March Album Listening Month (MALM) Activities and Games
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@beacon Feb 2022
A bunch of us have said that we'd like to encourage more people to hang out in March and listen to all the great music and read the great lyrics that we were too busy to listen to in February. In that spirit, I would like to recommend that we have some structure to some of the activities to make it fun and interactive, and that those people to who would like to get more attention to their music or show us some discoveries of new talent and songs can promote it.
In past FAWMs, someone usually posts a "Who's Still Here" thread for the week, so that we know that if we post and listen to your songs, you will see them (as FAWM is usually wiped clean in the late Spring). There have usually been a crew of people who make sure that all the Zongs are gone and there's at least one comment on every posted song, but it's not worth it if people aren't going to stay and see the comments.
This post is to get some ideas of some things that we can have here on the forums to keep the fun going. Here are some of my ideas:
Most creative song title
Great lyrics open for the taking
FAWMer that you want to make sure you watchlist for next year
Cool guitar solos
Songs that made you cry
FAWMling that really made a difference
There are a lot of things we can do to make this fun. What are your ideas?
(and, yes, those who are wondering who I am, this is the account that @kenmattsson will be using for FAWMs moving forward, so watchlist me now!) -
@nadine Feb 2022
@wolfkier does his #tit4tat recoprocal commenting challenge. It's fun! https://fawm.org/forums/topic/12775/
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@erikleppen Feb 2022
I ccan think of ideas, but they would mostly require changes to the site or forum and I don't know how feasible that is. I've heard the @burrsettles wants to upgrade the site a bit, but that's not something we can put to use this year. But I hope that if the time ever comes that he/she/they wants to change things, maybe special thought can be given to make the listening bit of FAWM more prominent. Not sure a whole new month is necessary, that may be intimidating for some users, but if all participants can be encouraged to linger around in March, then maybe there will be more attention that there is more to FAWM than just *writing* songs. I myself always fall into the trap that I do my best to write 14 songs, but seem to forget the whole listening/social part. Maybe, next to "write 14" we should make "listen 100" (or whatever number would be viable) equally prominent as a "goal" for FAWM. Just thinking aloud here.
In other words, maybe the listening experience can be "gamified" in a way.
Maybe, have a board "Song listening" below "Songwriting/recording" and put "listening challenges" there, so that all ideas mentioned by @beacon above can have their own topic. Because they're all nice ideas for discussions on songs, but, right now, I'm not sure where topics like that should be posted.
It would be great if, next to zongs, we can filter songs with few comments (where "few" is up for debate, or, better yet, a slider for "less than this number". -
@davidbreslin101 Feb 2022
No suggestions yet, but I agree we need to ways to encourage MALMing! I always start with good intentions then quickly get burned out.
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@franniezest Feb 2022
i'm excited for march listening - i got too crazy the last couple weeks to do as much listening as i did the first 2 weeks:)
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@wacha Feb 2022
I always hang around to try to return comments I received during February as well as to hear new people. It's a shame howany people vanish come March 1st.
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@jtsteam Feb 2022
I certainly plan to stick around and listen, I know there's so many things I've missed and I still feel like I owe some people comments in return! Might need to take a couple of days break first, though...
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@odilongreen Feb 2022
I definitely plan to be around for a while for listening in March! And I’m very much looking forward to it!
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@coolparadiso Feb 2022
Ken. Just my view but i think so many people put so much into Fawm - time and effort , that come March they have to go catch up on all the stuff that got put on hold! Not least for many spending time with partners! I think the people that have the time and want to will stay anyway, i don't think any further incentives will change that! My guess is in a couple of weeks the usual suspects + the new suspects will be all thats left! And from Burrs previous comments there is absolutely no chance of system changes in the short term. I think your suggestions list is good but i bet that the people that do it would have stayed anyway it will just target their listening (i know i would). I must say @wolfkier and his #tit4tat is one of my favourite things! I would have met half of my now friends doing that over a few years!
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@alfapenguin Feb 2022
That sounds like fun! I'm traveling quite a bit in March, so listening instead of rewriting makes a lot of sense!
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@beacon Feb 2022
Well, @coolparadiso It can't hurt to try something new and see what happens.
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@coolparadiso Feb 2022
Always worth a try and It certainly wont make it worse @beacon for sure. Just my experience that good intentions get caught up by day to day reality. I thought people would stay last year for sure, with the pandemic, but the ghost town wasn't any further away!
