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Hi Active Melody Community!
So here’s how it’s going to work this month:
1) Download this MP3 jam track, created specifically for this challenge (this isn’t from a lesson) – if the MP3 file just automatically plays when you click the link, you’ll need to either RIGHT click on the link itself if you’re on a Windows computer and then choose the “Save As..” option. If you’re on a Mac, hold down the “Control” key and click on the link.
2) Play something along with the jam track – lead makes the most sense, but if you aren’t comfortable, you can always try and figure out the chords and strum those!
3) I’m not telling you what key it’s in or what the chords are – feel free to discuss that on the forum if need be, but try and figure it out by ear! It’s a great exercise and something you must eventually learn to do.
**If you need assistance with how to record yourself and post to the forum see this post**
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GROUND RULES FOR PARTICIPATION:
1. Post your Youtube, Vimeo, or Soundcloud links of you playing your chosen lesson anytime between Friday, November 27, through Sunday, November 29, 10:00 pm CST. Please do not submit earlier. I think it is fun to see everyone’s posts at once.
2. Submit individually in the “Active Melody Member Challenge Response Submissions” forum. Title your posts “November 2020 Challenge Response – [Your AM Screen Name]”
3. Only post a single submission / entry as we have so many participating now that it’s too cumbersome to view and comment on multiple submissions for the challenge. Pick your best / favorite one and commit!
4. Have fun and don’t be intimidated by these challenges!!! Use these challenges to help you set goals and complete them by a deadline. You can also use this as an opportunity to chat with your fellow Active Melody members and share tips or tricks on this challenge that you think are useful.
5. In my opinion, it is better to show progress versus perfection with these challenges. So if you are a beginner and can only play the first couple of measures. That is completely ok. If you play two more measures of the next challenge piece than you did the previous one, you are on track to getting better. This is what these challenges are about…you learning guitar and getting better. Remember we are all here to support you no matter what your current playing level is.
PREMIUM MEMBERS: DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE ACTIVE MELODY T-SHIRT CHALLENGE:
Premium members can earn a free AM T-Shirt as indicated here:
https://www.activemelody.com/forums/topic/active-melody-t-shirt-challenge2/I look forward to seeing everyone’s posts! 🙂
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Hmm… that’s a tasty track, Brian!
The challenge participation is steadily reaching new heights and I’m sure there will be a lot of good suggestions from members about a possible new format, we gotta give it some thought…
And thank you for changing the wording in the Ground Rules of Participation to limit the submissions to one post per member – it makes perfect sense 🙂
3. Only post a single submission / entry as we have so many participating now that it’s too cumbersome to view and comment on multiple submissions for the challenge. Pick your best / favorite one and commit!
🎸JoLa
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Hi Brian,
Jam track sounds fantastic, really looking forward to getting into it. Re: Suggestions. Sunjamr Steve started a post The Big Question which is worth a look. A suggestion that came up was limiting each video to 1.30 mins. I know it took me all weekend to watch every video and I watch each one from start to finish. With around 90 videos it takes a lot of time if you want to give positive and or constructive feedback. Anyway, just an idea. Thanks for everything you do. All the best.
PS If I’ve submitted 6 Challenge videos in a row but only started membership in April do I qualify for a T-Shirt? -
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Great backing track providing much food for thought. I’m with Garry on the time limitation and with you on committing to a single submission. I listen to every submission and try to make positive comments and it takes a lot of time. Not complaining, I actually enjoy the activity and I get a lot of ideas from other people’s playing. I suppose it’s the result of your increasing popularity as word gets round about the value of your lessons. Keep up the good work Maestro!
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Have to say that i got myself lost trying to keep up with all the submissions this month,
who had i replied to or who have i missed out,
so was thinking is there anyway once a post has been replied to why cant it grey out the header or a tick in the corner just to seperate the post from those ive still to reply to..
Near 100 challenge responses this month and i would be glad of a thumbs up smilie/icon as its difficult to come up with something new to say on the standard of playing...Billy..
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Please please no comments in the future with thumbs up! We are not at Facebook or Twitter here. That’s so superficial.
I think we AM guitar players/learners should force ourselves to really listen to members subs and give feedback in words.. so much more value. If we don’t like someone’s submission we don’t have to comment, or listen to all. And if we want to give someone a more critical feedback or advise, there’s still the private mail possibility. I sometimes ask my friends for detailed (hard) feedback in private, which I really appreciate!
DeniseMore Blues!
