[Len]

With thanks to Bruce for letting me pick up the reins, we will be having a collab contest after all.

I think there has been enough chat so I want to cut to the chase and lay it all out. I also don't want this contest failing before it has started, so this time the contest will be run in the following manner:

1) If you want to take part please PM me saying if you want to be a musician, a lyricist, either, or a "reserve" (someone who will join in if we are short of lyricists or musicians).

Due to drop-outs from other contests and this latest problem, you must have been a member of the Muse for three months from today to take part. DRS to be clear this excludes you, but I don't think this contest and you are suited. Please take it up directly with Jodi Krangle if you object.

2) Even if you have volunteered in Bruce's thread please PM me to confirm that you still want to take part.
3) I'll accept PMs up to end of Wed 15th Feb and then I'll pair folks up.
4) I will pair up folks randomly, and it will be first come first served.
5) I will post up the pairs and the contest conditions at the weekend (depending on how my house move goes).
6) The collab will run for 4 weeks and songs must be posted by 18th March in this thread.
7) This thread will be closed until then.

Finally, did I say I'm moving house? So I'll probably not reply to any PMs until the 15th.

Enough chat folks, let's get on with the music

[Len]

Four teams already and counting...

[Len]

Six teams, and we're getting short of lyricists...

And I think I've found a beaut of a challenge, heh heh

[Len]

Looks like we will have seven or even eight teams this time. Will announce the teams tomorrow (Thurs) along with the challenge.

I'll open this thread now for any discussions.

[Len]

Okay chums let's get this contest on the road. A great turnout, thanks for keeping the faith folks. This thread is now open for comments and chat

The teams (lyricist and musician) are:

Team 1
Bruce and FunkDaddy

Team 2
Mr Fitz and Joan

Team 3
Graybeard and Stewart Alexander

Team 4
Jonie and Scenes from Palacio

Team 5
Starsinmyeyes and Scotto

Team 6
Kimblerlyinnc and Scubed

Team 7
AlistairS and Neuroron

Please get in touch with your partner, make sure you know each other's availability, and make sure that you are still able to commit to the contest.

I'll post the contest rules tomorrow but in the meantime have a listen to this. Please wait for the contest rules tomorrow before you start.

[ScenesFromPalacio]

Absoloutly love that song...Magical

[bernabby]

Had I known you were going country I'd have signed up as a lyricist.

[stewart alexander]

I have graybeard... wasn't he is Harry Potter


can't wait.. sounds like a challenge...

[FunkDaddy]

I don't know the significance to the contest but I absolutely love this tune.

[stewart alexander]

I don't have the breasts for it ...

[scubed]

Why do I suspect that Len has something devilish in the offing?

That's OK - Kim and I are gonna have fun with this, whatever "this" turns out to be.

[Joan]

Can't wait to see what Len has in mind for us! Scubed is right, this could be diabolical.

[kimberlyinnc]

Stewart said

Quote

I don't have the breasts for it ...

Neither do I, Stewie, neither do I!!



Kim

[Len]

You should see my house now. When we bought it the rooms looked completely different. But we stripped it out and rebuilt around the same structure! Looks very different now, you'd never recognise it.

Yeh a cracking song and known to everyone I hope

[Bruce N]

Quote

You should see my house now. When we bought it the rooms looked completely different. But we stripped it out and rebuilt around the same structure! Looks very different now, you'd never recognise it.

Maybe it looks completely different 'cause you're actually in your neighbor's house.

[Scotto]

It's the suspense that gets me...

[Joan]

Has anyone started? This might be all the direction we'll be receiving here. To take Jolene, strip out the lyrics and melody, and build a new song based on the structure of this one ... not even necessarily country ... maybe open to interpretation as to what elements we consider essential to the structure, such as whether we need to use this meter, chord progression and time signature, and whether we need to keep the chorus melody the same as the verse melody.

[jonie]

Joan, on 17 February 2012 - 06:12 PM, said:

Has anyone started? This might be all the direction we'll be receiving here. To take Jolene, strip out the lyrics and melody, and build a new song based on the structure of this one ... not even necessarily country...

Ha! I didn't pick that up, Joan. I just thought Len might be suffering a bit from the moving in blues.

I'm on it!

[scubed]

Len, on 16 February 2012 - 06:22 PM, said:

.

I'll post the contest rules tomorrow but in the meantime have a listen to this. Please wait for the contest rules tomorrow before you start.

