Clarification Question

I wasn't really sure where else to put this... it's not a suggestion so much as an inquiry but there didn't seem to be any really appropriate place for that.

Can someone explain how this early bird vs. lazy bum thing works? I read the FAQ but I wondered if it would be possible to get more details. Have the early bird auditions already been evaluated or will they be evaluated after the lazy bum deadline? How does the evaluation process work?

Thanks!

alrighty, hopefully i'm able to explain this clear-er here (pfft, this whole thing was lasagna's idea... XD;

So, ideally, everyone would audition by the early bird deadline, Cloudy and I would judge the auditions over the next week, and then announce the winners.

(but we are not well-known enough for this to happen... yet X'D)

So then, if we do not get enough auditions that we want to accept during the early bird phase, then we roll into the lazy bum phase. We will set the deadline (as of right now, it's for one week). Any longer, it becomes a first-come-first-serve basis. We will close as soon as we get enough acceptable auditions.

(^ the first come first serve thing still needs to be cleared up a bit... i should talk to lasagna >.>)

But here are some things i CAN say for sure:

- If we get enough auditions during the early bird phase, we will NOT hold lazy bum auditions.

- If there are two singers who we would both be willing to accept, only one spot open, and one of them auditioned as a lazy bum, we would choose the early bird one.

- Maybe an easier way of explaining the system would be: Early Bird Auditions - we decide who will be accepted and who
won't. From there, we know how many more slots are open, and will choose those people from the Lazy Bums. So if you sing the song well and audition during the Early Bird time, your chances of getting in are much much higher than if you are a Lazy Bum (even if you sing the song well, if there are no more spots open, you won't get in.)

Hopefully this made things clearer. We are still experimenting with the system and will update the FAQ once everything is solidified >w<;;

Here is my question:

What if you run into a case where there are two singers you are willing to accept, one is a lazy bum and one is an early bird, but the lazy bum is a singer the judges like better? In that case, do you pick the "better" singer or the singer who showed more enthusiasm/motivation/punctuality?

I feel like it is important for singers to understand this when they audition.

A suggestion I might make if you do want to emphasize the early bird deadline: make early bird decisions as soon as that deadline passes. This way there is no bias based on lazy bum auditions you have heard. Send out the results privately to early bird singers with something like an acceptance (they are in the chorus), waitlist (you want to see what lazy bum auditions you get), or reapplication (give them pointers about what you would like to see fixed and ask them to rerecord based on these suggestions if they are still interested). This way, early bird does have an actual advantage to it (even if you don't get accepted, you can get advice about what the judges would like to see from you for you to make it in; that way you get a second shot at it). It also shows singers that there is a meaning to early bird, rather than them wondering if you will later find someone to replace them (i.e. they are not getting "full consideration" that you guaranteed... I know I have been fretting about this for Rain Stops, Goodbye though maybe I am the only one).

It just seems to me the only way the system works; otherwise it doesn't seem worth it to have multiple deadlines. People will procrastinate; if someone really wants to do something but can't by the deadline they will take the initiative. ask for an extension.

Maybe this is how you are doing it and you just haven't released results for early birds. I just feel like if you don't release those results it would be easy to... compromise? To say "well... really this lazy bum is a lot better... no one will know if we take them instead..."

This is just my opinion obviously, and you don't have to listen to me... I just wanted to weigh in.

*A*

i like that idea.

a lot >w<

//orz

thank you for the suggestion~ i agree... it seems really easy for us to not abide by our system, though i wasn't sure how much people really cared ^^ But the messaging system seems really good, as well as the "reapplication."

We'll put this to use starting the next chorus :'D

I think mainly I just keep listening to all the auditions and they're all so good and I get paranoid about whether I should redo mine, but I don't always know exactly which parts I should change and which ones I might make worse by changing. So I think giving detailed feedback and a chance to submit a redo to early bird participants would be a really nice incentive, even if you do decide to wait till the end and make all decisions then.

Like I said though I just worry too much and have terrible self esteem so I am probably making too big a deal out of things OTL

I agree with ninkitsu! EMPHASIZE THE EARLY BIRD AUDITION.

