Downward Trajectory of Brony Music (New Blog Launch pg 3 on)

[the4thImpulse]

Thanks for that huge summary post! You have a lot of great ideas and are saying all the right things but the one thing I don't understand is why we need a separate site to do these things, and as nine volt said some of your plans can/are already provided here (tutorials, event calendar and discussion).

I think creating a second music site for these things is where you are going to fail. Rework MLR to have a news page (using all of your ideas here) and then the 'forums' part beneath the news.

Check out the site djforums.com. Upon arriving at the sit they have news articles all replayed to the DJ industry, they have lists for tutorials, reviews, and interviews. On the upper tab there is link to the actual forum which is where most if the action happens. I think this site is one you should look closely at.

[VaporBlaze]

A2Z, I have to agree with ninevolt on a number of points. Don't be too ambitious with FiMmusic, and don't try to do what already exists. As was already mentioned, I think that the brony rock tumblr is the model we should look at. People should come to FiMmusic for discovery not just of songs, but of artists.

It should be an artist centric blog where the spotlight posts give a little history of the artist, overview of the most popular songs, a comment on his or her style, etc.

It can also do seasonal and/or Blast-from-the-Past things like "here's some neat halloween/dark music from the fandom's history", or "Happy Holidays! Here's our top 10 Winter Wrap Up remixes".

Expanding the scope of the sight anywhere beyond this, and I believe the project will fail miserably. We should focus on doing one thing, and doing it amazingly. Tutorials, events, and the like should be left to the wonderful sites and articles that already exist. They will only clutter FiMmusic, be an additional burden to try and produce, and detract from the focus and direction of the site.

[VaporBlaze]

Words

3. I disagree with the need for tighter quality control. We aren't just trying to be another EQD, there is absolutely no point in that. I find tighter quality control problematic as it's biased towards technicality over composition as that's easier to objectively measure. If the kid with the earbuds likes it, then it is to some degree a good song, period.

The most important quality control for FiMmusic should be from our end: the writing of the articles/features.

Concise, informative, positive, and a touch of analytical artist spotlights should be the appeal of blog.

The only reason I can imagine anyone spending the time to regularly check on the blog and have it maintain a real viewership (which is the reason we're doing this, right? Revive interest in pony music?) is if we offer something that is of high quality and they can't find anywhere else.

I keep coming back to EQD for drawfriends and comics because for the most part, they consistently collect a very high quality gallery of art for me to enjoy. We should focus on holding ourselves (our writers) to a high standard.

As for the "standard of quality" for who/what we feature, I think that it's not really applicable, at least as far as how I would run the site. I'm envisioning the team behind FiMmusic as a group of people that go out and search for songs or people they WANT to write about, and write about it. I don't think we should follow any kind of submission model. People shouldn't ever feel the sting of being "rejected" from FiMmusic, because that's not how it's operated. How can we expect to have good features/articles if the writers are sort of "forced" to write about someone or something they didn't want to write about in the first place?

[ph00tbag]

There's merit to the forums. They provide a venue for community, and allow musicians to get involved and interface with each other. But as a means of promotion that is fair and equitable, well, they have no apparatus for that. Go to the main page: http://www.mylittleremix.com

It's just the forum, and it's a pretty shoddily organized one, at that. There's no model by which anyone can say, "this is a solid up-and-comer, and they have, like, no subscribers. You should go listen to this person's stuff and pay attention, because they can go places," while also trying to develop those same artists so they can become even better.

The blog being considered here is not a forum, and this forum is not a blog. They are very different concepts. For that very reason, an aspect of the blog is to also promote websites like toastbeard and mlr as great places to go to to interface with other artists, which clearly can't be done on fimmusic.

I feel I should add that it's all well and good to suggest that MLR should just be able to evolve to serve the same function. But the admins seem to have absolutely zero interest in doing that, and honestly I think it would be pretty presumptuous to ask them to move it in that direction. Don't get me wrong, I would fully embrace it if a "front page" evolved for MLR that served the same purpose, but I just don't see it happening. It has to come from someone that wants to do it.