????

[Joan]

scubed, on 17 February 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Len, on 16 February 2012 - 06:22 PM, said:

.

I'll post the contest rules tomorrow but in the meantime have a listen to this. Please wait for the contest rules tomorrow before you start.

????

Right! My theory comes partly from that, partly from what he posted today, which is when he said he'd be posting the rules:

Quote

You should see my house now. When we bought it the rooms looked completely different. But we stripped it out and rebuilt around the same structure! Looks very different now, you'd never recognise it.

There's at least a possibility that this song/house metaphor is the only trail of breadcrumbs we'll be getting out of Len. Which would make perfect sense, in that his mom and dad used to call him Beelzebaby.

[scubed]

Joan, on 17 February 2012 - 06:36 PM, said:

scubed, on 17 February 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

Len, on 16 February 2012 - 06:22 PM, said:

.I'll post the contest rules tomorrow but in the meantime have a listen to this. Please wait for the contest rules tomorrow before you start.

????

Right! My theory comes partly from that, partly from what he posted today, which is when he said he'd be posting the rules:

Quote

You should see my house now. When we bought it the rooms looked completely different. But we stripped it out and rebuilt around the same structure! Looks very different now, you'd never recognise it.

There's at least a possibility that this song/house metaphor is the only trail of breadcrumbs we'll be getting out of Len. Which would make perfect sense, in that his mom and dad used to call him Beelzebaby.

Very clever of you, indeed, Joan!

I had such a crap week at work that my brain is not working well at the moment, so I'll take the Scarlett O'Hara approach to the challenge - I'll think about that tomorrow.

[Len]

wait a bit longer please

[Bruce N]

With apologies to C S N and sometimes Y


Len's house is a very, very fine house
With two musers in the yard
Life used to be so hard
But with a solid oak door
Who could want more
And our la,la,la, la,la, la, la, la, la, la, la.....

Len's house is a very, very fine house
With two musers in the yard
I told them to get a life
Now everything is easy
'Cause of you
And Our la,la, la la, la, la......

I'll lock the door
And you load the gun
That you bought today

[Len]

Full marks to Joan, got it in one!

This is indeed Jolene Renovation time.

Joan said it as well as I could. Take the song Jolene and write another lyric and song using the same structure as Jolene. And yes what is the structure? I'll leave each team to work that out but to start with it goes right into the chorus. There's no lyrical bridge. The rhyming scheme is straight forward and the hook is used at the end of each verse as well as the chorus. There are others I'm sure I haven't spotted.

I'm not going to force any conditions other than to take this where it leads you. I would like each team to explain their thinking when they post their song.

Good luck and enjoy.

[jonie]

I'm going to pre-empt kim here and ask for a couple of wee clarifications on structure. On one hand it appears as if you are asking the lyricist to follow the obvious structural elements of Jolene (same lyrical sections and order, rhyme scheme, and hook placement), then again you seem to be leaving it open to interpretation.

Does using the same structure as Jolene mean:

We need to follow the same rhyme scheme

We need our hook placed similarly in the chorus and at the end of lines 3 and 6 in verses 2 and 3?

Strict meter adherence? This might make it more difficult to construct a new melody.

Or are we just being asked to follow the basic structure of CVVCVC?

[Scotto]

Hmmm yeah, I'm in need of some clarification myself. I'm confused a little... Not that, that is hard...

[starsinmyeyes]

Could it possibly be a case of 'just change the words'? ...It's allright Scotto, I'm on it!

Margarine
Margarine
Margarine, Margarine
I'm begging of you please don't make me fat

Margarine
Margarine
Margarine, Margarine
Do anything - but save my thighs from that

[Len]

Genius Stars (and thanks for the lyric Bruce!)

This is called the Scaffold technique and here's a description: http://www.joelmabus...g_exercises.htm

So start with the Lyric of Jolene and write a new lyric over the top. Try to follow the structure as closely as you can. Then the musician will write a song for the new lyric.

Or the musician could write a new song for Jolene, and the lyricist then changes the lyric. Whatever works. Then refine and polish.

To quote Joel Mabus:

Quote

What remains is a new song with only a hint of the "ghost" song that acted as a scaffold for the process.

