A question and answer area for people to talk about writing/recording music

June 26, 2008 7:15 AM

Request for another way to interact in Metafilter Music.

Some time ago there was talk about opening a new feature in Metafilter Music. Back then it was described along the lines of a question and answer area for people to talk about recording music.

Some days ago there was this FPP about a songwriting blog in the NYT that I think could serve as a model, and today there was this AskMe question, whose poster could have found great answers with a feature like this. Music Mefites have stated many times that they would like to have the ability to ask other musicians from the site how they approach the writing/recording process, and I really think this would add a whole other level to a site that is already really, really cool.

And, in case someone wonders why don't I get my own blog about this: we've seen in the past that offshoot projects about Metafilter Music that are taken outside the site end up dying after a short while. This is the place where we gather, and I think having it here would guarantee its survival, and over time the accumulation of posts will turn it into a valuable resource.

I don't know if a blog like that in the FPP link would be too hard to implement, but it would be a marvelous addition to the site, what do you say?

posted by micayetoca to MetaFilter Music at 7:15 AM (28 comments total)

I think its a knockout idea - but I think the answer is either something off-site (that someone sets up and runs who would, if history is to be any judge, be Cortex or something Cortex shaped, OR we just keep using AskMe and related tagging posts there with MeMu, or whatever.
posted by Jofus at 7:46 AM on June 26, 2008

Or the wiki? (as this seems to be what I'm saying today.)
posted by Jofus at 7:47 AM on June 26, 2008

Cortex shaped?
posted by blue_beetle at 7:59 AM on June 26, 2008

I like the idea, and agree that off-site stuff seems to die on the vine, but I don't make music so shut my mouth.

I don't see why music-related questions couldn't exist in both subdomains, if what you're talking about is strictly AskMeMusic, and not a broader music-centric discussion space. Podcasts do that weird cross-subsite tango between podcast.metafilter.com and metatalk posts. And what's the plan for AskMe's travel and transportation category of questions once TravelFilter drags itself kicking and screaming into the world? Whatever model Travel follows, in terms of sharing, excluding, sidebarring, related-featuring, etc. AskMe content should probably be the standard.
posted by mumkin at 8:14 AM on June 26, 2008

What's the hold up on travelfilter, btw?
posted by empath at 8:18 AM on June 26, 2008

Travelfilter decided to cut back on vacation this year due to the high price of gas.
posted by Pants! at 8:58 AM on June 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

There is no Cabal TravelFilter.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:59 AM on June 26, 2008

I think in previous threads about Music-vs-conversation, we've bandied around the idea of sort of opening up a discussion component for Music. I like the idea—I've thought about variations on it a lot over the last couple years—but it'd be a good-sized undertaking so I don't want to speak for Matt at all on this. But I do think it'd be cool.
posted by cortex at 9:03 AM on June 26, 2008

(I actually just gave a really long answer to a production question inside a Music thread that probably nobody, including the asker, has actually seen.) I don't necessarily know why this couldn't just be a subcategory or hell, even just a recommended AskMe tag, as mumkin notes. Unless I'm a bit confused about the intent here.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:04 AM on June 26, 2008

"we've bandied around the idea"

Oh you toy with us so.
posted by cashman at 9:17 AM on June 26, 2008

Yeah, we'd like to do a mini-metatalk for Music, maybe showing the last five threads on the right side of the front page. We're working on another project right now, but we can throw this on the to-do list and hopefully bang it out in the next month or two.
posted by mathowie at 9:37 AM on June 26, 2008

That's great news, Matt, thanks a lot. I'll be looking forward to it.
posted by micayetoca at 9:42 AM on June 26, 2008

EXCLUSIVE: MATHOWIE AND THE MEFITES will be going on a seventeen city tour to promote the release of The Rise and Fall of the Ban Hammer, the long-awaited followup to their triple-platinum 2006 album Snarq. Dates for shows including New York, Beijing, Berlin, Tel Aviv, and Rio de Janeiro will be announced later this month. Recent rumors suggest that Mathowie has been in talks with LOLCATLOL to co-headline another tour sometime this fall.
posted by Plutor at 10:10 AM on June 26, 2008 [2 favorites]

Awesome, Matt. I find myself being involved in Music much less than I'd like to be; hopefully this will provide me with an impetus to be drawn back in.

Looking forward to it!

Thanks for the suggestion, micayetoca.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:56 AM on June 26, 2008

micayetoca is my HERO!!!11!1!
posted by snsranch at 11:06 AM on June 26, 2008

That's a fabulous idea. I'm all for it. And I hardly ever venture into Music.
posted by Kattullus at 11:24 AM on June 26, 2008

don't necessarily know why this couldn't just be a subcategory or hell, even just a recommended AskMe tag

The thing is, imagine I don't want to know how to record guitars in general, but how to get that country sound that chococat achieved so accurately in Room at the end of the hall. Or just how flapjax at midnite does to record so many tiny little percussion instruments all by himself, because every time I try to lay percussion tracks, the fact of not being playing simultaneously with someone else kinda kills the mood for me and it ends up sounding awful.

What this site would give us is the opportunity to present specific questions to certain users who we admire from the page, and learn from each other, something that would surely be frowned upon if it was posted to AskMe.