[Freewave]

We've already outlined a lot of our points already but again

1. This will link some of the things that go on on MLR (such as events, interesting community conversations, link to great production threads). A lot of people don't visit mlr so they don't know what's happening here. A lot of us don't know everything happening outside of here. Let's break that disconnect. We love MLR and we want to see it continue to be the home of brony musicians (as a forum).

2. This will do what BMD doesn't do (highlight our favorite current musicians, not just anyone who writes up a profile). On BMD everyone gets on but the quality varies widely. We want to spotlight artists over just tracks, we want to get to know them better (interviews, who do THEY like in the community, etc), and we want to pick out who we like.

3. Genre focus. We'll have certain authors who specialize in particular genres give monthly spotlights to tracks and musicians who make content in those areas. Kyoga is you wanted to do an ambient/downtempo spotlight each month, you could do something like that. the door is open for whoever wants to help out.

4. Focus on "i like this music" vs "this is technically good". Good is completely an opinion. i know plenty of people who give Ok Computer and Sgt Peppers .5 stars because its simply not what they like. Good and bad is not something EQD or anyone else has a factual opinion on. If something has too many detractors over its positives then it won't be seen as good. Simple as that. We're not going to highlight bad music because we don't like bad music.

5. Looking for those who are here currently and making great music that might not be as widely known vs chasing the past (people who have left). We don't mind looking back at great tracks for another look. We'll write about music that we will want to write about, that we enjoyed.

6. Reblogging and linking to existing sites and articles that are already here and doing a function. We are not here to replace EQD or any other site. That's silly, but i think we can focus on what they miss out on. We can focus on tracks that missed the spotlight but were thrown in motd that really were pretty amazing. Again we want to see other sites as partners, guest opinions, vs us trying to replace anybody. Like google news highlights other news sites. Toastbeard also gets a weekly feature.

7. We want to link this community in a better way thru our tumblr and its social aspects. Reblogs, likes, the feed are its advantages. This community deserves to have a music site written by musicians that are still passionate about this scene and positive about its outlook. We want to get people enthused and this site i think has a way of doing that.

8. No spam. It's about brony music. It's not going to clog your tumblr feed with ask replies or anything not worth your time. It's not going to do solo highlights on new tracks or make you skim throughout.

[Magnitude Zero]

1. This will link some of the things that go on on MLR (such as events, interesting community conversations, link to great production threads). A lot of people don't visit mlr so they don't know what's happening here. A lot of us don't know everything happening outside of here. Let's break that disconnect. We love MLR and we want to see it continue to be the home of brony musicians (as a forum).

6. Reblogging and linking to existing sites and articles that are already here and doing a function. We are not here to replace EQD or any other site. That's silly, but i think we can focus on what they miss out on. We can focus on tracks that missed the spotlight but were thrown in motd that really were pretty amazing. Again we want to see other sites as partners, guest opinions, vs us trying to replace anybody. Like google news highlights other news sites. Toastbeard also gets a weekly feature.

These are really important so I just want to make everyone understands the implications. A lot of you seem to be getting the idea that we're trying to replace MLR as the "center" of brony musicians. We are not trying to replace MLR, or EQD, or any current brony music services. We're here to AUGMENT those services, to open them up to people who may not be aware of them. I mentioned this waaay earlier on in the thread, but there are a LOT of brony musicians who have NO idea MLR exists. Well one of FiMMusic's goals is to let people know that this site, and other cool brony music sites that provide great services, exist and are things they should totally check out.

[JSynth]

It seems like not such a good idea for reasons including what 4thimpulse has stated already on his most recent post on this thread. Also, moving the music community to tumblr is a bad idea because it lessens the purpose of MLR altogether, as well as the purpose of EQD music posts. EQD is already a central hub of content recognition in the brony community, and making a different website for music recognition will only serve to divide the fandom and the fandom musicians even further. Your idea is for musicians and by musicians, so you completely ignore the fact that people besides musicians like to listen to music and talk to people who are musicians, and that also makes that website idea a huge musician's circlejerk and very isolated.

So why can't MLR do any of the things you guys are talking about? What is even the point of MLR anymore? Circuitfry I think it's time to delete MLR.

OK, a few things.

