The whole point of the exercise is that vocalese and scat are the *opposite* of each other in most respects (vocalese adds words where there usually weren't any, scat removes words that often were there).
Interesting insight, added the guidelines.
As for the usefulness:
- "vocalese" may be of interest inasmuch as vocal Jazz usually maintains the traditional distinction between composer and performer, and vocalese is the rare case where performers dabble in composition or at least lyric writing. Not "useful" information, as such, but "interesting", the same way that "#3 hit in 1776" is.
- "scat" is of practical use to me and other vocalists. When we read through lists of performances and see somebody known exclusively as a vocalist (say, Ella Fitzgerald) listed for an "instrumental" performance of a song, there is always the question of whether the performance was misclassified, whether actual lyrics existed that were performed, or whether it was a scat performance. It's also a particular technique that requires lots of practice to perform tastefully, so being able to search for such performances is valuable as well.
Thanks for sharing these concrete examples microtherion , very useful.
VOCALESE: Why isn't this just an adaption? A lyricist adds lyrics to a root instrumental work. I have no objections to an SHS term of art for these, but reads to me as a specific type of adaption.Vocalese works are adaptations, indeed.
Then what is the purpose of and value added from a "vocalese" tag?
Why is is a vocalese work any more notable than when an artist writes completely new and independent lyrics from the "root" lyrics? Are these "vocalese" as well?
A properly setup vocalese work will already be visualized as a derivative work of an instrumental root work. So the only situation I can imagine where such a tag would have any practical effect would be someone digging deep into the "detailed search" function and searching by tag. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I will safely assume that most SHS users spend most of their time on lists of performances under artists and under works, with some time under releases. Which tags down the right column are the most informative to most users and which are marginal noise?
I may file an error report reading (e.g.) "This is an instrumental with some vocal stuff going on. Looks like it's missing the applicable tag,"
If you don't understand the tag, don't file an error report about it.
SCAT: (...) Your example reads to me as vocalise.No, because Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub Yo da dub dub is not one or more vowel sounds.
I'm afraid that both your ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub Yo da dub dub and lalalala lalalalala ooooo oooo lalalala are driven by vowel sounds and contain consonants. Having to even try making such fine distinctions proves the problem's existence rather than explaining things.
VOCALISE: A term of art for "vocal effects" or are these different things?I don't think so, though I'm not sure what you're referring to.
I have likely used "vocal effects" to encompass all vocals except lyrics and improv with real words. Given our new terms of art, vocal effects may now be limited to things like humming and whistling.
As a thought experiment, consider a hypothetical cover of "Hooked On A Feeling" with just "ooga chaka"s. How would such a performance be described/tagged using our current terms?
I may file an error report reading (e.g.) "This is an instrumental with some vocal stuff going on. Looks like it's missing the applicable tag,"If you don't understand the tag, don't file an error report about it.
Again you miss the point, chalking up to language barriers. I'm not filing a report on an existing tag; I would be filing a report indicating that I know 1 of x applicable tags is missing, deferring to the editors to determine which one.
Spending this much time and effort on these concepts evidences their importance to somebody, surely enough to make report-worthy.
Bastien I fail to see what guideline I broke.
I still stick to my opinion.
And I RESPECTFULLY will no longer be adding any more songs that fall into this category. I think my actions here falls into the line "Accept that nobody is perfect and everyone has a limited amount of time available."
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EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH - Haters Gonna Hate
And I RESPECTFULLY will no longer be adding any more songs that fall into this category.
Watch out DB. They will soon be labeling your voluntary restraint "questionable" and "not taking responsibility".
https://secondhandsongs.com/message/202243
You understand the SHS guidelines and rules very well. And IMHO it is actually questionable for a CC, who would be expected to agree to the site's policies, to express that "what editors decide isn't relevant" to him.
You've just expressed your reaction (i.e. just refraining from the effected activity). I suspect others are silently thinking the same, or at least letting others come and tag entries behind them.
I can respect that these differences (i.e. vocalese, et. al.) are very important to some, but one can't make others think the same. I make a distinction between A Cappella and College A Cappella, but I make no demands on SHS to do the same.
One of my now infamous analogies: I neither live in nor drive through New Jersey; therefore, I don't care what the traffic laws are there. They are irrelevant to me. Similarly, I don't add vids to SHS performances, so the applicable guidelines are irrelevant to me. Again similarly, it appears that DB will no longer add performances that may need one of these tags, which makes all of this irrelevant to him. Problem solved.
