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Subject: The Saga - A new type of playlist

Written By: Macaroni Man on 06/22/12 at 12:38 am

Honestly  :-\\  I don't know if this is the best section to post this in (and I don't think it'll get much attention here), but it didn't quite fit the mood of TTT or amiright discussion or lyrics. 
Nonetheless, prepare your patience for a wall of text that you actually have to think about while reading.  8-P



What this is is an idea of mine I've had and put into practice for a little while now, but never had the courage to share.  I have reason to believe, however, that with this audience of a community interested in music that some might take interest in trying something like it... especially on Amiright, specifically looking at the 'duets' and 'answer a song with another song' section; seeing how people enjoy observing how song titles fit together.  On the other hand, if you're not used to putting together playlists that appeal to your emotions then you likely won't be very interested.  Just don't make fun of me


Lemme get to the point: not sure what inspired the name, but a "Saga" playlist by my definition is a type of playlist that is characterized by how it "tells a similar story whether it is listened to or read".  So first of all, the songs are supposed to be put together in a way that when you listen to it, you can interpret it in your mind as relating to a past experience of yours, consistently while it is playing.  Yeah yeah, hopefully that part was self-explanatory.  But what the hell does the "read" part refer to? Well, that's the unique aspect.  While constructing the playlist, instead of thinking about the content of the song and how it would fit to tell your story, you should be looking at SONG TITLES and how you can make them fit together so that they can be read almost like a sentence or paragraph
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I assume examples will be necessary.  These are only short fragments of songs that fit together for instructional purposes, but generally if you'd want to make a whole playlist or express a concept, you'd need more songs. 


I can arrange:
Do You Remember - Jay Sean
What Hurts the Most - Rascal Flats
This is War - 30 seconds to Mars
In the End - Linkin Park


into:
"Do you remember what hurts the most?  This is war in the end." 
If you wanted to express that thought using any words you could, you might say something like: Don't forget that the most painful part of this situation is that it's a big struggle when it all comes down to it.  Understand so far?


And then for the familiar part.  While listening to those songs, the interpretation of the feel of it (which would vary per person) could wind up like, very basically, say, the following.  A person is reminiscing on a time in their life, when suddenly their thoughts drift to regret about it.  Then they dig into themselves to try and find inspiration to make things the way they were again, but give up on it or something and start ranting about how they lost everything and it doesn't matter anymore. :\'( So that covers all four of those songs, respectively.  (this is a generic idea, your train of thought may get more specific into details)


Another Example:
It's Not Over - Daughtry
We Are the World
Meant to Live - Switchfoot
The Good Life - OneRepublic
"It's NOT over; we are the World meant to live the good life"


Upon listening to this combination of songs, it will probably seem something similar to: our protagonist wants a second chance at something they may have messed up on, and they realize some sort of sense of community where they gain empathy.  That opens up their mind to the possibility of doing more with the potential that they posses, and start striving towards these new found goals and unveiling the happiness that accompanies it.  ;D
As you might have noticed, this could potentially make a... good sequel for the previous example! (since it starts off with where the last one left off, a character in a sorry state)


By the way, now do you see why I said the two aforementioned sections on amiright.com were related to this?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Now here are the more specific rules for arranging the songs:  :D

It must make sense -- as in be comprehensible -- overall.  It might not read correctly the way you'd picture it grammatically speaking, but it must clearly have a theme
You canNOT add sight words like "the" as fillers; the only words should be what's part of a song title
All the words in the titles must remain intact and not blend with titles from other songs (unlike the duets section). 
You may add virtually any punctuation as you see fit, including sentence enders and dotdotdot, but {optionally}: none in the middle of one title; only in between separate songs. 
{Optional}: Just made this part up: for more of a challenge, it must be entirely made of songs you have not downloaded on your computer and at least 3 of the songs you must have never heard before or are unfamiliar with.  So it requires research, but that may actually make it easier since it lets you find a stranger song with a particular title.  Keep in mind however, that the less familiar you are with the song, the less satisfied you may wind up being when you listen to it and realize it turned out to be hard to relate it to the story the playlist was supposed to tell as you listened. 


