Internet Musician | Singer/Songwriter | Steve Chatterton

Waiting for the dust to settle

   » Dragonfly photo by Devin (Drexon Field) «

Song Fu #2 Round 1: Still no official word yet, but…

Last night, I spent a lot of time looking at the voting results for Masters of Song Fu #2 Round 1; way more time than could ever be rationally justified as healthy, actually.

After spending several days solidly in the top five (right where I needed to be if I wanted to advance to Round 2), I started to notice my numbers were slipping in the afternoon on the last day of voting. By dinner time, I found myself a close sixth, but soon after I’d slipped to a distant seventh.

I briefly toyed with the idea of making a last minute impassioned plea to my mailing list, but in the end I decided to spare the spam. I poured myself a generous portion of Makers Mark and made my peace with the idea of washing out in the first round by the time I hit the bottom.

It wasn’t really a “woe is me, nobody likes my song and nobody likes me” regret that I had to deal with but more of a “damn, I really enjoyed the challenge of writing and recording a brand new song that had to match given criteria in a relatively short period of time and I was really looking forward to doing it again” sort of a let down.

I went to bed around 10:30, 90 minutes before the official closing of the polls, twelve votes shy of fifth place and at peace with the universe in general.

Well, the gods that make the moon the glowing pearl of wonder and beauty that it is must have chosen that moment to shine down on me, for I awoke this morning to find that a last minute push had somehow garnered my enough votes to bring me into a tie for fifth place with Nate “The Uke Man” Shivers.

   » A screen grab of the voting results this morning «

Now anyone who’s been following the comments for this round will see there have been some voting irregularities along the way. I know for sure that at least five people I was counting on, shoe-ins like my wife, my older sister and my mother-in-law, were unable to have their voices heard. I can only assume that issues like this would have been universal and affected all participants to the same degree, though, so hopefully no one has any ill feelings about this.

I’m not sure when the official announcement will be made. For the first Song Fu, there was a gap of a few days between the end of the voting and the announcement of the advancing contenders, so maybe there won’t be a definitive answer until early next week, but it looks like I’m safe, and it looks like I’m in pretty good company, too.

I’m curious to see what will happen with the Masters in this challenge. Jonathon Coulton seems to have come in last place by a single vote. In the first Song Fu, the last place Master in the first round didn’t advance to Round 2, but I’ve heard from others that this time around all Masters compete in all rounds and the winner is based on cumulative point value.

If this is the case, than JoCo has a shot at redemption. I really liked his tune, “Always the Moon.” When the entries went live last week, I downloaded every song and gave the whole batch a good listen to a few times, and his track is the one that keeps on haunting my memory.

It’d be a shame to see him blocked from the next round by one vote; if anyone had cause to demand a recount, it would be him. I guess time will tell. I’d be bummed, though; I wouldn’t have discovered Song Fu if not for Coulton.

Keep an eye on the Masters of Song Fu main category page for all the latest Song Fu updates as they develop.

I’d just like to take a quick moment to thank anyone who took the time to visit the site and cast a vote. The real winners here are the folks who took the time to check out every tune before placing their vote. It’s all about discovering new voices, after all.

Photo by Drexon Field - Check out his music, too!