Everything comes at a cost. When considering adding these types of complications, the benefits gained need to be compared to the expected costs. I see very little gained, but do see costs that include tag errors, skipped covers, and editor frustration.
Well if they did that, wouldn't they be breaking a few of the "Code Of Conduct" rules:
Continuous Improvement, Respect and Open Attitude. Probably each line in all 3 of those power points.
I was accused of breaking one of the rules, but have no idea, which one?? B4, I was accused of being aggressive, but never given an example? Now I've been wondering what was Rodders200 accused of that made him quit?? Makes you wonder what is going on around here.
So, I'm guessing "Do as I say, not what I do" is the rule of law around here.
OH, P.S. Did you happen to catch on Netflix "The Trial of The Chicago 7'?
Last edit: 2020-10-23 18:20:03 UTC by DashBoardDJ856
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EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH - Haters Gonna Hate
Well if they did that, wouldn't they be breaking a few of the "Code Of Conduct" rules:
Continuous Improvement, Respect and Open Attitude. Probably each line in all 3 of those power points.
OH, P.S. Did you happen to catch on Netflix "The Trial of The Chicago 7'?
First, no, I don't watch much of anything these days.
We all could use thicker skins. B seems to take personally strong dislikes for site features, etc. that he either likes and/or implemented. This is natural, but we should all remember that good ideas in theory often fail in practice. Nothing wrong with trying, but failing to admit a failure just extends harm
We also seem to either under or over analyze matters. My weariness threshold is likely higher than most, but I can certainly understand the exasperation expressed by others when topics just linger and linger seemingly forever with no resolution. Implement some change and revisit if the "minority position" turns out to be the correct one. On the opposite end, I have seen several quick exchanges on adding some CC power without even considering whether such power is wanted, much less will be used by the CCs. These will likely result in wasted efforts by Matt and frustration by Management when the desired CC activity doesn't come to fruition.
Then we get threads like this one. I'm willing to cede that some distinctions exist, but not that these distinctions need to be made on site. I've now asked several times why these are so important as to not combine, but all I get are more efforts to explain the distinctions.
The original discussion attracted five commenters (if I counted correctly):
https://secondhandsongs.com/topic/75310
Such apparent limited interest suggests that these distinctions are immaterial to most.
I feel your pain brother!
Random thoughts.
Every few weeks we used to vote on ideas and items that we wanted implemented, now for some reason they are now just jammed down our throats. I don't even know whose whim it is.
About that other post on the vocalese thing, I'm not sure if I read that or not, but if I did, I would have probably written the same as I did in here.
The Netflix movie is slightly similar to what is going on here.
Editors Rodders200 and Mop66 both quit this year. What's wrong with this picture?
Linger and linger and linger........
OH,p.s I forgot about my other pet peeve...Youtube...it's maybe 60% up to grade.....still needs lot more improvement, but let's first worry about vocalese coz every SHS user is concerned about that.
Last edit: 2020-10-23 19:19:56 UTC by DashBoardDJ856
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EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH - Haters Gonna Hate
I'm reminded of an another analogy, one that I use to argue against "big government". Consider a professional juggler. We start by juggling the most important items (e.g. song/release titles, original releases, applicable artists). As we give the juggler more and more, but less and less important items, our performer starts dropping some. These drops are just as likely to be the important matters as the less.
The more info demanded and the more complications introduced, the more errors occur regarding increasingly marginal matters and more editor irritation (especially for new recruits).
More and more tags provide fertile ground for debate and conflict. Is "ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub Yo da dub dub" vowely enough to be vocalise? Is ABC performance really "unusual"? Lyrics vs. everything else is rather clear. Vocalese is just a type of adaption. Do the other types get an SHS term of art? Vocalise vs. scat vs. vocal effects isn't so clear. Why expend so much energy that could be better directed at clearing the dreaded "backlog" or addressing more objective errors?
I currently have a project to get old, generic legacy submissions closed out by re-submitting all the noted covers therein under current processes, etc. These efforts seem far more valuable to the SHS goals than debating how many vowels are needed for one limited value tag over another limited value tag. Clearly people can disagree on import, but my project is a volunteer matter. Getting tags wrong or not caring is an error or being irresponsible, respectively.