I don't think everyone realized exactly how the deadlines worked. Like, I didn't know there was a possibility of lazy bum deadline not happening, otherwise I would've posted my audition earlier! D:

IMO - I think the auditioning system should be normal. Just set a date and extend it if necessary.

I agree with Ninkitsu, the EB & LB causes procrastination of sorts... but making it complicated by adding a bunch of rules to EB may just confuse people, especially the new folks. Once you explain the rules to your older members, new people will come along and be like "wait.... what??" and it'll just not be good.

From what I interpreted, it sounds like you guys are saying the EB audition and LB audition winners will be separate to prevent bias?
Well, if the early people that did the EB one don't get in, wouldn't it be a bit like "... Aw, damn. I should have spent more time and just turned it in during the Lazy Bum..."?
Personally, I would feel like that.

There's a reason that most choruses don't use an extensive system for auditioning It gets too complicated!
I say just stick to the normal stuff.

EDIT:

BUT WAIT. Just figured out Ninkitsu's post the second time through.
The giving advice doesn't seem like too bad of an idea, although you could just offer for auditioners to send you their auditions early (going along with the simple auditioning system) so you can critique.

Problem is SNC is going to start getting more and more auditions, and writing out nice, thoughtful constructive criticisms for members will just become a burden. It'll suck too if someone really isn't too good and you just don't have the heart to say everything (erm at least for me orz).

IMO, it's the auditioner's job to find what's wrong with their audition and adjust accordingly to what the chorus is looking for. That shows their own personal ability to achieve these things, which I find to be a lot better than them reaching it by taking the advice of the actual judges of the audition. I seriously think the leaders are simply there to organize, it's a whole lot of work if you're going to take care of every single auditioner you get.

Also, I think all auditions should be listened at once so you can properly compare the singing ability, mic quality, pronunciation, and yadda yadda of everything.

... I hope that made sense, lol.

I agree with Rimi that it may be simpler to just set one deadline... my earlier post was mainly directed at if we want to keep the EB/LB system, it seems like some tweaking may be necessary.

I'm not sure though that I agree with Rimi concerning it being the auditioner's job entirely to make sure they conform to what the chorus is looking for. I do think that the brunt of the responsibility lies on the auditioner, such as making sure pronunciation and pitch are correct, that they have a reasonable interpretation of the song (not sounding incredibly perky and happy on a very sad song for example), and that they are singing in a way that is appropriate for a chorus rather than a solo rendition, there are sometimes more subtle issues that an auditionee may not notice, but that are very important to the judges.

For example (ham I hope you don't mind my using this example):

After Blue Bird auditions, ham and I were talking about mic quality and I mentioned that we should really look into getting lasagna getting a new mic because I thought his audition picked up a lot of bg noise and had a weird quality to it. ham stated that while the typing in the bg was an issue, she prefers a "crisper" quality mic like his and said she actually disliked how my mic sounds muffled on certain high notes when I record. This is something I never would have noticed on my own; I have a semi-expensive relatively good quality mic that has gotten lots of good reviews and I had never thought of it as sounding bad.

Basically, in that case the judge had a preference for one type of mic sound and I had a preference for another. While this is probably not something that in most cases would make or break my audition, it is something that I will keep in mind in the future. Admittedly this is an example where I can't necessarily do much to remedy the situation; I do not have the money to invest in a different mic, especially just for this chorus since I am overall satisfied with my mic.

In general though, I feel like it is true that there are lots of ways to interpret a song, and since you can't read the judges' minds, you can't necessarily know what they are looking for. Like I said, my mic example is probably not a make or break thing but there certainly could be subtleties where that is the case. When that happens, getting feedback can be extremely helpful. Unfortunately I do feel that feedback like this will likely need to be more detailed (it is certainly much easier to say "you need to work on pronunciation" for example) and thus, as Rimi mentioned, potentially take a lot of time.

I guess the larger question then in my mind is: what sort of chorus is this going to be? This is aimed of course mainly at ham and Cloudy. Are you aiming to end up on the scale of something like YTChorus? What are your priorities as far as who gets to be in a given chorus (going back to the EB/LB deadlines and also to the issue of whether preference will be given to older "members"... I use the term members loosely since technically you two are the only official members)? Will you two automatically be included in every chorus? Is this a democracy or is leadership distinctly in charge? Will leadership expand (this may be necessary if SnC is to get very large)? If so will you end up with choruses where 8 spots are already taken by leadership members?

