Listening Contests:

I suggest a game of some sort of which the object is to guess the name of the song from the short clip. (Sort of like a name that tune challenge, but each game is for a specific composer)

This game can enrich our memorybank of composers, song titles, and overall musical experience by forcing us to go through to composers and songs we may not otherwise go through. This allows us to not only discover, but to increase our musical history knowledge. Also, composer trivia at the end of each listening contest for bonus points would be another fun way to do this.

I suggest we have each clip be from five-fifteen seconds and contain either a melodic phrase, an ambiguous counterpoint, or a recognizable harmony.

P.S. This is dumb, but if we get to Liszt, we can call it the "Lisztening Contest."

I think it can be hard at times, but there are lots of famous pieces to constitute a challenge. If we recognize it as a symphony (if we do Mozart), and it sounds like Jupiter, we're allowed to cheat and search for it, so long as someone doesn't find it first.

It will be very interesting, considering there are so many musical buffs here that know so much about a lot of composers and we could even give a countdown to the challenge to give us time to study the composer's music first and also the composer himself/herself for the trivia round.

We could have ten musical pieces to guess, and five-ten trivia questions.

It would also be hard to get all who wish to participate online at the same time--I believe this is the only big problem. I wonder if you can come up with any way around this?

What do you think? Would you like to give it a try?

Poll added to help gauge opinion.

Assuming it would be conducted through multiple choice, I guess we'd just have to work a little magic with the View Poll Results link.

Perhaps, email your answers to someone

I should also mention that owing to copyright restrictions on recordings, we'd probably have to use MIDI files for the examples.

Well, Nico--it's the first person to get it right that gets the points.

Yes.. that was what I was talking about before.. but there must be some way,

It's rather simple. Leave a tune up for 24 hours. Have the people email their answers to someone ( I would be willing to receive the answers.) Write down the people who got the correct answer down, and give them the points. It is easy to keep track of the score in excel. Then weekly, you can post who is leading.

Nico, instead of being negative, please use your mind and think of solutions to problems.

When he gets tired I don't think he likes to think.

It's rather simple. Leave a tune up for 24 hours. Have the people email their answers to someone ( I would be willing to receive the answers.) Write down the people who got the correct answer down, and give them the points. It is easy to keep track of the score in excel. Then weekly, you can post who is leading.

I would be willing to help with that as well :)

PMs work as well, instead of emailing

I meant to say PM, but for some reason typed email. :) So it looks like we have a method, now we need action. I will not be able to post tunes, since I would not be able to edit a piece so it is only a 15-20 second sound bite.

Okay, but just to clarify, I think 5-15 seconds is more challening after a couple of 15 second bites, but sometimes 15 seconds is a bit much. For the most part, you either know it or you don't when it comes to the famous/slightly famous pieces, but when you get to slower odd concertos, it can be more difficult to remember/find at 15 seconds, so it depends on the song.

I can't really do any editing, since it takes a lot of time that I'd rather spend doing something constructive like studying Fux and his wonderful work of art :) aka, The Study of Counterpoint and also I'm reading The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory.

Marius and I can both edit...

So how do we begin.... we need an admin to make the topic and get us all set up and also he must write rules for the game.

The Musical Challenges and Games forum could be used for this idea. Regarding emailing people, I suggest you use the board's in-built email function in order to allay the likelihood of spam.

But regular members aren't allowed to just post games.

Yes they are. ;)

Though we were recently discussing putting things back to how they were before, with only mods being allowed to start new threads... Might want to watch this space.

Okay--posted.. check it out and please someone accept either job (1), doing both jobs at once, or both jobs (1) and the email acceptor.

What are the exact limitations for editing a recording? --Loopholes if there are limitations?

I have a vast collection of classical music in mp3 format, and i have programs that can cut a short clip of audio files, if you don't mind, i'll be happy to post clips for people guess who the composer is.

I already finished cutting the files, the only question that remains is whether the administration will allow me to post the mp3 cuts even though I'm almost positive those versions aren't copyrighted. Not to mention they are perfect cuts and they sound amazing. And they are all from pieces I love.

You can find 15 questions in order of difficulty starting with the easiest of Mozart's life.

i am not interested in your test, i think i should be the one who gives out the test, after all, i have heard ALOT of classical music, and i probably i have more music in digital format than you do.

Lol, okay, but I have all of the clips ready to go as well as the bonus question. This isn't a contest between me and you. I think my clips are great and am not interested in your test of who has more digital music :).

I'll make up the questions of Mozart's life in that case. I need my question of copyright answered still, however.

Although I have access to just about every single song in digital format ever made, considering my parents pay $10/mnth. for Rhapsody's service for free listening access and use to Total Recorder to retract the songs for your own personal use. Although I got these off of an orchestration service somewhere where I got the files for own other uses like clipping, etc. Personal, meaning also for fun, i.e. games, the only thing you can't do is sell them.

I'll still wait for the okay of the administration.

Lol, okay, but I have all of the clips ready to go as well as the bonus question. This isn't a contest between me and you. I think my clips are great and am not interested in your test of who has more digital music :).

I'll make up the questions of Mozart's life in that case. I need my question of copyright answered still, however.

Although I have access to just about every single song in digital format ever made, considering my parents pay $10/mnth. for Rhapsody's service for free listening access and use to Total Recorder to retract the songs for your own personal use. Although I got these off of an orchestration service somewhere where I got the files for own other uses like clipping, etc. Personal, meaning also for fun, i.e. games, the only thing you can't do is sell them.

I'll still wait for the okay of the administration.

what about this, you provide classical music clips, i provide music from Beethoven and onwards, romantic-modern?

as for the copyright, you should take a 30 second clip of each muisc, aslong as we don't know where the music is from, and it is only 30 seconds long, you are not infringing on copyrighted laws.