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@wolfkier Feb 2022
Thanks for the mention/plug @coolparadiso ~
Indeed the #tit4tat is open to all comers and I'll be updating it through March. Currently the listens/comments are reciprocating hot and fast with 23 people already playing : All welcome to join in - great music guaranteed and generous keen commenters on tap. There's so many great otherwise unlikely FAWM friendships to be made in the trades! Especially perfect for newbies to build up some bonds that they can take into 5090!
Join in here: https://fawm.org/forums/topic/12775/ -
@danvaillancourt Feb 2022
Yay for MALM!
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@siasa Feb 2022
That sounds great - I didn't know what happened after Feb 28th, so will definitely be checking in and listening to some of the great stuff I've not heard yet!
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@sheilerk Feb 2022
@wolfkier 's #tit4tat became my favorite after FAWM activity once I discovered it. It really does let you focus a lot of your time on people who are around, and likely to see your comments. And, it's such a good way to get a broader view of a person's work than you get from one or two songs. I love that! I know during FAWM I write a pretty broad variety of styles, and once in awhile a skirmish will stir up one that's very unlike me. If you were to hit upon one of those you might not really have a clue of my usual writing style. I can't help but think it's that way for other fawmers too.
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@alonetogether Feb 2022
im definitely planning on being more active this march (i say this always). i should set myself some goals or something to work on
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@aflinner Feb 2022
@beacon Great idea, Ken! I know that I’ve fallen seriously behind on my listening and commenting this year, and spent nearly all my FAWM time on creating. Now that March has arrived, I want to go back and do some serious listening/commenting (starting with all the great folks who listened my work this year). I really like the things you suggested, sounds like fun! :-)
@erikleppen Actually, if I understand correctly, there is a thread that helps do what you suggested. Look for the “Century Club.” -
@karlsburg25 Feb 2022
@coolparadiso has a really good point. Initially (first day or so) i may find myself having a screen break for example. and getting my ass into fresh air. I adore March listening though as its so nice dipping into music without the nagging thought at the back of my mind (hmmmm i really should be working on that idea). For me it was very easy when i was out in thailand as it meant hammock and beach time chilling with tunes. And although this thread is a great idea personally i love listening without any pressure of achieving anything. Possibly the only thing to make march listening more attractive to some is to promote it amongst ourselves pre fawm as an essntial part of the FAWM experience.
Anyway. bring on more games like #titfortat i say ;-) -
@chroes Mar 2022
I know it's a bit of a difficult topic, as we try to maintain a very positive and encouraging mood here - but I'd be interested in honest constructive critique on my work. I know there are discussions about that kind of feedback in other threads, like here https://fawm.org/forums/topic/12845/ started by @kerriwinter, but the discussion revolves around leaving this platform and moving to a different one. I think we'd lose momentum and users in that transition, so I would like to propose a different thing: We could add a tag like #ccwelcome (for "comments & critique welcome") to tracks we'd like to receive input about. We could then focus on providing helpful individual feedback for those interested.
What do you think? -
@christmascard Mar 2022
I defiantly keen on MALM!!!, i'm on a gap year travelling around Australia - so I have a lot of time on my hands!
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@majormajormajormajor Mar 2022
Gonna crash first- been up nearly three days straight- but then I am absolutely up for lots of listening and commenting. Bringing some games/social element to it is a great idea that would help keep those who are still around engaged. Using the current site feature set offers plenty to get started in terms of tagging and forum threads. And if it's something people enjoy, going forward we might next look at hosting simple tools off site. Most of my dev work is front end, but I have some server side skills and I know there are other devs kicking around here.
For the moment I only plan the chill and catch up on comments from this year... Phew!
I think I'll just let the last 15 mins run out. Congrats everyone :) -
@wylddandelyon Mar 2022
@Beacon I like the idea of having listening challenges that are also, by design, recommendation threads. "Find a cool song with a guitar solo" or "Here there be entertaining monster songs" and so on!
For this year we could put them in the Challenges tab; all the old challenges will drop to the bottom pretty quickly now. Sure, a few people will go add links for a day or three to the old ones, but after that only the listening challenges are likely to get comments, so it will be easy to find them. -
@nadine Mar 2022
@beacon I thought about starting a thread about the funniest songs you listened to. There has been a lot of songs that made me smile / laugh and did not fit into the recommendation topic ^_^
I think that @wylddandelyon idea is a good way to start. Maybe put a MALM in front so people know that it's about listenng and not posting?! -
@nadine Mar 2022
@chroes I give feedback on mixing and arrangement when people wrote into the song info that they need feedback. Otherwise I hold back my producer ears unless something is hurting me pretty bad and is such a quick fix that it doesn't hurt at all ;-)
February is the only month of the year where I can enjoy myself as songwriter and not producer. I really enjoy not getting feedback on -0.5 dB on 200 Hz and stuff. I do the deep dive in production / mixing with my collabs after FAWM and I have a club of people who lend their ears, if needed. -
@chroes Mar 2022
@nadine That's totally fair, and I can relate although in other areas of expertise. I wouldn't want to force that kind of feedback, but to open up a teenie bit and invite constructive criticism. If so desired by the person who wrote the song. Just as a flag that it's okay to point some things out - but never to force anything.