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Please please no comments in the future with thumbs up! We are not at Facebook or Twitter here. That’s so superficial.
I think we AM guitar players/learners should force ourselves to really listen to members subs and give feedback in words.. so much more value. If we don’t like someone’s submission we don’t have to comment, or listen to all. And if we want to give someone a more critical feedback or advise, there’s still the private mail possibility. I sometimes ask my friends for detailed (hard) feedback in private, which I really appreciate!
DeniseDon’t be down on facebook Denise, Brian probably has a bigger following on there than he does on forum..
..Billy..
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Hey Brian,
Impose time limit on submissions… I know I have submitted 5 minute challenges.
Yes, create a cookie cutter viewer/response format that eliminates the toggling back and forth from Forum to Challenge Response Submissions back to Forum then Challenge Response area every time you want to view another member submission (that takes a lot of time). In other words, create a one page format that the viewer doesn’t have to leave every time he or she clicks “reply”.
Create new response choices… thumbs up, smiley face with option of abbreviated comments.
Limit number of entry responses.
Make you kids help!More ideas coming later.
John
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Geez, lots of chord changes going on there( some of them I don’t know the names of).. so far my old ear is giving me C E7 F Dm7 C A7 _ C#M7(?) C
..Billy..
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Hey I don’t think Denise is downing Facebook. All she is saying is she would prefer written feedback from Brian and others because she is really trying to improve and quite frankly my Swissta Yinza Sissta is rockin’ it quite nicely with Chetty n’@t. We all at different times in our guitar journey need more than a thumbs up! Positive words can build confidence and that bit of confidence could be the difference between rockin’ in the free world all night and day or not!!
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I think I’m getting close, but throw your two cents in if you hear it differently. Don’t look if you want to work it out yourself. Not sure how you get this progression even with secondary dominants and 2-5-1 turnarounds, though.
C E7 F Dm7b5 (5th string root, to get the Bb9 sound)
C-Am Dm-Ddim C-FFm C-G7 (I’m playing the Dm to Ddim with a 5th string root to get the walkdown to the C)second time around the G7 is replaced with an Fm7b5 slide into Em7b5 ( 5th string root for the C9 blues ending sound).
(Sorry the formatting gets screwed up on submitting, chords around the hyphen get 2 beats, the FFmin, 1 beat each)
John
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Hi John, I had a bash at this blind and comparing mine to yours now, it’s matching almost exactly with what you have. Even the Dm7b5! My ears must be improving! But its tricky with the piano over the top. After the Am though, I’m hearing a D7 and C#Maj7 rather than the Dm and Ddim.
Then right at the end I had an Fm back to C as the replacement for the G7.
I’ll try what you had tomorrow though.
It’s a lovely progression whatever it turns out to be.
Cheers
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Hi Andy,
Something didn’t quite sit right with me, so I listened to the arpeggiated notes of the first walkdown. You were right about the C# or Db.
The first arpeggio seems to be Dm7, starting from the 5th fret, A string; D, F#, C, D
The second arpeggio is C#, G, D, F which by Guitar Chord Analyzer is Db(b9,#11), an altered chord, (Brian is getting very jazzy on us).
The third arpeggio is just a cowboy chord C up and down from the root.
So that little clever device has walkdowns and walkups within it.
I don’t have any doubt about the last two chords, you can hear the 9th quality to them with the Eb to D walkdown notes within them and, like I said, that’s a typical blues ending.
So many chord tones to choose from!
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Hi John/Garry
My ears are beginning to bleed! Listened to those arpeggios again and hear what you do for the first. But I think that F# makes it a D7 rather than a Dm7.
The second I’m not so sure, I’m still hearing a C#, G# C and F but the piano top line is descending through G# G F to C. I couldn’t make out the D except as a step down into C#. Anyway as you say there’s plenty of tones!
(Incidentally a Am Dm7 C#maj7 C turnaround is very tasty even if that’s not what this is, going to put that in the back pocket).
Completely agree on the final two chords now I’ve listened again. Unmistakable in hindsight! Ironically I’d been working on these “T-Bones” recently pity I still can’t recognise them!
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Hi John,
I mostly agree with your chords but I got:
C E F Fm
C Am Dm F
C F Dbdim C G7Agree with the outro chords.
Try playing the baseline and you can hear the E in the second chord. Playing Fm eliminates the D in the Dm7b5 which I don’t hear. Also, I believe that it is a common move to play a Maj 4th to a Min 4th.