Or there are users like Corduroy, who recently joined "the gang". He seems to be new at playing guitar and recording, is awfully talented and has been insistently asking for feedback. I'm sure he would love to have a resource like this.

"Well, why don't you just email the musician and ask him directly", you may ask. Because if we do so, we will get our individual answers, but no one else will benefit from it. If you browse the posting history of chococat and flapjax over at Music you'll find that people are often asking them how they manage to get such a great sound out of a home recording setup, and I kinda feel the current format of Metafilter Music doesn't lend itself to discuss this at length.

As I said before, having a public side of Metafilter Music where we can talk about writing and recording music, our experience, methods and the tricks we've discovered, will become a valuable resource for many people and what I am requesting here, to quote a frequently used phrase, is not what AskMe or MetaTalk are for.
posted by micayetoca at 11:43 AM on June 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

Alright, rockin! I get it. I'll get on this bus, then. Who brought the beer?
posted by uncleozzy at 11:56 AM on June 26, 2008

EXCLUSIVE: MATHOWIE AND THE MEFITES will be going on a seventeen city tour to promote the release of The Rise and Fall of the Ban Hammer...

Which reminds me: has there been any talk about the MeMuGigs idea? Because it's summer, and I'd like a pony!
posted by not_on_display at 1:45 PM on June 26, 2008

I want micayetoca's idea AND MeFiMuGigs, and I want 'em NOW!!!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:05 PM on June 26, 2008

Yes.

I've been wanting to be able to put up songs and take 'em down later -- in order to ask stuff like "what do you think so far?" or "hey, does someone want to add a sax solo to this?" or whatnot, without it staying on-site forever. A mefimuminimeta would allow this (even by simply allowing us to put up a post without a song attached, and linking to an external file).

(Also, I'd like to see a link to the Wiki Collaboration page somewhere on the front page of Music.)
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 3:39 PM on June 26, 2008

Right on.
micayetoca is awesome and he's like the ambassador of Music.
Love the idea, hope it comes to fruition.

I've been wanting to be able to put up songs and take 'em down later -- in order to ask stuff like "what do you think so far?" or "hey, does someone want to add a sax solo to this?" or whatnot, without it staying on-site forever. A mefimuminimeta would allow this (even by simply allowing us to put up a post without a song attached, and linking to an external file).

Yes, a thousand times yes. This site would leap to a totally different level if this could happen. The whole nature of recording songs is so fluid and it would be great if the site or a subsection of it could be just as fluid. There's such a sense of "this is the final statement" when posting a song, and when you're asking for input it seems like you don't want to burden everyone with a whole new post about the same song. And if it's an addendum to the previous post it seems like people might not catch it. So ya, I think some kind of collab/work-in-progress sub-forum would rock.

It seems like Metafilter, the community, doesn't know how great this part of the sight is, (as flapjax says often and is so great about reiterating and promoting.) But really, it's an awesome thing. I don't know of another online environment that's so pure and free of bullshit, not trying to "sign up" the artists to get money out of them or make people pay for songs or whatever. And I think it's really interesting that none of the bitchy venom of MetaTalk (or even AskMe sometimes) ever comes into Music. It's never mentioned anywhere but it's like an unwritten rule of respect that if you've created this thing and decided to share it with everyone, then people here are going to listen to it and maybe they'll share a comment about it, maybe they'll favourite it, maybe they won't. But they'll give it it's due. And I've never seen anyone trash a song here, ever, which is kind of great and pretty rare.
Check out other music posting sites, *cough* Garageband *hack* and you'll see what I mean.

I also think that the creators of this site don't fully realize what a unique thing it is that they have here. And I shudder to use the term "capitalize," but I think they could take this place to some crazy new awesomeness with some of these suggestions.

I hope this doesn't come across as complaining. It's more like, "This is fantastic! Keep going!"

But oh my I've been talking too much again.
posted by chococat at 7:47 PM on June 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

Not at all, chococat.

Let's stay on top of this one, then, and keep exchanging ideas as to what we would desire from this feature and what we can do to make it work.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:45 PM on June 26, 2008

And I think it's really interesting that none of the bitchy venom of MetaTalk (or even AskMe sometimes) ever comes into Music.

To be fair, it's not never so much as rarely ever; and one of the costs of expanding the free-form nature of it is probably inviting more in. Which I don't consider a compelling counter-argument at all, but I think it's important to at least be aware that the secludedness of Music to date is very much correlated with the relative calm there.
posted by cortex at 8:50 PM on June 26, 2008

the secludedness of Music...

is what we can hopefully turn around, and indeed, if that meant a few nasty comments now and again, or a bit more rough-and-tumble critique, I say no problem. We're all big kids, I reckon we could take the occasional "your song sucks" or whatnot that might come along with more and more MeFiers taking an active part in Music.

And I'm am glad that chococat came right out and voiced an opinion that I share but hadn't ever found the right moment to eloquently express: namely, that even mathowie doesn't quite realize how cool this part of MetaFilter is, or how much better it could be, with greater and more consistent efforts towards betterment. I really do feel like it deserves a lot more attention than it gets.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:30 PM on June 26, 2008

Um, let me say it again: I'm am glad.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:31 PM on June 26, 2008

Yes, I can see that you're are.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 1:25 AM on June 27, 2008

And... magic!
posted by micayetoca at 10:49 AM on July 2, 2008