FAQs I can think of now that might pop up follow.  Just keep in mind that the rules are flexible for common sense things. 
Do I have to include the part in the parenthesis when I write the titles out? ???  No, you do not have to theoretically include the "feat. T-Pain" or "live 1982" or the "banjo remix" in the title, silly!
What if a song has another name it's accepted as, but it isn't the official name?  I'd say that you can do that, mainly because I have a couple of times when I expected the song to have one name and it turned out too be slightly different.  For "She's so High" by Tal Bachman for example, you could use "High Above Me" if that will fit better.  Similarly for songs with a part in parenthesis like above, such as "It's the End of the World (As We Know It)" by R.E.M., you can choose whether or not to include that.
You said listening should tell a similar story as reading the words out, so does the song's mood have to match up to the message it's portraying in the text?  Not really, if you can make it work.  I can think for example "The Good Life" by Three Days Grace: the title appears to be a positive thought, but upon listening to the song, it's about a man with no happiness left who is seeking it. 
Can it be like from multiple people's viewpoints?  Yes.  If you're listening to the playlist and having a hard time interpreting it, try to think as if someone other than yourself or the "protagonist" was singing the lyrics to you, especially if it's a love story.
Obviously the "story" you hear will be much more descriptive than the relatively short "story" you'd read in a saga.  Anyway, recognize that one word song titles can be just as useful as songs with long titles sometimes. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I've completed one of these approximately 117 or so songs long that is divided into two parts and ten "chapters" that I did over a course of time.  I wish I could post it as an example since I'm sure it would really help illustrate, but for some dissociative reason, I'm truthfully not comfortable sharing it yet.  It wouldn't have the same impact anyway if you didn't share my life story.  So I'll just have to edit in tips as I think of them. 
But I've wanted to publish the idea for a while, and this forum seems like the right minded people.  The more I think about it, I realize that the concept is actually pretty simple, and SOMEone else in the world has had to have the same idea at some point, am i rite?.  So you're welcome to post your attempts/results in this topic if you wish, or same if you've already done some experimenting similar to this. 


No matter how you interpreted my explanation, this is probably weird if it is a new idea to you, but this is the type of thing that develops in you and is better explained through trying it on your own.  Hope I did my best to explain though. 

Subject: Re: The Saga - A new type of playlist

Written By: ChuckyG on 06/22/12 at 9:00 am

I've thought of trying to do something similar before myself, so it's not that odd an idea.  I never got very far with doing it though.  Usually only a couple songs at a time, it can be pretty tough to do properly.

Subject: Re: The Saga - A new type of playlist

Written By: Henk on 06/22/12 at 9:47 am

Read it, and I'm sorry to say the concept is beyond me. That's not to say it isn't a good concept. ;)


{Optional}: Just made this part up: for more of a challenge, it must be entirely made of songs you have not downloaded on your computer and at least 3 of the songs you must have never heard before or are unfamiliar with.  So it requires research, but that may actually make it easier since it lets you find a stranger song with a particular title.  Keep in mind however, that the less familiar you are with the song, the less satisfied you may wind up being when you listen to it and realize it turned out to be hard to relate it to the story the playlist was supposed to tell as you listened. 




I'm glad you made that optional. How in the world do you know if a song's gonna fit if you've never heard it before? ??? :-\\


MTA: Karma for bringing up the concept.

Subject: Re: The Saga - A new type of playlist

Written By: Macaroni Man on 06/22/12 at 10:14 am


How in the world do you know if a song's gonna fit if you've never heard it before? ??? :-\\

I don't know if I emphasized that you're just sort of improvising how the lyrics fits when listening to it; what I mean to say is, when you're building it the main focus should be how the titles fit together only.  But if there are songs one knows, one will probably be subconsciously thinking of them in their head and forseeing how they might 'fit'. 

Well I'm glad no one's made fun of me so far, but I feel like I might have OVERexplained it in retrospect. 

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