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@beacon Mar 2022
@nadine @chroes I also love the #ccwelcome tag, as part of what I want to do in March is to say "now what am I going to do with this song?" And especially if there's so much expertise here that I could tap into, I'd welcome it. We could even have a thread where people say that they are particularly looking for critiques on particular things (fixing a lyric, trying to make a melody smoother, or an audio production issue). I think that would be a helpful thread!
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@br0th3rh00d Mar 2022
All those activities sound good. What about by genre, guess the genre, what genre could it be, or find the song that encompasses most genres. Or musical education via good examples of particular genres/subgenres. Or like an A is for Ambient game!?
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@opossum Mar 2022
Imma gonna try to MALM. Up to now I've been playing possum but now I'm ready to listen to yer songs!
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@darcistrutt Mar 2022
@opossum you made me laugh out loud...and not for the first time. I intend to do a lot of listening this month. I'm not ready to let go of the FAWM magic!
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@johnstaples Mar 2022
I love the idea of games and activities to help attract and retain MALMers!!!
How about a listening skirmish where a skirmish time is scheduled and interested parties post in the skirmish thread during the first 15 minutes indicating they will play and linking 2 of their songs for listening. Then the remaining 45 minutes is for listening to songs by those playing. More thoughts on this here, https://fawm.org/forums/topic/12902/ -
@conorg Mar 2022
The sheer number of songs on the site can be intimidating - where do you start listening? So one idea I had is that each song I have posted has two "neighbours" - the song posted directly before my song, and the one posted directly after (the song ID plus one / minus one). So a good starting point for MALM might be to listen to all your songs' neighbours and leave comments.
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@chipwithrow Mar 2022
The way I'm going to be commenting today is to go through this thread and check out some of you I've not listened to yet this FAWM! (And to reciprocate for any comments I get.)
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@standup Mar 2022
Two things
1) criticism — I did put on my sound board that I’m open to actual critiques on my stuff, but I don’t think anyone took that to heart! I got very positive feedback
2) I’d just like to point out there are around 700 zongs on the boards, which is not surprising after the last minute frenzy. But zong listening is the listening I’m doing today. -
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@johnstaples Mar 2022
I always avoid critiquing at FAWM. I don't give it or want it. Why? Because these are drafts written quickly without engaging even my own editor very much! Just my opinion but I feel critiques on a draft are co-writes! :D
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@kerriwinter Mar 2022
I love the #ccwelcome hashtag idea, I'll be adding that to (some) of my songs. @chroes maybe put that in a fresh forum post header so people know it's a thing?
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@elainedimasi Mar 2022
Yes, I like these threads to give me a hint who's still here to see the comments I'll be leaving!
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@unpronounceable Mar 2022
I'm with @nadine and @johnstaples . I don't really want constructive criticism -- I've really appreciated the friendly world of FAWM and letting go of perfectionism and people-pleasing that I can accidentally fall into. I'm here for the community more than anything. That said, if some folks want that and create a system where it is not given where it's not asked for, that seems workable to me.
My own personal experience of FAWM, it doesn't feel in the spirit with FAWM culture, but I also recognize I'm bringing my own biases and painful experiences into this conclusion and that it may not apply across the board. -
@franniezest Mar 2022
It makes sense to me that some folks really want some constructive suggestions. (But I personally don’t ! I give myself enough negative feedback that I need the positivity of fawm to keep me from giving up !)
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@sunnymae Mar 2022
I'm with you @johnstaples and @nadine
I know the comments are always kind and positive, realizing full well there's work to be done. It's understood among us that these are the first sparks of inspiration, written hastily in the spirit of immersing oneself in a continual flow of creativity.
If someone wants to start a social media page for more indepth critique, or set up listening zooms or something outside of this forum, I'm all for it.
I come here to breathe and let go of constraint and self criticism. Getting encouragement from all of you actually inspires me to go back in and start my re-writes. I am so grateful for this place!