I am not sure about the Dm in the second line but a 1 6 2 is also a common progression usually ending in a 5, but perhaps a Maj 4th will do?Just my 2 cents (which of course we don’t have in Canada anymore).
Richard
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Okay, so it takes a village! I think Richard and Andy make some great points. Here’s my latest.
C E7 (Richard, you can definitely hear the flat 7 quality in the 2nd half of the bar)
F Fm (Richard I agree with you)
Listening to the arpeggios, I get
C, E, G, C so C major
A, E, G, GE diad on the B & E strings, so actually an Am7
D, F#, C, D so D7 like Andy has always said
C#, G, D, F so the jazzy altered chord, Db(b9,#11)
into the C, F , Fm walkdown, actually think the last chord is a G (rather than G7)
What do you think? (and Richard I seem to still have unusable pennies in my coinbox)John
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Geez, lots of chord changes going on there( some of them I don’t know the names of).. so far my old ear is giving me C E7 F Dm7 C A7 _ C#M7(?) C
Er…. cough.
..Billy..
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Hey I don’t think Denise is downing Facebook. All she is saying is she would prefer written feedback from Brian and others because she is really trying to improve and quite frankly my Swissta Yinza Sissta is rockin’ it quite nicely with Chetty n’@t. We all at different times in our guitar journey need more than a thumbs up! Positive words can build confidence and that bit of confidence could be the difference between rockin’ in the free world all night and day or not!!
I never said she was..
..Billy..
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Good challenging track to work with this month. I’m hearing a couple of chords that are “ambiguous”, kind of like m7b5 type of thing, especially with with piano note movement behind it. When I heard the first one, I made a mental note “the Layla outro chord”; that’s where it brought me. Kind of a mash-up in this track, since it starts with an old r&b walk up and feel, straight out of a song I can’t remember the title of (something like “I don’t wan’t you, but I need you).
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Oh, I should also mention – you can still solo even without knowing what the chords are… just let those pentatonics guide you 🙂
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Nice track! Of course what first came into my mind was Am pentatonic but I’ll try to add something a bit more sophisticated 😀
Yes, with so many challenge submissions it takes a good time to hear them all. I’d be happy with both:
– limiting the length to 1:30 or 2 minutes long
– having “thumbs up” or “heart” or something else for a way to provide quick feedback. You can always leave a more in-depth comment with constructive feedback. Maybe something like letting each participant vote for his/her 3 favorite challenges each month instead of just thumbing up each submission? You only get 3 votes per month.-
Hi Jaime,
I agree with the first two. Even a thumbs up might encourage members to indicate they listened to your efforts where they might not normally be inclined to comment. I’m not sure about voting for three favourite challenges as that might risk turning what should be a supportive process into a bit of a contest.
John-
Could take a whole different approach and Brian could post the challenge on the first day of the month and then we submit our response on any Sunday of that month. It may even be a better way to learn from each other. If we hear something we like we could work on it and incorporate it into our own. And it wouldn’t be necessary to limit people’s CREATIVITY. Brian’s a pretty busy guy it might even give him time to provide more useful feed back.
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John echoes my sentiments … speaking personally, anything that even suggests a competition if off-putting. I think ‘chasing likes’ – a social media phenomenon – is at odds with the supportive nature of this forum and the challenge. I suspect I’m too sensitive – but even when feedback occasionally is left for others of a nature such as ‘… I know this isn’t a competition but this one wins for me …’ I can find this off-putting.
The existing formula seems to work well. It’s unique and special.
Gary
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Hey All Yinz! I listen to each and every Sub each month. Yes, it takes some time. Going “THUMBS UP” is not my first choice. Or second or third. I feel that if everyone pours their hearts into a sub that each one deserves a listen and an honest comment. Yes, it takes me several hours to listen and write. Love it! If yinz submit, I will listen! Ut
Bob U. (aka Bobby Ut)
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Hi Brian,
What I miss in the forum is that it’s hard to tell a comment on a reply from the reply itself. Yes, it’s indented, but still it looks like a reply. I think it would be much better if the comments would be facebook style (smaller, closer to the post, etc..), and easy to reach from each reply.
For example, I would like to say thank you or comment to each one who replies to my challenge submission, but since the comments are big and look like replies, I avoid doing so in order to prevent the replies from being cluttered by my comments.
