Songs forum question: Level of discussion

Hello All-
 
I am fairly new to the Songs forum, and have fairly quickly realized that - if not specifically requested - it is difficult to know what path a discussion regarding a song posted here should take.
 
It is easy if the post requests such or has the subject "My new song: Is the bass too loud?" or "Song X please critique". But many posts have no indication as to what the poster expects. I guess my question is, what is the default level of discussion? Is anything posted here fair game for civil, well thought-out observations, some of which might be construed as critical? Or is that not really welcome unless solicited?  
 
I have taken a look at the "Code of Conduct" and "Community Handbook" sticky threads, and in the "Code" we see an example critique given regarding EQ, but nothing really too specific regarding this dichotomy. 
 
Comments welcome! :)
 
Thanks-

Yes, just say what occurs to you while listening. Some will bridle at honest opinions, most will appreciate them. For me, the thing I don't want to read on my tunes is 'great job', 'nice!' or 'thanks for sharing' because that tells me nothing. The more insightful and considered the response, the more I learn from it.

Sometimes the most constructive response IS "sounds nice!", because sometimes all people want to know is that they don't completely suck, and just getting a thumbs up is enough to keep them going. In fact, I would go so far as to say that that's more common than any of us want to admit. I know I have often thought "Wow, this thing I'm working on is awesome. I want other people to think it's awesome too."
 
rbecker, I applaud you to attempt to incorporate this kind of etiquette into the forum. It would be terrific! Maybe when someone posts something with no indication as to what kind of response they're looking for, someone else can respond with "Let us know what kind of response you're looking for" so they can let us know what kind of response they're looking for. Then we can provide the kind of response they're looking for.

jkoseattle
...Maybe when someone posts something with no indication as to what kind of response they're looking for, someone else can respond with "Let us know what kind of response you're looking for" so they can let us know what kind of response they're looking for. Then we can provide the kind of response they're looking for.

I actually did that once - Ask if a critique was desired - but never got a reply from the poster. I worry a bit about being offensive, but am more concerned that a poster is looking for honest feedback, and gets nothing substantial because everyone is worried about offending. A balancing act.
 
BAPU - Your tunes are certainly beyond criticism.  As you say: "Ggggrrraaaaaaaaaate" 

If someone doesn't specifically ask for feedback, I'm not going to give any. Here are the typical ways that can go:
 
A: Here is my song
B: I don't like X about it
A: Well, I didn't ask what anyone thought
 
- or -
 
A; Here is my song
B: Love it!
A: Thanks!
 
What's not represented is:
 
A; Here is my song
B: Love it!
A: Well, I didn't ask what anyone thought
 
So by this law of nature, if someone posts a song and does not specifically ask for feedback, the only "polite" response is "love it!". Although this might not be the honest response. If I'm really honest, I don't "love" much music I hear at all, here or anywhere else. I "like" a lot of it, but the enthusiasm hoped for from a poster is rarely my most honest response. And I'm certainly not going to reply to a post with something such as "I like, but don't love, this song". Maybe what I should start doing is saying "I listened to your song. Thank you for posting it." :-)
 
If I ask myself honestly, the more I like a song, the more I have to say about it, because I'm --engaged--. I hang out in forums like this because I find it endlessly exciting to hear music that is maybe unfinished or a step on a longer journey. These aren't products, they are living art. If I want to hear the greatest music in the world, I have my iPod. 
 

daryl1968
Polite honesty.

And don't use words like dichotomy ;)

Sorry dayrl1968- I read a lot. And "don't use" is so absolute. Maybe "refrain from using". :) I like your tunes, by the way...and by that I really mean it!
 
jkoseattle: I think you are right. If the poster forgets to ask for feedback, he or she can always fix that themselves after a few "Great Song" responses. 

https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8&q=dichitomy&oq=dichitomy&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.3350j0j7
 
Problem solved.

daryl1968
The way I see it, if you place anything in the public domain you put yourself at the mercy of the critic.

Maybe...but I've been on some nasty forums where "flame" was the name of the game. It gets old very fast. I like a nice, civil forum, where everybody gets along and (now I learn) do not use words such as anachronistic or dichotomy. :)

true true - I think the keywords are polite and helpful. 

Voda, you're the exception, I think. People have varying degrees of confidence in the big collection of skills necessary to make music someone else wants to listen to. For me, I have oodles of composition and lyric confidence, so that if someone says "This is bad writing" I won't be offended at all, because I'll think "Well, I know what I wanted". But for many years that was not the case. I didn't know if my writing was good. I kind of thought it was, but I needed validation to solidify that opinion. 
 
