a cloud of characteristics, an image of how the voters did see each track, but no winners, no losers.

What would you prefer to know, a named winner plus a list of points, or the perceived qualities of your track?

[procrastive]

If it were an either-or choice, I would prefer the perceived qualities of my track, but I see no reason we couldn't do both. It might illuminate how each of us chooses how to rank the tracks as well.

[Patrick9]

A brief comment as well as a rank would be good.

[harvon]

Here's a little query to readers.

The voting uses numbers, thus unavoidably yields a winner and a sorted list of placements. But there's a possibility to vote using words. It would yield for every track a cloud of characteristics, an image of how the voters did see each track, but no winners, no losers.

What would you prefer to know, a named winner plus a list of points, or the perceived qualities of your track?

Seems that most are satisfied with the current system.

[Mister Natural]

Harv - there were several years previous where I would add "editorial" notes to my voting and got some rude, defensive pushback as a result. Now; you only get a number from me.
* found this site : https://www.midiworld.com/search/?q=national%20anthems
kinda unsure if this NOV theme fits my vibe this month but sometimes finding things outside my comfort wheelhouse to be surprises !

[The Noodlist]

The US National Anthem in 8 Completely Different Styles [AI Generated – Not Real]

[harvon]

Harv - there were several years previous where I would add "editorial" notes to my voting and got some rude, defensive pushback as a result. Now; you only get a number from me.
* found this site : https://www.midiworld.com/search/?q=national%20anthems
kinda unsure if this NOV theme fits my vibe this month but sometimes finding things outside my comfort wheelhouse to be surprises !

My thoughts on how to vote using words is to set up a pool of preset comments that could be said about a track. Voting is obligatory. To vote is to pick one preset comment for each track, and to count the votes is to show the tally of what comments were picked and how many times. We would have to discuss and determine how many and what kind of preset comments to have in the pool before adopting this kind of voting system.

[Mister Natural]

So many anthems sound exactly the same - heroic major keys, militaristic marches designed to inspire warriors. I found a couple of melodies on that midi site with national anthems that I liked. Jamaica, Taiwan, China all have nice tunes. Bhutan allowed me to experiment with Ableton tuning systems. The one I settled on has 22 notes per octave and it sorta matches the melody . . . in a delightfully weird way.
Cheers

[harvon]

I gotta remember this: The Way to Nov failure or Howto convert a piece of music into what is not a copy, cover, version, remix or whatever of the original.
- find some music that you like
- throw existing chords away and reharmonize the original melody
- throw original melody away but keep the new chords
- find or write lyrics that fit in the reharmonized song structure
- create melody lines that fit the chords and the rhythm of the lyrics
- arrange it in the desired genre. A useful software hereby is Ludwig arranger (2011, midi)

[procrastive]

Some comments about this month's entries - in the order that I ranked them:

Laguna Rising - Laguna "rose" to the occasion! Very nice re-imagining, really like the funk version!

Patrick9 - Nice vocals! Like the high part especially - was it sung or a pitch shift? Rockin' guitar! What was that other lead instrument?

beanpole - Like the lyrics! Blah blah blah indeed. Rockin' arrangement.

harvon - Wish I could understand the spoken intro better. Love the transition from solemn to peppy & whimsical in the music.

Mister Natural - Like the syncopation, funky bass and exotic vibe. Microtonal does sound a bit weird.

Scoops - An anthem, true, but not a national one. Peaceful, sweet rendition combining the different melodies popularly used for the lyrics. I wouldn't have known about the variant melodies if your submission had not inspired me to look at that. Nice work and I would have ranked it higher if it fit the theme better.

[Patrick9]

Patrick9 - Nice vocals! Like the high part especially - was it sung or a pitch shift? Rockin' guitar! What was that other lead instrument?

Thanks - I input my vocal, (the low one ), into an AI vocal program and and generated a female vocal pitched up. The other lead is a synth brass patch.