Also, together with this there’s notifications. Currently if I want to see if someone replied to my comment, I need to registers to replies on the entire post, and this causes to many emails. It would be nice if, facebook-wise, there would be a notification only when commenting on my reply, or upon tagging. Along with a notification symbol on the page, from which it’s possible to easily jump to the comments.
Anyway, this forum is really great, and it’s fun to be a part of it!
Israel
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I am intrigued by the chord progression, but I just jammed over by solely using the A-minor pentatonic. I would say it works very well, so that’s my starting point. A call and response structure is also an option. Now it’s up to me to devise something interesting.
On another note, this backing track is only 1:10 minutes long. I think that’s a hint at the soon-to-be-more-than-100 challenge submitters to keep their compositions within a reasonable time frame. I second that, because it may also allow less advanced players or may be those with less time at their hands to join in. But – and that is a big but – I would hate to see some of our super creative powers vanish because of a time limit. I love the rig rundowns (more please!) and those submissions that did somthing completely unexpected with it (Sunjamr comes to mind). I can only speak for myself, but those are the ones where I think I learn the most. And also, I wouldn’t object anybody doubling or tripling Brian’s track if that’s what’s needed.
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In bar 5 of the chord sequence the chord following the C doesn’t sound like a m7 to my ears, so an A or A7, but I could easily be mistaken!
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I think you’re right, Brian, it could be an A7. I amended the arpeggio as follows.
C E7 F Fm
Listening to the arpeggios, I get
C, E, G, C so C major
A, E, G, C#G diad on the G and B strings, so actually an A7
D, F#, C, D so D7
C#, G, D, F so the jazzy altered chord, Db(b9,#11)
into the C, F , Fm walkdown, G (G is substituted by Fm7b5 Em7b5 in the second course)Close as I can make it.
John -
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Lets try and tweak this rather than overhaul it. Voting will breed competition and resentment. Like I said before, we need to make the process of watching and commenting on another’s submission simpler, smoother and seamless. Also, thank you for the communal effort on the chord sequence.
John H-
Lets try and tweak this rather than overhaul it. Voting will breed competition and resentment.
You’re right! Voting and scoring is simpler but it also makes it competitive and that’s completely out of the spirit of this community!
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I’m going with
C E F Bb7
C A D Db C F C C#9 C9
Playing the chord changes feels most natural to me. 1 chorus around 8th position C and the next around 13.
C major pentatonic at times.
Short n sweet so might do several and pick the best one like Maestro suggests. Maybe the others will be … one just pentatonic scale, one arpeggios, one harmonized 3rds and 6ths, one just get my freak on 😀
Looking forward to your creations too.
Be kind to yourself (especially when you're trying to play this instrument!)
Brian Clough“Got a lotta sinful ideas but they seem kinda sensible” Jim Casy the ex-preacher in The Grapes Of Wrath
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You got them all correct except for Bb7 and the Db – you were close….. it’s actually a Bb9 and a DbMaj7 – the cool thing is that within both of those chords is an F minor triad… .so you can just play an F minor triad or arpeggio in those spots and it’ll sound great!
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Had a go at this last night.
Figured out the C / E7 / F, and then I’m hearing something close to Fm.
Nevertheless, I quit there, and just used the C major pentatonic. Same position as A minor pentatonic, but needs to resolve to the C note, rather than A. You can use passing notes to add flavour and whatever sounds good, works. -
Again… some feel that the thumbs up might be too impersonal. I get that. Others think opened ended paragraphs take up too much time and space. Understood. Having a separate space where members can view and comment without having to toggle about would be helpful. Setting a time limit, offering viewers a menu of customary yet standard affirmations with an opportunity to say something short and positive would be a step in the right direction. I don’t know maybe I am reinventing the wheel here.
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Again… some feel that the thumbs up might be too impersonal. I get that. Others think opened ended paragraphs take up too much time and space. Understood. Having a separate space where members can view and comment without having to toggle about would be helpful. Setting a time limit, offering viewers a menu of customary yet standard affirmations with an opportunity to say something short and positive would be a step in the right direction. I don’t know maybe I am reinventing the wheel here.
Hi John , I don’t think your trying to reinvent the wheel , like you say just needs tweaking a bit , the toggling back and for takes time so maybe a menu would work with different options including a skip function if you didn’t want to leave feedback and a next function which would take you to the next submission on the page and so on , just a few thoughts.
Martin
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My ear doesn’t pick out the chords so well but from just playing around a bit I find if I bop a minor pentatonic and c major scale that I get some nice sounds. Does that work and if so why and is there anything else I can do?