There is no wrong answer to these questions obviously, but the answers do have an impact on the conversation(s) we are having here. On a YTChorus scale, for example, it is almost definitely infeasible to have a feedback system. Also in that case any EB/LB discussion probably becomes irrelevant as in theory you should have enough people auditioning EB to just close it there with the one deadline. These may be issues that have not even been thought about, but if we're going to venture into the land of "if/when this happens" we should have a clear idea of what the goal of this chorus is.

And now because I feel like that was waaaaaay too serious here is a cute puppy video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glii-kazad8

I feel like a lurker since I've been following the posts here and not responding so here's a response. ;w;

I do feel like the EB/LB deadlines are a bit complicated but this is mainly because we are working out the tweaks in the system right now. Once we work everything out in stone, we'll be able to write up a post explaining how everything works in clearer and more condensed form.

In a way, I liked the EB/LB deadline. It made out chorus a bit more distinct from other choruses as far as audition systems go but the point of a chorus is not to be distinct in how we run, but distinct in the quality of choruses we put out.

At Ninkitsu's question towards hammy and I regarding the overall goal of the chorus, in the beginning we just wanted to be able to make some sort of successful chorus. Ham and I originally met because we were both part of a chorus on YT but weren't too satisfied with the system. It was way to complex (with mini groups and mini leaders and blah) and the leader never followed up on anything which eventually resulted in the chorus being closed without any notice to any of the members.
We didn't think that our chorus would be able to get any larger then maybe 10-15 auditions per song but this isn't the overall case anymore seeing as we are starting to get an increased amount of auditions per song, we may have to rethink our standards in a way.

Ham and I were discussing the concept on us "automatically being included in every chorus". If you really though about it, is there really a way to audition for us? If we are organizing each chorus and deciding other auditions, can we audition for our own chorus? I mean, I guess we could send each other auditions and then decide but there is still a definite strong bias between each other.
In my case, I only will take part in a chorus if I feel like my voice is up to standard with the rest of those who auditioned. For example, say we happened to start....a Meltdown chorus. (OTL)
I don't think I would partake in the chorus seeing as my vocal range is not suited for that song in any way whatsoever. I would most likely just animate for that song and "sit out" I guess I could say.

This also leads to the problem in animating/mixing. Ham and I can't always be animator and mixer. We may have to hold formal auditions for new animators/mixers once the chorus does grow to a larger scale.

On the preference between old members against new members, there shouldn't be too much of a problem between this. We would simply select whoever had the better audition. (This also ties in to the factor of if one was a EB auditionee and if one was a LB auditionee)

I don't want to say anything for certain until I discuss things with hammy but I just wanted to present my thoughts.
~

Oh geez. That was like....an hour of sitting there trying to answer all the concepts presented in the previous posts. ( I think I still left out a lot of things but....-w-)
-reverts back to lazy vocab-
Sooo~
That is one cute dog. <3
Auditioner and auditionee are not words.

Yeah I got tired of typing "someone who is auditioning" or something like that though... orz

I have said my bit and I will try to stop being all serious and stuff now. You guys are doing a wonderful job! I just worry overly much when I don't understand exactly how things work (this is very true in my school life/real life as well... not just in the context of choruses... I just worry too much overall). I seem to keep joining choruses without really knowing what I am getting into... maybe someday I will make my own and then I will truly appreciate the complicatedness you deal with.

Also I love corgis <3

Ahahah you guys are cute!

Do think about the fact that even if you are different, that may not necessarily be a good thing. It's a completely untested process (? IDK THE WORD FOR ITT), so it's taking a chance :3

Idk asking the judges just feels like cheating to me kind of xD;; OTLL||| Especially with a more formal chorus /o/
But eh, that's most likely just me.

You guys should definitely hold animator & mixer auditions soon xD It's going to get overwhelming with only the two of you!

(... lol is it okay that i have ZAK in my signature? i just copy and pasted it from my YTC one xD)

Ahaha , Corgi's are adorable~!
I lurves Beagles and Papillions~ 83
//shotdead for off topicness

Well, trying something new is a way to test it right? BD
Maybe we could use the new system for a short test period (after we work everything out) and if it works out fine, we keep it. If not, well then we go back to the standard method.