1. MLR is a forum and FIMusic is a tumblr. Forums are built for discussion. Both sides of a debate are (more or less) equally presented. It allows equal for everyone opinion to be heard. Tumblr is not built for discussions. Opinions are not equally presented. Someone might have a well thought out argument, but does not get recognition for it because they lack followers.

2. Because this is a tumblr based site, it does not require the fandom to split over where to go for more good music. Most of the fandom is already on tumblr, so it wont require anyone to do more than just follow the blog.

3. I do agree that this blog should not be just for musicians. We should look to appeal to everyone in the fandom. If we want a site for tutorials; we have one. You are on it right now. This tumblr should be focus on increasing interest in the fanom's music; spotlighting talented artists that deserve recognition and giving updates on major events in the music community such as Balloon Party, The Remix Wars and Seeds of Kindess.

This music is chosen by people who are themselves musicians, who find/ are shown the artists that don't get noticed for their exceptional talent, who want to offer listeners a selection of choices that make it easier to find the latest tracks they could be missing out on.

Musician =/= good at choosing "fantastic" tracks.
You need to have more requirements for the prelisteners other than just "must be a musician". How about some kind of standards or quality control? And how will the musicians themselves find these "exceptional[ly] talent[ed]" artists?

Well, there a lot of ways we could judge music. It would probably be best to focus mostly on production quality, seeing as that is an international standard. Bad production will sound bad no matter what genre the music is in. But we could also give points out to those who are talented in other areas as well. Maybe one person is a great vocalist. Maybe one person is a fantastic guitarist. Maybe someone has excellent composition skills.

Now as for finding talented artists, we would probably just have to start with networking. Many of us may know several people who are musicians, and don't regularly browse mlr. They could still be active in the fandom and be making pony music. If we find someone we think is talented, we could nominate them to the tumblr. If the tumblr becomes successful enough than the musicians will come to us.

[Nine Volt]

I don't even know why I bother getting into these discussions...

Whatever, do whatever you want. I don't really care honestly.

EDIT:
@ganondox
The problem I see is with the tutorial stuff, which MLR is ostensibly for. MLR does need an overhaul though (and not a shitty, half-assed one this time).

[Freewave]

I don't even know why I bother getting into these discussions...

Whatever, do whatever you want. I don't really care honestly.

MLR does need an overhaul though (and not a shitty, half-assed one this time).

Just a quick post. Fimmusic will be for brony musicians but we don't want that to exclude the public. There is ample reason for them to want good mlp music as well and we want help them in finding that.

MLR still needs an overhaul and we're still working on that. It doesn't help that circuitfy essentially walked away w/o handing it over but we are working to figure out how we re-org and re-do the site. Fimmusic is part of the overhaul in terms of getting MLR to be an important hub of the community and getting the word out about it.

Again this site is for brony music and keeping it alive. Its dead if you say its dead, its thriving if you look around see how many are still going and feel positive about it.

If you're a person who thinks mlr should be shut down or we should stop making music about MLP feel free to exit this thread or even the forum if you feel that strongly. Respect that you are on mlr when you make such statements and how silly and negative that is. Thanks. ;)

[AyaneFukumi]

My interest in making poni music isn't decreased :3 I post on toastbeard weekly now

[HMage]

To me it looks like you're trying to do too much.

And blog is the worst idea ever.

[ChocolateChicken]

To me it looks like you're trying to do too much.

And blog is the worst idea ever.

HMage put into words better than I did. I agree.

[VaporBlaze]

I'm sorry A2Z, but I have a lot of problems with many of the things you've posted about how the blog should operate.

I don't think throwing together a bunch of rules and policy is a good idea if this is going to be a thing. Just assemble a team of willing people (and in my opinion, anyone and everyone should be able to join and write) to collect music and write features. Whenever. There shouldn't be any kind of system that determines who can be featured, when, how often, that's just setting yourself up for awkward moments when someone wants to break them.

What this should be is a place where people can share music that they believe is wonderful. Being "featured" means that someone cared enough about your music to take the time to write up a little something about why.

Write an feature for a friend! Your friends might write an article for you too! Friendship! Positive feedback loops where people get excited about each other's music! Recognition and encouragement! Giving and sharing! Kind of like feedback exchanges that (all to rarely) occur here on MLR.