MUSIC WILL SAVE THE WORLD
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Hi Robi. You can’t go far wrong with what you mentioned: A minor pentatonic and C Major Scale. You can play some of the chord changes as well. Just check out Charjo, Cloughie and others above who have put in a bit of time to work out chord progression. All the best with your Challenge.
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… thumbs down for thumbs up …
best line of the day
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I would definitely be against the thumbs up thing.
Like someone has said a lot of sweat goes into the submissions and deserve written comment.
It does take a long time to watch all the submissions so I think that if there was a time limit on the challenges then it would encourage people to watch more submissions and in turn leave their feedback.
“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. “
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Hi All,
I know I have already posted a couple of times on this stream but just wanted to add more. Written encouragement and positive feedback is so important I’d say to most players. It’s obviously up to the individual to watch either none, some or all videos but there should not be any pressure to watch and respond if members don’t have the time. We need to remember also that the last Challenge was more of an open challenge and therefore more players submitted. It may not be the same number of submissions this month. I know I originally thought that placing a time limit would be a good idea but after some more thought I think that limits creativity. It would be difficult to play a piece and either improvise and approach it a certain way if we were limited to eg. 1 minute. We all have the choice of watching the first minute or so and then making a comment (even though the video may go for longer). Also I’m with the majority from above with no thumbs up. The challenges are a great way to celebrate progress and creativity each month, lets continue to support each other with the written feedback. Anyway I’ll stop rambling. All the best!
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Hello Brian, Hello all,
here are my thought about improving the challenge area in the web application.
I think with a growing community it is hard to keep the overview about the challenge responses I have seen an commented.
Therefor I suggest some separate lists / filters / sorting of the challenge resposnes:list unseen posts:
As a consumer/visitor of the participants I would like to filter the list of posts: which posts are new/unseen by me.
list challenges by user:
As a consumer/visitor I would like to see all submissions of an individual submitter.
Because it would be ne to see how certain people create their music on different challenges how they get better.Ideally, this should be one page with all the challenge posts, featuring the video/mp3 (so you can play it directly in this page). Clicking the post leads to a view with all comments.
list all my submissions:
That would be the same as „list challenges by user“, but showing my own challenges 🙂
sort by date / #comments:
It would be great if the sorting of challenge posts could be switched from date to # of comments.
fav/save:
instead of a like/thumb up I would recommend a favorite-marker. Because I would like to save the resposnes which really impressed me – they sould sow up in a separate list (favorites).
In my opinion, the favorites should not be shared – they should be private. No one should know the favorites I gave.
Hope you find my thoughts useful.
acoustic /electric guitar player from Berlin.
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However the piece is in C so the dominant is G7 or Db7 (C # 7) called subV7 or substitute for the tritone. The other major chords such as E | A | D are perceived as secondary or extended dominants. Bb9 is a dominant without dominant function and together with Dbmaj7 they form a modal interchange
Carlo Laezza
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I like a lot of the ideas regarding to the submission forum.
My suggestions:
Every user submits their rendition on a special page/location within their account.
This submission shows up on a page within their account with a collection of all the submissions. Next or under the video/soundfile of each submission is a box in which we can make comments. With a send button we can send this comment. Also there’s an opportunity to select a submission as one of favorites. This way everything can be done on one page from the point of view of us as a member.All our renditions also shows up on a forum like page. On this page all the comments we sended are collected and also there we can add comments and replies. This way we can chose to see what comments other members and/or visitors gave and to further communicate with each other.
I think the time limitation is a good idea. I think limitations can motivate us to be MORE creative. If a member wants to show more of his creative ideas he/she can also share this via the Showcase your playing page. He/she can anounce that with his/her submission of the challenge.
I realy like the positive and unique way the monthly challenges works. Maybe these are ideas that can help to find a way te keep that up in the future.
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In addition to the above you can also provide members a short amount of randomized submissions to comment to as well with the ability to choose others if you want like your friends and favorites. In that way every month you will have another list without putting people into boxes, but with not too many submissions te review. Than it doesn’t matter if the number of participants will grow much further.
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For those interested in the guitar chords on which I based my submission, I attach my working document.
Have a nice day
Luc
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Sorry Brian, I don’t want to create controversy, but I think your jam track is too complex with too many chords and many members will be discouraged from participating. How about a second more simple one with two or three chords for people who are not at that level? I think the challenges should be all inclusive and no one should have to sit them out because they are pitched too high.
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