Ahaha, it's fine~! PSH, we're not going to kill you for talking about another chorus :'D
Heyy,...
ZAK and SNC should be like....affiliates.. :3

hamxham wrote:

(pfft, this whole thing was lasagna's idea... XD;

Scapegoat, reporting in.

When I first suggested this system, I obviously had no idea how well this would/would not work. I modeled it after many academic programs (grad school/med school/summer programs) that do "rolling admissions" beyond a certain point (i.e. there is a deadline, but submissions after the deadline may still be considered if there are spots open). This seemed much better than the previous system of
1. Have audition deadline
2. Extend audition deadline
3. Go to step 2.

I will note that I did not carefully think out how exactly the acceptance decisions would be made, but (again modeling it after these academic programs, which may or may not know what they're doing) I assumed it'd be something like
1. We have x spots in this chorus
2. If there are more than x good EBs, accept the x best EBs. DONE
3. otherwise, accept all the "good enough" EBs, go to LB mode, accept every "good enough" LB until spots are filled
Obviously this can be something to think about/flesh out down the line.

In my opinion, the system worked well for this round of auditions. There were a good number of auditions by the EB deadline (but not enough), and then auditions continued trickling in until we had enough. So, kind of like what happened before, except this time we did not have to compromise on any previously set deadlines (I feel like this is an especially important point for organizations). Of course, I cannot speak for any individual's experience auditioning or level of confusedness from the system, but from an organizational point of view (not that I speak for SNC orz) I would think that the system was an improvement over the previous one.

In conclusion, I feel that
a) this system has room for improvement/fleshing-out the details
b) is better than the previous system
c) may have been confusing for individuals but was simple and good for the organization

Discuss? (especially point (c)? I'd like to hear if cloudy/ham felt this system was easier/more difficult.)

On a slightly unrelated topic of giving feedback, I think it is always good to get feedback from judges, but of course it comes down to a feasibility issue; beyond some number of auditioners it will not be possible to listen to each audition in detail. Kind of sucks but, well, people need to learn how to audition with recordings (as opposed to live auditions). People who did all state honor band/orchestra know what I'm talking about /shot (if you messed up your scales at the beg. your audition is not considered at all). It might be nice to have (not necessarily detailed) feedback for all people though, even something like "your first line was off pitch on many notes, so the rest of the audition was not considered" just so people know why they didn't make it.

(Wow I am a mean comment/feedback giver)

pfft~ i didn't expect this topic to get so much elaboration *A*

lol yes scapegoating... but it was a lot better than what i originally had in mind XD

Now, I'm just going to put out my opinions. I haven't discussed this with Cloudy, so yeah... I feel like i'm going to sound super harsh, so do not blame Cloudy for any of this QwQ

From how I see it, Sora no Chorus was started so I could have somewhere to practice my mixing. Yup, it's blunt, but YTMilitary didn't exactly live up to my standards and (i really apologize at this, but) I was disappointed that ZAK wouldn't give me the position. So I wanted a new chorus.

And going along with that,

1.) If our voices do not kill the chorus, I think Cloudy and I have the right to partake in it. This is our chorus, and in a sense, it's because we want to make choruses, but simply do not have enough people. That's where the auditioners come in.

2.) I do not want to hold auditions for new animators / mixers. This is not a chorus "for the community". This is purely ours. I am partaking in this chorus because I like to mix. If I gave that job away, then I do not see a point in this chorus. We will work at our own pace; we will do as much as we can and no more (unless there's a deadline we HAVE to meet, i guess.) If this chorus goes too slowly for the community, there are other choruses out there for you to join.

Now, to address the issue with auditions...

I personally get really annoyed when a bunch of auditions show up at the very last minute. I feel like for that purpose, the EB/LB is doing a fairly good job of getting people motivated to auditions earlier, and thus, we got a more even distribution of the auditions. Chances are, with a strict deadline, there will be people wanting extensions, but this is essentially what the system is. EB is the deadline, LB is the extension. There will not necessarily be an extension; there will not necessarily be LB auditions.

