All in the Family Edith Writes a Song

Chasmac is a semi-retired guitar teacher who has taught in various schools in London and elsewhere for over 30 years.

Become tips for writing effective reviews of songs on slicethepie.com

By Adamants, CC, via Wikipedia

What Is Slicethepie?

For anyone who doesn't know, Slicethepie is a review site primarily focused on music. Ordinary members of the public can join up costless as a lookout (also chosen reviewer), listen to new songs, and write a short review about the song for a pocket-sized payment. Each review is just the member's opinion of the song and/or creative person. No special musical skill or knowledge is required as the site wants the stance of the broad general public.

In recent years, the site has also enabled members to give reviews on stylish clothes and phone cases, but those are more than of a sideline, and then this commodity is only concerned with the music side of Slicethepie and how to write song reviews.

Every bit an experienced reviewer on Slicethepie and musician, I wrote this article to suggest new scouts on how to write reviews that can be more helpful to the artist, even if they (the reviewers, not the artists) don't have any formal background in music.

The earnings balance screen.

Slicethepie.com - Used with permission

How Much Does Information technology Pay?

Although it's a British company, Slicethepie rewards each review with payments in US cents, ranging from about v to over 20 cents per review. The payment depends on several factors, such equally the quality and length of the review, member rank, and whether actress bonuses are beingness offered at the fourth dimension. Information technology's not a fortune, but it adds upwardly, and y'all tin can hands earn a few dollars in a single "scouting" session.

The coin is a nice bonus, but for me and many others it's not the main attraction. The best part is being involved in giving valuable feedback to up-and-coming musicians who put their songs out there to encounter what kind of reception they tin can expect from the general public—us! Artists who become the highest ratings from the reviewers tin can get eligible for financing to set them on the route to commercial success.

How to Write a Review

Describe the Musical Elements

Hither are some musical features that come up in a typical song. You can comment on whatsoever features of the song you lot feel are worth commenting on.

Imagine a song that yous know well, and focus on the following features equally it plays in your mind.

• Intro: If the song has an intro, what do you think of it? Some intros are atmospheric and capture your imagination from the start or they found a good beat that sets up the song. They do what an intro is supposed to do: lead into the song naturally. Some intros you hear don't do that but instead lead awkwardly into the main function of the vocal. If there'south nothing special almost the intro, then at that place'southward no demand to comment on it.
• Vocal Melody: What do you think of it? Is it tuneful? Interesting? Is information technology the kind of tune (melody) that would be like shooting fish in a barrel to retrieve? Commercially, that's a positive quality, even if it's i of those awful songs that you can't become out of your caput for days. How about the singer? Listen to his or her vocal quality. Is information technology a rich tone? Or is information technology thin? How expressively do they sing the lyrics? How consistent is their vocal quality? They may sound great until they try to get the high notes and become all screechy.
• Lyrics: Can yous make them out? Some lyrics aren't in English, so yous apparently tin can't comment on the lyrical content if you lot don't empathize the language. Just you tin can nevertheless hear the flow of words. All skilful songwriters choose words and phrases non just for their significant but also for their audio and natural rhythmic quality. How are the lyrics in the vocal you've got in mind? Are they deep and meaningful, or shallow and childish? Pretentious? Predictable? Amusing? Blench-worthy? Cheesy? Original? Imaginative? Interesting? Offensive? A lot to choose from in that location.

Consider the Instrumental Arrangement

The qualities to mind out for are:

• Rhythm: Is there a solid beat and stiff engaging rhythm that grabs yous and carries you lot along? If then, that's a good quality. If non, that doesn't mean it's bad quality. Non all great songs are catchy. Rhythmic effects can be flowing, subtle, pronounced, complex, etc., simply in that location should be some consistency and confidence whatever the rhythmic style used.
• Instrumental Variety and Residue: If a vocal has a rich variety of interesting instruments, it may exist more distinctive and memorable. The organization also has to be tasteful and conform the mood of the song, nonetheless. For example, a saxophone is a very expressive instrument, just would be out of identify in many styles of music. If a vocal has an accompaniment of merely a single strummed guitar, for example, listen to how effectively (or not) the artist makes it interesting by varying the rhythm or dynamics and avoids a boring mechanical strum throughout.
• Digital Effects: Although digital furnishings can exist hitting and really enhance a song, there's a noticeable tendency among less-experienced musicians to overuse them. Rather than enhance the vocal, overuse makes it sound cheap and amateurish. Amongst less talented musicians, digital effects are often used in a vain attempt to compensate for a lack of musical quality. That never works. In that location's no substitute for musical quality.