The basic structure of Jolene is:

• Chorus Verse Verse Chorus Verse Chorus
• The hook is used at the end of each half verse and also in the chorus
• The chorus rhyme scheme is ABAB
• The verse rhyme scheme is AABCCB

You don't have to follow this basic structure - as what is important in structure differs between folks - so just work it out for yourselves and see where it takes you But a good start is to write a new lyric over the top of Jolene.


That is why I would like the teams to post how they went about this, as well as the song they wrote.


for scoring this, I will just ask each contestant to score the songs as they see fit.

[Alistair S]

Len, on 18 February 2012 - 11:40 AM, said:

The hook is used at the end of each half verse and also in the chorus

//Pedantic mode on

Ahem.. except for the first half verse!

//Pedantic mode off

I'm going to follow the basic structure and rhyme scheme. Whether I follow the same meter and stresses is something I'm less sure about. That will depend on the musician to a degree. The closer it is, the harder it will be for the musician to get away from the "Jolene" melody, I think.

[stewart alexander]

little tike.....



sounds a challenge..

[neuroron]

Alistair S, on 18 February 2012 - 06:59 AM, said:

Len, on 18 February 2012 - 11:40 AM, said:

The hook is used at the end of each half verse and also in the chorus

//Pedantic mode on

Ahem.. except for the first half verse!

//Pedantic mode off

I'm going to follow the basic structure and rhyme scheme. Whether I follow the same meter and stresses is something I'm less sure about. That will depend on the musician to a degree. The closer it is, the harder it will be for the musician to get away from the "Jolene" melody, I think.

To minimize that problem - with this technique - it's helpful if the musician doesn't know the original scaffold song - I guess the cat's out of the bag on this one

[scubed]

neuroron, on 18 February 2012 - 11:14 AM, said:

Alistair S, on 18 February 2012 - 06:59 AM, said:

Len, on 18 February 2012 - 11:40 AM, said:

The hook is used at the end of each half verse and also in the chorus

//Ped
[I'm going to follow the basic structure and rhyme scheme. Whether I follow the same meter and stresses is something I'm less sure about. That will depend on the musician to a degree. The closer it is, the harder it will be for the musician to get away from the "Jolene" melody, I think.

To minimize that problem - with this technique - it's helpful if the musician doesn't know the original scaffold song - I guess the cat's out of the bag on this one

I hope to avoid that problem by writing new music for the original "Jolene" lyric while Kim is working on the new lyric. Hoping to come up with multiple versions in several different styles. Don't know if I'll succeed - may not be able to keep Dolly out of my head -but it will be an interesting exercise.

[Scotto]

Cool. I'm sorted out...

[jonie]

Tough keeping Jolene's melody out of my head when writing the lyric. If it ends up there's too little room to create a really unique melody, I may be looking to go off both the rhyme scheme and meter.

Got a lyric stamped right over the top of Jolene already written. Now that it's out of my system, I hope I can write another that's less so.

We'll see.

[Alistair S]

I did something to the Jolene template (kinda) and chatted with Ron about it.

Hearing him try it, I felt I needed a change, so am altering the rhyme scheme (AAABCCCB for the verses). No idea where we will end up though.

I guess it's all about using a song to kick-start a song.

[Scotto]

Yeah, once Stars has some lyrics for me, musically I'm going to try not to think about Jolene at all.... try anyway...

[Len]

Scotto, on 19 February 2012 - 02:35 AM, said:

Yeah, once Stars has some lyrics for me, musically I'm going to try not to think about Jolene at all.... try anyway...

You just have to get that earworm out

Now you could have your choice of song, but I thought it seemed so wrong, so that's the only only one for me. I had to explain this all to you, this contest now depends on you, and whatever you choose to do. Cheers, Lene

[Scotto]

It's cool this way. We're all starting from the same point and arriving at completly different places. Just thinking of the song puts sets the hook. It's really a great song to launch from.

[Bruce N]

Okay I think I got it figured out now, it was simply a matter of, multiply the entire divisor and subtract from the dividend. We line up powers of x in the quotient just like we lined up powers of 10.

x+1)x³y+x²y+x²+xy+2x+y+1

Now I ask what do I need to multiply x by to get x³y?. The answer is x²y. I multiply x+1 by x²y and subtract.