On the other end, I have very little production confidence, so if someone says "Your mix sucks" I won't be offended either, and my reaction will be "Oh it does? Yikes, tell me what I did wrong, please!" 
 
In the middle would be my vocals. I know I'm not that good, and so I write for and within my abilities, do a gazillion takes, and chock the rest up to "idiosyncratic". But if someone disses my vocals, it's hard because my thought then is "****, I know, but that's the best I can do".
 
It is a great place. Forums like this are the best part about making music. Most of us aren't going to make much money at it. This is the best it gets, but that's pretty damn great!

jkoseattle
If someone doesn't specifically ask for feedback, I'm not going to give any. Here are the typical ways that can go:
 
A: Here is my song
B: I don't like X about it
A: Well, I didn't ask what anyone thought
 
- or -
 
A; Here is my song
B: Love it!
A: Thanks!
 
What's not represented is:
 
A; Here is my song
B: Love it!
A: Well, I didn't ask what anyone thought
 

A; Here is my song
B: I haven't heard it
A: Why
B: Well, you didn't ask to listen to it
 
 
 

Guitarhacker
That's a tricky one.... because not everyone wants the truth. However, I do try to error on the side of caution with regards to my comments.  I don't want to tell someone it's good when it's not but I also want to let them know what they could do to improve the song, the recording, whatever.
 

Best option for one to post a song and to get honest critic and constructive advice to improve without facing public criticism (which some people cannot digest) is to write a small note : "Please PM" .
 
Though some of users wont take effort to PM, but there are many users in this forum who want to help others to improve they will certainly do. After a long dilemma once I posted a song on soundcloud and after that I got some comments and PM too without asking.
 
Regards
Snehankur

My personal take and philosophy on posting songs.
 
I don't care what anyone says about the song. Of course the song is "my baby" and no one likes to be told that they have an "ugly baby"...   however, I've been doing this long enough that I have heard just about every kind of comment and not only from other folks like me and you on these forums but also from the professional songwriters in Nashville and other music meccas.... the guys and gals with the #1 hits playing on the radio. They can be brutal on aspiring writers. You either take it personally and get upset and quit or you listen to the good advice, and let the rest roll off your back like water from a duck's back and keep going.
 
To me, all criticism, whether good, bad or indifferent is useful for learning something new. If a person says they hate the song and it sucks, I'm curious to find out their reasoning. It may be that they love death metal or  EDM and it's country that I write or it could be a totally valid reason such as they are also country writers and they see  bad structure and lyric writing that could be done better.
 
I try to never take any negative crits personally. I'm getting better at that these days. It's a song.... nothing in that song is sacred.  And I do not mind changing lines, or entire parts around to make the song better.

One song I sent to some Nashville writers for a review came back with some serious crits suggesting a complete re-write of some of the verses.  I conversed with my co-writer...  saying...  "You won't believe what those idiots in Nashville said about our song, they said we should rewrite the second and drop 2 entire verses out of the song"... but after a good hard look at the second verse.... yup, those folks in N-town were spot on correct.  So we threw out 2 verses, and set about writing a better second verse...... that's how you learn to be a better writer and musician. If we had not listened, and that could have been easy to do, we'd never have finished a much better version of the song.  That song.... started out almost 5 minutes long.... 4 verses, a chorus, a bridge, and a guitar solo. Here's how it ended up: http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=12024980
 

Guitarhacker
 
If a person says they hate the song and it sucks, I'm curious to find out their reasoning.
 

 
I agree with all that you said Herb, just wanted to say though, that I've rarely, if ever seen anyone here say they hate anything, or that anything sucks (unless our old friend Pete drops by )
 
The opposite seems to be the case, there are a lot of people saying they 'love' just about everything they comment on, and I have a hard time accepting that as being genuine. Encouraging for people's fragile egos  perhaps, but it takes a lot for me to actually 'love' a song, I'm sure that goes for most people.
 
Personally I'd much rather hear 'this isn't really my cup of tea but I did like 'X' about it' for example.
 
Of course, this particular forum tends to focus quite naturally on the mix side of things rather than the songwriting aspect. I've joined a couple of songwriting forums lately and it's a whole different ballgame.
 
It would be interesting to know how many songs people have listened to here over the years, and still listen to now, for pleasure. I have a few, but not that many after 10 years of listening.
 
Anyway...just thinking out loud really.

emeraldsoul
 
...Lastly, and most importantly - I knew a guy who had a dichotomy . . .  it took him weeks to heal.
  
cheers,
-Tom

Penicillin really helps. :)