It would be truly beautiful to see everyone partner up with a friend (or make a new one) and take 20 minutes to pick out 3 favorite songs and write a little piece on what makes them special! It's all about the friendship!

I think this could be really fun, and special!

[ganondox]

EDIT:
@ganondox
The problem I see is with the tutorial stuff, which MLR is ostensibly for. MLR does need an overhaul though (and not a shitty, half-assed one this time).

I agree to some degree, but I don't think it would hurt to have the occasional tutorial. Anyway, I think the blog should be directed towards general, not musicians, as I don't really see what it would do for musicians. We need to have musician consumers, or else it's just sort of a circlejerk.

[Conduit]

EDIT:
@ganondox
The problem I see is with the tutorial stuff, which MLR is ostensibly for. MLR does need an overhaul though (and not a shitty, half-assed one this time).

I agree to some degree, but I don't think it would hurt to have the occasional tutorial. Anyway, I think the blog should be directed towards general, not musicians, as I don't really see what it would do for musicians. We need to have musician consumers, or else it's just sort of a circlejerk.

Also the tutorials would be video, which I don't think I've seen anyone do on MLR.

[Freewave]

EDIT:
@ganondox
The problem I see is with the tutorial stuff, which MLR is ostensibly for. MLR does need an overhaul though (and not a shitty, half-assed one this time).

I agree to some degree, but I don't think it would hurt to have the occasional tutorial. Anyway, I think the blog should be directed towards general, not musicians, as I don't really see what it would do for musicians. We need to have musician consumers, or else it's just sort of a circlejerk.

Also the tutorials would be video, which I don't think I've seen anyone do on MLR.

there's plenty or tutorial on mlr which are not. It's a matter of when a new one surfaces we can point to mlr. Doesn't have to be a video although that's a plus.

[cplbradley]

Well IDK if my opinion is even relevant anymore, but I don't give a shit.
My take on the brony music community dying (This is just my opinion and what's happened to me):
About damn time.
I guarantee that A LOT of the so called "musicians" are going to stop making music because of it. It's time for everyone to move on. The community was fun while it lasted, but it got muddy and filled with loads of kids who decide they want to start making pony music, because it's popular, not because they have a passion for music.

I released a song on D.Notive's new album because he asked me to. It had nothing to do with me wanting to get more subscribers, or being part of the community still, because I've moved on. I made the song because he asked me too and because him and I are good friends. It's the last pony song I will ever release.

Move on guys. You can still make a few pony songs for fun, but it's dying, and focusing on it will only bring you down. Once you realize that you don't need to throw a few pony samples on your track for it to be good, and realize that it might actually be better without it, you will start creating new ideas that will top your older stuff 10 times over.

[ClaviSound]

Well IDK if my opinion is even relevant anymore, but I don't give a shit.
My take on the brony music community dying (This is just my opinion and what's happened to me):
About damn time.
I guarantee that A LOT of the so called "musicians" are going to stop making music because of it. It's time for everyone to move on. The community was fun while it lasted, but it got muddy and filled with loads of kids who decide they want to start making pony music, because it's popular, not because they have a passion for music.

I released a song on D.Notive's new album because he asked me to. It had nothing to do with me wanting to get more subscribers, or being part of the community still, because I've moved on. I made the song because he asked me too and because him and I are good friends. It's the last pony song I will ever release.

Move on guys. You can still make a few pony songs for fun, but it's dying, and focusing on it will only bring you down. Once you realize that you don't need to throw a few pony samples on your track for it to be good, and realize that it might actually be better without it, you will start creating new ideas that will top your older stuff 10 times over.

Mmkay, figured it's about time I text dumped on this kind of approach to the music side of the fandom.

If you don't want to read said text dump, here's the short version: Listeners drifting away is the problem, not musicians leaving. The music side of the fandom will exist as long as there's a show by which people are inspired. Yes, some music may be better off just not being relevant to ponies (*cough cough Vinyl Scratch dubstep cough*) but a lot of it is a labor of love, both for music and the show.