I clearly have been doing this incorrectly as my understanding was if it was an instrumental tune with say humming (but clearly not actual lyrics) I would set it up as an Instrumental and check the Vocalise tag and note this in the Comments.Does this sound correct or incorrect to you microtherion ?
That was always my understanding what our policies were. And it makes sense from a database scheme point of view: A "vocal" performance in our system refers to a work with a lyricist, so it needs lyrics. Pure vocalization (whether we call it "scat" or "vocalise") doesn't have lyrics in a conventional sense, so my understanding is that we'd classify it as an instrumental performance, with the instrument in question being a human voice.
As always, there are weird cases:
This one has roughly 4 actual words at 2:35, written by Etta, but nevertheless, I'd classify this as "vocalise".
I love the juggler analogy.
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EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH - Haters Gonna Hate
SCAT: (...) Your example reads to me as vocalise.No, because Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub Yo da dub dub is not one or more vowel sounds.
I'm afraid that both your ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub Yo da dub dub and lalalala lalalalala ooooo oooo lalalala are driven by vowel sounds and contain consonants. Having to even try making such fine distinctions proves the problem's existence rather than explaining things.
The reason for the distinction between "vocalise" and "scat" might be cultural as much as musical. I don't think classical vocalists sing "scat". Jazz vocalists don't think of their more percussive vocalisations (e.g. ba doo ya doo dn dat) as "vocalise", but their vocalisations exist on a spectrum, and some of it ("ooooh waaay oooh") they might refer to as "vocalise".
Would it make sense to have a combined tag "vocalise / scat"? I'd rather not drop one of the two terms in favor of the other, but I agree with others in this thread that drawing the distinction is not always easy, and might ultimately not be all that fruitful.
The reason for the distinction between "vocalise" and "scat" might be cultural as much as musical.
Fiddle vs. Violin?
Would it make sense to have a combined tag "vocalise / scat"? I'd rather not drop one of the two terms in favor of the other, but I agree with others in this thread that drawing the distinction is not always easy, and might ultimately not be all that fruitful.
Bingo! That's been my consistent position before and throughout this thread.
My experience dealing with recordings under discussion on site was first an editor advised me that any lyrics, no matter how immaterial, makes a recording vocal. I started to file reports based on this rule but started to get "this one's an exception", "not aware of any such rule", etc. I quickly concluded there was no objective consensus.
My position has always been to account for grey cases to mitigate against error reporting. Minimal lyrics, code as either vocal or instrumental but add a comment. Vocal effects or what we're now calling scat/vocalise, code as instrumental and add a comment.
The tag(s) now eliminate(s) the need for a comment and my need to file reports requesting a missing comment, but too many tags over complicates things. I'd again suggest two separate tags:
a) Minimal Lyrics - Recordings with some but immaterial lyrics (i.e. mostly instrumental)
b) Scat/Vocalise/Vocal Effects - Recordings with no real lyrics but has vocal stuff in the mix (e.g. dooby-doos, ooh la las, whistling).
Your artificial language examples seem to be a special case. How would we treat Klingon? That language could be used for any song, but what of a work specific artificial language? What of the previously referenced "ooga chaka"s? That specific scat/vocalise/whatever is used in other covers, but there is no additional writing credit on Hooked on a Feeling.
Thanks a lot, Michael/Microtherion, for your/the most competent explainations and sensible comments, both here and the https://secondhandsongs.com/topic/75310 thread!
I, too, understand "that these differences (i.e. vocalese, et. al.) may be important" to one or two self-chosen few (oh, nearly rhyming...), so, on a general perspective and not only as probably close to "99 3/4 of the SHS users" indeed "don't give a (whatever...)", Wayne's arguing to quite an extend actually appears justified and basically meaning the same as Murray's one sentence.
Watch out DB. They will soon be labeling your voluntary restraint "questionable" and "not taking responsibility".
https://secondhandsongs.com/message/202243
You understand the SHS guidelines and rules very well. And IMHO it is actually questionable for a CC, who would be expected to agree to the site's policies, to express that "what editors decide isn't relevant" to him.
Thanks for "intergrating" this out of context quote... There is a German saying: "Äpfel mit Birnen vergleichen". It fits. Look it up.
Thanks for "intergrating" this out of context quote... There is a German saying: "Äpfel mit Birnen vergleichen". It fits. Look it up.
It's the same expression in English 