x²yx+1)x³y+x²y+x²+xy+2x+y+1
-x³y-x²y
Now I bring down the rest of the dividend and ask what do I multiply x by to get x²? The answer is x. I multiply x+1 by x and subtract.
x²y+x
x+1)x³y+x²y+x²+xy+2x+y+1-x³y-x²yx²+xy+2x+y+1-x²-x
Now I bring down the rest of the dividend and ask what do I multiply x by to get xy? The answer is y. I multiply x+1 by y and subtract.
x²y+x+yx+1)x³y+x²y+x²+xy+2x+y+1-x³y-x²yx²+xy+2x+y+1-x²-xxy+x+y+1-xy-y
When I bring down what's left of the dividend I get x+1. If I multiply x+1 by 1 I get x+1. So I multiply x+1 by 1 and subtract. This time it comes out even.
x²y+x+y+1x+1)x³y+x²y+x²+xy+2x+y+1-x³y-x²yx²+xy+2x+y+1-x²-xxy+x+y+1-xy-yx+1-x-1
So, (x³y+x²y+x²+xy+2x+y+1)÷(x+1)=x²y+x+y+1. = Anything but Jolene.

[Alistair S]

Well, we're on a roll now, I think, and moving away from "Jolene", which is becoming a distant memory.

I'm not too bothered about following the Jolene structure religiously any more, though that's what we started with!

[jonie]

A small departure from the meter, in some places. Yes, Jolene is a distant memory.

With the expectation there might be a bit more lyrical tweaking required if the lyric is a go with him, it's all in Steve's capable hands now.

[stewart alexander]

I'm just gonna follow the structure too.. I'm gonna do my best with this cool lyric Nathan has given me

[neuroron]

I think Jolene is sort of like a grandparent. She supplied maybe a fourth of the DNA. After mating with the lyricist a partially developed - and developing - lyric was born: the result of nature and nurture. That entity then mated with the musician/composer to produce a song - again still infantile. But before the lyric "mated" there was chromsomal shuffling and genomal slicing and splicing; No telling what happens to the DNA during that process. The song that was born went through it's own development. Through subsequent arrangement, performance and re-arrangement, that song continued - and continues - to grow and morph. And, like all grandchildren, the resemblance to any one its the grandparents may be minimal on the surface.

[starsinmyeyes]

Well, I've tried to stay quite true to the Jolene structure - Dolly knew what she was doing! And after talking with Scotto, we're reasonably confident in where we are going with it musically. Really looking forward to this! Thanks Len.

[neuroron]

starsinmyeyes, on 21 February 2012 - 01:06 AM, said:

Well, I've tried to stay quite true to the Jolene structure - Dolly knew what she was doing! And after talking with Scotto, we're reasonably confident in where we are going with it musically. Really looking forward to this! Thanks Len.

You know it's funny - I don't think a SONG has a structure - well, superstructure anyway - a specific version or performance of a song has a given structure. If you watch the Alison Krauss etc performance of Jolene at the Kennedy Ctr tribute to Dolly, they perform only half of the first CHORUS. I've seen a lot of performers perform their own songs with different numbers and orders of verses/Choruses, chop things in half, etc. Certainly on a lot of songs the album and single versions are different, etc. I haven't seen all of Dolly's performances of Jolene, but it wouldn't surprise me if that wasn't the case with Dolly & Jolene also. IMO the value of scaffolding is using the infrastructure to make sure you have lines that will work with a known workable musical phrasing for a verse, CH, Bridge, etc.

We've taken the attitude that Jolene is our starting point - the finish point is the best damn song we can come up with - if that doesn't work, well we'll worry about it when we're gone

[scubed]

We're aiming for a song built on the "Jolene" structure that doesn't put the listener in mind of "Jolene."

[stewart alexander]

I'm finding it a challenge.. but, I'll get there

[MrFitz]

I have been away on a conference/meeting/finding a reason not to be in the classroom the past few days so unfortunately I think we are lagging behind most people - totally my fault! The meter/structure/rhythmic or rhyming pattern of jolene is a challenge - Im trying to stick to it as close as possible whilst also letting the song flow - Im not gonna spoil a good lyric just because there is an extra syllable in a few lines as apposed to Jolene.

It is a fun challenge though and Im sure its gonna create some cracking results!

[jonie]

Still plenty of time, John. I think the rest of us lyricists were just a bit over anxious.

[jonie]

scubed, on 21 February 2012 - 08:28 AM, said:

We're aiming for a song built on the "Jolene" structure that doesn't put the listener in mind of "Jolene."

I think that's the big challenge here. But I think Ron sums it up as well when he says:

Quote

the finish point is the best damn song we can come up with