The thing you don't seem to realize is that the people who are eager to staff this blog are those who aren't making pony music because it's the topic du jour, it's because they legitimately love Friendship is Magic, and it has become a part of their life that they want to write music about. People make songs about money, and how it's a part of their lives; people make songs about television, and how it's a part of their lives; heck, some of the most famous songs of all time have been about topics as random as MTV (Dire Straits - Money for Nothing), an old poem and "where do we go now" repeated over and over as lyrics (Guns 'N Roses - Sweet Child O Mine), a lion sleeping in a jungle (The Tokens - The Lion Sleeps Tonight), and sometimes we're not even sure we know what they're talking about (Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit / The Kingsmen - Louie Louie / Bob Dylan - Every Song He Ever Made).

In a way, yes, your opinion is relevant, because it's what's killing the brony music community. Instead of people looking toward the people who will fill the shoes of those who have left, they've thrown up their hands and decided it's all over after some people move on. And if listeners aren't interested, then you may as well not have a music community if they're only listening to themselves.

Your argument is legitimate, but you shouldn't mix it with condemning those who still make pony-related content. It's not cause, it's correlation, yet a large chunk of people misunderstand that.

As for me? I'm going to keep making music about ponies until they no longer give me inspiration. And that hasn't happened yet, so I don't see any reason to stop now. Maybe the music scene isn't what it once was, but that's because it's been such a long gap since canon (and the controversial nature of Equestria Girls didn't help much). You're choosing to interpret a select few musicians leaving the fandom as "dying," which is an incorrect assessment. Yet, it might turn out to be correct anyway if enough people believe it's true.

The fandom's music community will not die on the musician end, it will die on the listener end. Hence the point of ideas like FIMMusic, to bring music from as many musicians as possible to as many listeners as possible.

[Freewave]

Well IDK if my opinion is even relevant anymore, but I don't give a shit.
My take on the brony music community dying (This is just my opinion and what's happened to me):
About damn time.
I guarantee that A LOT of the so called "musicians" are going to stop making music because of it. It's time for everyone to move on. The community was fun while it lasted, but it got muddy and filled with loads of kids who decide they want to start making pony music, because it's popular, not because they have a passion for music.

I released a song on D.Notive's new album because he asked me to. It had nothing to do with me wanting to get more subscribers, or being part of the community still, because I've moved on. I made the song because he asked me too and because him and I are good friends. It's the last pony song I will ever release.

Move on guys. You can still make a few pony songs for fun, but it's dying, and focusing on it will only bring you down. Once you realize that you don't need to throw a few pony samples on your track for it to be good, and realize that it might actually be better without it, you will start creating new ideas that will top your older stuff 10 times over.

Sorry that's a terrible attitude and if people who are no longer bronies (or never were) on this site want to sneer at those who continue this community forward then feel free to step aside. This community and mlr will continue. Plenty of great people still do mlp music well and that's what this blog will focus on. 'Nuff said.

[Captain Ironhelm]

aaahahaha maybe MLP isn't exactly "viral" anymore, but it's faaaar from dead. I keep finding these newer guys that that now have 3k to 15k (or more) youtube subs, built over just this last year. GUESS WHAT, THEY'RE AWESOME.
This lamenting was pretty strong last year too. It's pretty much up to the attitude of the person looking at it. If you want to ride the choo-choo train to popularity, idk, make a parody of miley cyrus or something, whatever is trending.

Sorry that this isn't on-track with the thread topic, I'm all for finding ways to get music to audience. I'm just sick of seeing people whine about it. Music isn't dead, just the current methods of marketing it are run-in the ground a bit as of right now. I might send some PM's on the topic to Freewave that I don't want on the public board yet.

/end rant

[S.P.P]

Well IDK if my opinion is even relevant anymore, but I don't give a shit.
My take on the brony music community dying (This is just my opinion and what's happened to me):
About damn time.
I guarantee that A LOT of the so called "musicians" are going to stop making music because of it. It's time for everyone to move on. The community was fun while it lasted, but it got muddy and filled with loads of kids who decide they want to start making pony music, because it's popular, not because they have a passion for music.

I released a song on D.Notive's new album because he asked me to. It had nothing to do with me wanting to get more subscribers, or being part of the community still, because I've moved on. I made the song because he asked me too and because him and I are good friends. It's the last pony song I will ever release.