I also do not see anything wrong with experimenting with new systems. We will learn from our mistakes and try to improve upon it each time. Again, I may sound too blunt here, but if people do not like our system, no one is forcing them to audition.

To answer Ninkitsu's question... I personally do not want this chorus to go anywhere near the magnitude of YTC. I am also not doing this for the community. I am doing this because I want to make quality (?) choruses, but I obviously can't do that by myself. If people do not think we are worth the time, they do not have to audition.

I apologize again for the bluntness of all that up there, and I hope this doesn't upset anyone >.> Obviously I do take into consideration other people's thoughts and concerns (try to be fair with judging, do a decent job with mixing as to not let you guys down...) but in the end, this chorus was created because I wanted to try my hand at (co)leading one. I also apologize that I am not the most competent leader out there, but I hope I will learn and improve as we grow as a group.

||OTL

ham I don't feel like you or Cloudy has to apologize for anything you decide to do with the chorus, namely because you are right that this is your chorus and what you do with it ultimately comes down to what you two want to do with it. I am, however, glad that you were willing to state what your goals are for the chorus as you have above because it seems just from reading this thread that a lot of people (including myself) may have not known exactly what that purpose was (for example, rimi and I seemed to have very contrasting ideas neither of which was necessarily what Cloudy or ham had in mind). While I can't speak for anyone else, having that set out makes me better able to understand why things work how they do and as a result makes me more comfortable with how they work. It is nice to know what you're getting into so to speak.

Also shiba inu are also pretty awesome. \\shot

Whuut. Ham, you mixed for ZAK o.o You never asked to be a mixer until I offered! xD

Errrrr affiliates? Ahahah not yet 8")! It would be cool though! We're sorting some stuff out right now.

I never said that anyone was wrong with the system, it worked alright this time around, but I'm just warning you that if you make it too complicated, it will not work out well. (durr lol OTL)
The addition to the EB stuff is what sounds complicated to me, especially because people were already confused enough this round.
It made sense to me, but I saw a number of people saying it confused them.

The auditioners thing would have to be my personal opinion, but it really depends on the number of auditions. In ZAK there were very few, so we gave paragraphs of advice for each person. But you guys are getting a lot, so I felt like it's the auditioner's job on this one. However, from what Ham is saying, it seems like SNC is a lot more casual than I thought, so I'll just stop here and let you guys decide /o/~

Or you can make a different thread where people ask for crits and the ones who are willing to give them respond to the messages? :/

This way, people get crits (I am usually engaged in writing these things >_> although I'm not too bright at singing myself) and the leaders won't see giving crits as an obligation or something xD
Dunno... xD

As for the deadlines, I personally find it better to have EB + LB deadlines... if not them people would just keep asking for extensions... trust me, one of my singing groups uses the same method when receiving the lines xD

Of course, it may seem a bit unfair for people who handed in their auditions earlier and got no time to redo them or so, while the lazy bums sound glorious but still xD

Hahah... I suck at the SAT. My score when I first took it was so bad I wiped it out of my memory forever. I'm scared of taking it next year :'(
I'm pretty sure that the Vocaloids would chuck the Kagamines' roadroller at me as soon as I opened my mouth <3 That wouldn't go so well pfft.

IDK These are just my opinions xD! A single deadline is good if you're strict about it and almost never give extensions. If you're more lax, EB/LB definitely works better.
Part of it is just my fingers twitching from thinking of typing and wording all that description of how the system works fffft *lazyass*

Anyways, Ham & Cloudy, I'm definitely not saying you're not running the chorus well, it's all mean-well suggestions that are worded in kind of a harsh way (lol sorry... I'm just straight-up about these things). You guys are doing a good job, this is all what I think, please don't take any of it personally.

Now to boot my ass off the comp so I can go to sleep on time for once...

(Made a new topic about the SAT stuff in the Randomness thread xD
Off topicness if not a good habit ya know :'D)
//has severe off topicness issues

ninkitsu wrote:

Also I love corgis <3

Here is another corgi.

lasagna wrote:

ninkitsu wrote:

Also I love corgis <3

Here is another corgi.

LMAO.
ALRIGHT, JUST IGNORE MY POST ABOUT OFF TOPICNESS

OHMAHGAWDTHEYARESOFREAKINGADORABLE