CHALLENGE COMPLETED
Check out the results and reviews HERE.

This challenge will be centered around the writing and recording of songs based on randomly assigned artwork to the participants. The pool of artwork has been selected in a way to represent diversity across genres, eras and themes. It comprises paintings, drawings, etchings, photographs, and digital art.

RULES
- There is no deadline for signing up. All participants will receive a random piece of artwork regardless of the time of signing up.
- Participants who are unsatisfied with their draw may ask for a re-draw once. The second draw they will receive will be definitive and they may not switch back to their first draw.
- The challenge will officially end on July 1st. An extension may be issued depending on the total number of submissions by that date and following discussion with the participants. [The deadline has been extended to Sunday July 15th]
- Please, do NOT submit lossless files. Use either an audio converter or a DAW (such as REAPER) to render your track in a good quality compressed lossy format, preferably MP3 VBR.

GUIDELINES
- Disclosure of assignments will be made by PM.
- Participants may choose to publicly disclose and discuss what they've received. Keep in mind that such can take away from the draw randomness for prospective participants.
- The artwork will be initially provided without title in the hopes that participants will be able to freely interpret their samples. Should difficulties arise, you may PM me with queries about the author and the title of your sample. Alternatively, you can do a reverse image search.
- It is recommended that you include a small readme with your submission, discussing your views and interpretations of the artwork, lyrics (if applicable), and any particular techniques and gear you may have used for composing, recording and producing.
- Use any genre(s) you may see fit.
- Collabs are allowed and encouraged.
- The use of pure Guitar Pro style MIDI is strongly discouraged.


LIST OF ARTWORK

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

PARTICIPANTS (27)
garthmargengi
Rocka_Rollas
ShaolinLambKiller
Xanzotire
Apteronotus
MoonPenatrator
Mysticaloldbard
wight_ghoul
awheio
Markov
Haightred
diamondfamicom
CrustAsFuckExistence
nyarlathotepmusic
RageW
Awblaster
orionmetalhead
CorpseFister
Flesh_Bag
nicor333
Named
FaceOfWorms
guitartheist
Zodijackyl, Metantoine
kingnuuuur
OnwardToGolgotha
nex666

Collab options
None so far.

I'll gather some shit in a while and send you a pm.

I think I can do it, but I have lots of bands and project shit in the works already.
But I really want to participate in a challenge once more

will get up on this after work today.

Does anyone have a preference for the size of images? I think they should be at least ~400x600, if not big enough that you can make them full-screen on most computers, but that may be tough to find with some.

Well, might as well bring it up here instead of keeping it only on the pm box.

I think it'd be cool if we all grabbed images from wikipaintings.org or googleartproject.com; all the pictures there are copyright-free and can be gotten in big resolutions. We could also use them to make a booklet with the lyrics for each song together with the painting once we have all the submissions, and there would be no legal issues.

Actually the non-public domain (where the artist isn't dead or hasn't been dead for 70 years) stuff on wikipaintings is protected by copyright, but from what I've gathered it's OK to use them in a digital booklet as long as they're not high resolution copies.

Yeah, I forgot to mention, there is some Beksinski stuff in there and some other stuff that ain't public domain. It's only a small amount though, most of the stuff is old enough.

I'll be participating.

I'm in.



I think its best we stick to public domain stuff because we would be using the stuff with a different purpose than wikipaintings and the use has an arguably different influence on the work's potential market value. Something might be fair use in one context but infringement in another.

Would there be any infringement if I linked people to works on the website? Wikipaintings specifies that pretty much the only thing we're allowed to do with a copyrighted painting is contemplation, but I can't see how that could legally forbid anyone to write a piece of music inspired by it.

Well this is just my opinion, but yeah linking to a photo legally published elsewhere isn't a problem. You are right about the other thing too. While one of the rights accompanying copyright is the right to prepared derivative works, something like a musical arrangement based on a picture is not "based on" the copyrighted work. I believe that a House Report on the copyright act used musical arrangement based on a novel not violating the derivative work right.

It makes sense because you can't really incorporate parts of a picture into a song in the same way that you can make a movie out of a book etc.

So it's basically a non-issue as long as I link you guys to stuff. Fair enough, but I believe that it might still be a problem for the digital booklet, should we choose to do it, which would effectively restrict us to public domain only.

Yeah I agree, and think the digital booklet is a bad idea with copyrighted works. Artists license work for stuff like that all of them, but public domain stuff would be fine.

Then it's settled. By the way, everyone keep the suggestions coming and remember that you can get drawings, photographs, and digital art as well.

i have some artwork that can be used, in cd cover dimensions. not sure if il contribute musically, but definitely for art

Ah, June, yes, when my school and work is over, and I'll have more free time than what i know what to do with it. So I would like in on this challenge if this is where we sign up? Hopefully I'll actually finish my song this time, it's been too long since I've been able to finish a song.

As far as artwork goes. You can always go to google and search for high def pictures of space, or medieval shit or fantasy or sci fi. you know, metal shit lol. Edit: or for black metal, really low def pictures of forests

Count me in! I'm a lazy bastard but I'll give it a shot anyway. Sounds more alluring than past challenges.

Sign me up, wouldn't mind getting to work on this.

Yeah, I'll be participating.

Definitely up for this.



Probably a bigger one, ~1000x800 or so, We can just include the artwork in the ID3 tags, can't we?

I definitely want in on this one. Sounds like a fun challenge.

Actually I think a CD booklet-sized pdf with artwork and lyrics would be pretty sweet to have at the end of this.

sign me up, pls

Oh if it wasn't obvious I'm in. I threw you some links in email for some art. no clue if you got.

Sure did, although a couple were relatively lo-res.


I don't know about the booklet. There's some cool stuff that I have that's copyrighted, so using it in a booklet could very well be infringing unless I get permission or pay royalty or whatnot.

Basically everything modern is going to have some sort of copyright to it, which is OK for the challenge, but not OK for a booklet.

I guess ill be in. I hope I get the mona lisa, I have some great ideas for it.

Oh I hope it's not a bunch of obvious pieces everyone knows such as the Mona Lisa, or the Scream...if you are going to go with that artist I really hope it's a lesser known work. Otherwise I'm going to be highly disappointed.

I'm stand by SLK here.

There's certainly no shortage of great public domain artwork. And if you're not selling it I don't know whether we need to care about infringing on a few copyrights. But I guess I'll wait and see what kind of art we end up using.

hmmmm, I would have though that these would be more challenging as they are quite visually bland yet the ideas behind them are quite ambiguous leaving a lot of room for creativity.

I'll do this one (still sad I missed the last one- fucking school work). Really hope I get a psychedelic or otherwise bizarre/abstract/surreal/whatever piece of art for inspiration...

There are thousands of other paints just the same visually bland yet ambiguous motifs of why they were created. I rather one of those and not one that everyone and their dead grandmother knows. Even if they have never been in a museum or opened an art book. It's pretty lame.

Well then I guess this is where you and I differ, as I know next to nothing about visual art.

Hi There, This would be my first song challenge but I would like to give this a go. Sign me up

*excited*

I'm in. Whatever it is, I'll make it cute.

there should be a label to put out the songwriting challenges
idk i think it'd be cool.

a label that releases nothing but comps for the most part of varying quality releases...ehhh I wouldn't support it.

thatd be so lame xD i mean an existing label to put these out. not JUST these. idk random thought.