Move on guys. You can still make a few pony songs for fun, but it's dying, and focusing on it will only bring you down. Once you realize that you don't need to throw a few pony samples on your track for it to be good, and realize that it might actually be better without it, you will start creating new ideas that will top your older stuff 10 times over.

Read as "your musical approach is bad and you should feel bad".
People draw musical inspiration from MLP because it is .. well .. a good source for it. The characters are good, there's fun to be had by referencing and writing about the show, and the community provides so much good fannon that if you wrote about it, you'd have to know that it was inspired by poni. So to say that "the community is dying, stop writing music about it" is ridiculous.

It's like saying "hey, the romantic era has passed, you can all stop writing love songs now".

[Callenby]

It's like saying "hey, the romantic era has passed, you can all stop writing love songs now".

You can extend that even further. Why are any of us making music at all? Haven't far more talented and successful people already covered this stuff for centuries - millennia, even?

Oh, right, it's because we love it and it's meaningful to us. And if it is no longer meaningful to us then we stop doing it but don't try to convince others to give up something they enjoy and care about. I may not really "get" why people make, say, trap music, but if I said to them "I don't enjoy this therefore you should stop" it would make me an asshole. I don't get to decide what does and does not inspire other people. Instead, I'm grateful that they find something so inspirational that they want to express how they feel through art.

"It's not what it used to be." No, nothing ever is. Everything changes. What I don't understand is why that is automatically a bad thing, or that we have zero power to affect anything. That's so fatalistic. Don't like a trend? Then work to reverse it. Even if you fail then at least you tried. Sitting on the sidelines and complaining doesn't help anyone, least of all yourself.

[ExoBassTix]

Thank you, Pyre and Cpt. Ironhelm, people like you are the reason for my faith in this scene.

It's like saying "hey, the romantic era has passed, you can all stop writing love songs now".

You can extend that even further. Why are any of us making music at all? Haven't far more talented and successful people already covered this stuff for centuries - millennia, even?

Oh, right, it's because we love it and it's meaningful to us. And if it is no longer meaningful to us then we stop doing it but don't try to convince others to give up something they enjoy and care about. I may not really "get" why people make, say, trap music, but if I said to them "I don't enjoy this therefore you should stop" it would make me an asshole. I don't get to decide what does and does not inspire other people. Instead, I'm grateful that they find something so inspirational that they want to express how they feel through art.

"It's not what it used to be." No, nothing ever is. Everything changes. What I don't understand is why that is automatically a bad thing, or that we have zero power to affect anything. That's so fatalistic. Don't like a trend? Then work to reverse it. Even if you fail then at least you tried. Sitting on the sidelines and complaining doesn't help anyone, least of all yourself.

Thank you a whole lot for this. It actually taught me a good lesson too (some of you might know what I'm talking about).

*cough*

Ahem. Well here I am contributing to the derailment of the thread, continue ranting about what people want ^_^

[ChocolateChicken]

"How to solve it"

All you gotta to is be friendly to others, continue to support current musicians in the community even if they don't make pony music anymore, just as long as they aren't arrogant cunts. Especially make sure to support new and up and coming musicians, be friendly to them, show their music to people, have them come to MLR if they can, blah blah blah all that good stuff. EQD posts lots of music from less popular guys, and even if they didn't, go look for them yourself.

Be cool, be a friend, show your support, and make great music/art.

Remember that not everyone who listens to and keeps track of pony musicians are musicians themselves.

[Freewave]

layout updates and some finalization of the style.....

http://skintestalycs.tumblr.com/

i'm not 100% on the background (a little too homemade but good colors to use), but i like the logo ok.


likely need some additional categories added for the clickable tags

artists is too vague to be a good tag

Stuff I'd want to see added and with clickable categories in the left side.
Conventions,
Recommendations (asking a well known musician who their top recommendations inthe community are),
Staff Picks / Genre spotlight (what are we gonna call these).
EQD Review (Review their Spotlights once a week, review our fav motd tracks),
Playlists,
Flashback (older music re-spotlighted),
News (mostly reblogs),
Artwork,
Dj Mixes

We can expand the size of the mlr and bmd avatars so they can be twice the size and will fit 4 smaller ones long w/o interruption. We'll likely add staff which will make that necessary