h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello and welcome to a new thread for June's Create Challenge.

Our planned theme for this month seems wide open, with the general subject matter being 'Music and Festivals'.

I am wondering if we should be more explicit? Or am I missing the point and we're looking at the topic of 'Music Festivals'?

Would anyone like to host this month's challenge or challenges?

May's challenge brought in a good number of new and old contributors, and I would love to build on this enthusiasm, keeping the ball rolling into the future.

What would your thoughts be for a challenge that was journal related, rather than Guide or Post Entries? eg writing a journal entry on a favourite piece of music? where were you when you first remembered hearing it? was this the first record/cd that you bought? etc

One aim of Create is to help people develop their confidence as writers, as well as to encourage more participation in contributing to the Guide, so journal entries are just as valuable as Guide Entries. We need community involvement and support.

Another idea would be to submit an Entry to the AWW about firsthand experiences of a music festival. Or any other type of festival. I am sure that Dmitri would grab the best of these to put into the Post.

My third idea would be to ask for Guide Entry about a festival from around the world that is not already covered in the Guide.

I'd love to hear from all the Create volunteers, and let me know your thoughts, whether you would agree to host one of these, or suggest your own challenge idea, and whether you are willing to support our challengees in their writing.

I also think that having a narrower, more focused challenge has worked far better than having too many disparate challenges at the same time. So, perhaps we should choose one that has the most support from you volunteer Creationeers.


Hoping to get lots of replies to this thread.

thanks for reading!

Lanzababy

ps Active Creationeers will be receiving a new Official Volunteer Badge for their Personal Space in the near future. Watch this space.

I would absolutely *love* to do a journal on a favorite piece of music. it could even be about a music festival, of a sort. An amateur/college production of a show or opera is a kind of festival, isn't it?

For the Guide I'm not sure if it is maybe too narrow to just ask for Entries about music festivals. I think we should give a 2nd option. We seem to have a few things about musical instruments in PR for instance. I myself know nothing about and have never been at a music festival. Some topic that is not too wide but accessable to most people.

I'll have to give this more thought.

Blimey... still nto started the entry for the May one yet

(Bluebottle sticking his oar in - feel free to ignore)
I'd agree that 'Music Festivals' is a bit on the narrow side, and I'm someone who has written about music festivals. Not everyone goes to them and they're very expensive.

Perhaps ask people to write about their favourite album and/or band/singer? I'd've thought that the broader the subject, the more articles it'll attract. May's 'Write about a hobby' is nice and open and allows articles on any subject.

<BB<

I agree that music festivals is probably too narrow. Today I was thinking about encouraging people to write a survival guide to their favourite festival, or to a type of festival. I was going to write about putting on a show at the Edinburgh Fringe, or about the science festival, but Tav's right, that excludes a lot of people.

Maybe asking people to write about thier favourite festival, band, genre, musician, symphony.... It could be a personal piece or a Guide entry... Or.. can we accept mp3s and host externally (for now...).

2legs: hurry up with your submission

*cracks whip*

I'd probably enjoy very much writing a journal entry about music! I could probably do more than one.

Music festivals, not so much. Most of the ones that go on around here are a bit too mainstream for my tastes, so the only one I've ever really been involved in is the one my OH's band usually plays in.

But general music related, such as favorite artists or songs, I could do that.

I used to go the Boston Early Music Festival every time they held it. I even went to some of the concerts that were part of it. Definitely not "mainstream."

Takes notes

I think we have some good very good ideas in here, and I am totally relieved to see you all here with your replies and your suggestions!

Thanks everyone for replying, I really am relying on volunteers stepping up to act as hosts and support to those who eventually take part in these challenges, wherever they eventually take place on h2g2, so I am really delighted to find your thoughtful replies.

Please keep making suggestions and clarifications - if anyone felt like writing a short introduction to a suggested challenge, either in this thread or posted in Noesis - please do so. We can work on this together to hone down the challenge/s for June.


I am feeling really positive about the contribution that Create is making to helping our members begin writing or come back to writing for the site. Yay!


Lanzababy

I like the idea of focusing personal responses to music. I wonder if a Talking Point could be something along the lines of what Z suggested though - a survival guide to festivals of whatever type?

We had a suggestion at one point that we could all try to do something inspired by a bit of music - we upload or link to a piece somewhere, listen to it and then write an entry, a journal, a story, or paint, or photograph, or whatever something inspired by that. I liked that idea, but I's probably actually do some journal entries. There's a lot of scope for interesting topics there.

I would really like to involve journals more with this topic, I think the ideas that you've expressed in the post above Solnushka, could be expressed much more easily in journals.

We'd need a lead in Entry, and a sign-up thread for those who wish to take part? This could be a chance to be very open-ended and give people a chance to be as creative as they wish.

We'd also need a piece of music.

I don't enjoy music, I rarely listen and as I'm tone deaf I can only listen to the words. Therefore please bear in mind i'll be unable to contribute to this challenge.That said I like the idea of a music journal of documenting what I'm listening to and what it means to me..

Maybe I should let the more musical take over...

I used to have a recurring dream in which I'm the understudy for Papageno a key character in the opera "The magic Flute." The singer who portrays that character has just become ill, the curtain has just risen in the first act, and I will be going on in a few minutes.
I know all the music, but can't remember a single word! I've heard recordings of "The Magic Flute" hundreds of times, and wangled my way into a performance of it at MIT [Massachusetts Institute of technology" many years ago. That would be an ideal subject for a journal, as the task of rehearsing and staging a musical play is a complex one. The singer portraying Monostatos [the evil rogue slave] often got chewed out by the director. which seemed logical as the character was not nice.

*the curtain rises, Paul enters with bird cages bound to his back and panflutes in his hand, he sings...'


Well, back to topic. If we focus on festivals we'd need a festival picture for the FP. If we don't and jsut do random music themes we need just any picture that has anything to do with music.

I wonder if the easiest thing to do might be to focus on music. I think the idea of a creative reaction to a piece of music is great but maybe too much to organsie by Friday!

I'd like to suggest

- A talking point on 'your favourite music'.. or your first record,.

- Inviting people to write about their favourite music, or music festival, this could be EG entries, or a personal entry, or a journal entry, or anything really. Everyone has their favourite music, and we could fill a number of holes in the guide..

I could host this again if you would all like, though I'm sure someone else could do a great job as well.

It's a bit late in the day to even suggest this, but it only just occurred to me - how about journal Entries on 'Desert Island Discs' - or for the braver writers, submitted to the AWW

Which 6 pieces of music would you take with you? why?

Then some might make their way into the Post as well.

Ooh , six journal entries about music that means stuff to you and why.

Could we then write each completed one into a post entry like meet mr inquisitor and run one a week in

I'd prefer to keep it simple Z, asking for six pieces is rather a lot to commit to, and you're also then presuming a lot from the Post editors, as they would have to do a lot of subbing.

I think our focus in Create was to try to encourage people to start writing, from scratch - as well as giving our more experienced and capable members some incentives and have a bit of fun.

*picks up my wet blanket from the floor and throws it in the washing machine*