ST23.4 Reviews - Edric Haleen

My Process:

A little different this time, as I knew my Friday-through-Sunday wasn’t going to be available for SpinTunes-related things.  I listened and jotted down initial impressions during the Listening Party.  Then on Wednesday, after the beginning-of-the-week busyness and before the onset of the end-of-the-week busyness, I went through just the four official Finalist songs.  Sorry to leave everyone who shadowed hanging, but thanks for participating . . . and I hope you had an awesome time!

Scoring Categories:

Met the Challenge  (Was the connection clear/strong/tenuous/creative?)

NOTE:  The first three definitions I looked up for “lullaby” read as follows:

•  a quiet, gentle song sung to send a child to sleep.

•  Lullabies are usually soft and soothing tunes; The word lullaby comes from the Middle English

lullen, "to lull or soothe," and bye, as in "bye bye."

•  a soothing refrain; specifically : a song to quiet children or lull them to sleep.

As judges, we talked about how to present the challenge prior to its release, and we had several versions of language to keep the challenge “on focus.”  In the end, though, we decided (and I’ll quote Micah here), “since the wording seems to be obfuscating rather than clarifying, [we’ll] omit it.  The challenge will simply be ‘Rest Your Weary Head: Write and record a lullaby.’  We'll let the voting contestants decide how to react to any cleverly subversive entries we may get.”

So, with full awareness of how many challenges I myself “letter-of-the-law”ed, I will be clear that I did look for entries that would help put a child to sleep . . . and if the message was nice but the music was harsh-or-overly-energizing, or if the music was tranquil but the message was distressing or anxiety-raising, that would count against full marks in this category.

Music  (Did it serve the song well? Was it interesting/appropriate/evocative/engaging? Did it enhance the story, co-exist with the story, or seem at odds with the story? Note – I imagined what a professional recording might sound like when I assigned actual scores for Music, so participants would not automatically be “penalized” if they didn’t have an abundance of resources at their disposal.  But I did add an extra 0.5 if an arrangement went “above-and-beyond,” and/or and extra 0.5 if I felt the music served to significantly enhance the story. A score of “2” should be considered my “expectation” for this category.)

Story  (Did it serve the song well? Was it interesting/appropriate/evocative/engaging? Note – I did not judge how strongly it met the challenge when I assigned actual scores for Story; that’s what “Met the Challenge” was for. A score of “2” should be considered my “expectation” for this category.)

Lyric  (Did the lyrics still on the melody line well? Did the words-chosen serve the lyric well? Once a metrical pattern was established, was it adhered to throughout the song, or were syllables squooshed-in or left-out across recurrences of similar sections of the lyric? A score of “2” should be considered my “expectation” for this category.)

Rhyme Scheme  (Once a rhyme scheme was established, was it adhered to throughout the song, or were rhymes squooshed-in or left-out across recurrences of similar sections of the lyric? Note – I did not penalize for near-rhymes or identities when I assigned actual scores for Rhyme Scheme, but I did award an extra 0.25 points to competitors who rhymed perfectly across an entire rhyme scheme. A score of “3” should be considered my “expectation” for this category.)

My scores/rankings can be viewed in this Google Sheet.