Be Descriptive

You lot can make your review more than interesting and meaningful by using a wide variety of well-chosen words and phrases. Don't use the give-and-take 'adept' all the time, and definitely stay away from the 'Awesome dude!' or 'Y'all guys suck' style of review if you want your review to exist taken seriously. Utilize words that are more descriptive and specific.

Honest reviews are expected, of class, but there's no impairment in being diplomatic too. The reason that your opinion is valuable is because, unlike the artists themselves (and their friends and families), y'all can be completely objective. The artists can be also closely involved with the music to hear faults and weaknesses. They demand an objective and unbiased stance and any advice yous may have.

Here's a tiny selection of terms that may be relevant to the musical qualities y'all want to depict:

Read More From Toughnickel

For Melodies

• Positive: catchy, tuneful, interesting, shapely (or well-shaped), strong, melodic, melodious, memorable, original.
• Negative: patently, shapeless, tuneless, boring, also simple, overly circuitous, unoriginal.

For Vocals

• Positive: distinctive, rich, warm, expressive, feeling, potent, bonny, appealing, confident, conviction, heartfelt, clear, stylish, soulful, impressive, pitch range, dynamic, edgy, raw, powerful.
• Negative: thin, weak, inconsistent, out-of-melody, pitch problems, dead, banal, self-witting.

For Lyrics

• Positive: original, agreeable, idea-provoking, inspiring, heart-warming, punchy, meaningful, clever, deep.
• Negative: plain, uninspiring, weak, pretentious, cheesy, corny, cringeworthy, obscure, disruptive, predictable, repetitive, offensive.

For Instrumental Accompaniments

• Positive: balanced, varied, full, rich, rhythmic, engaging, compelling, competent, smooth, accomplished, imaginative, creative, solid, original, exciting, powerful, driving, atmospheric, ethereal.
• Negative: weak, plain, safe, uninspired, lacking confidence, poor residual, untogether, over-sentimental, unvaried, lacking contrast, strident, harsh.

For Artists

• Positive: talented, imaginative, professional, artistic, accomplished, competent, skillful, careful, experienced, natural.
• Negative: unimaginative, anticipated, careless, unprofessional, untogether, dated, awkward.

Overall Qualities of the Song

Structure

If the vocal has a familiar organization of sections (e.g., verses, choruses, instrumental sections) then information technology'due south easy for the average listener to feel at home with information technology. This, in plough, makes it more than commercially attractive. This applies to most styles of music. They don't all accept verses and choruses, of class, but they all have contrasting sections.

Commercial Potential

You should always keep commercial potential in listen. Fifty-fifty if you don't similar the song, try to imagine how the song's target audience would receive it. Some songs are excellent, but in a style that isn't in cracking need commercially. They tin can still find niche outlets and accept limited success. For case, you might hear an old 50s or early-60s rock-and-roll fashion song. It could be a superb instance of that style played to perfection, merely it's not a style that's attractive to mainstream commercial investors who worry about getting a return on their investment. The main commercial quality of songs similar that is nostalgia, and nostalgia is a niche market.

Performance Quality

Even without any musical cognition on your function, you can still get a feel for things like how much the artist or artists savour and believe in what they're doing. Even if not technically bright, a vibrant performance that is full of confidence, conviction, way and flair is obviously going to be far more attractive commercially than a lacklustre performance by artists who audio like they'd rather be someplace else

Another quality you'll come across is over-expressiveness. The artist wants to make an impression emotionally, but overdoes it and comes across sounding insincere, put on, melodramatic and pretentious. That's a worst-example scenario, but information technology's not that uncommon.

Production and Recording Quality

Don't be as well difficult on poor product and recording quality. The artist may take very limited means, and information technology'southward the best possible sound they can get from very basic recording and mixing equipment.

On the other hand, sloppy recording (unintended baloney, bumping into the mic or even cough into information technology) deserves to be criticised. Even with the most bones of equipment, a professional approach to the recording is more impressive than a 'couldn't intendance less' attitude in a recording studio.

Reviewing Different Genres

Equally you lot can't option and choose the styles and genres that you get to review, you may have to review songs in a style that you're not familiar with. It's not a problem. Yous can notwithstanding review the song by commenting on qualities that are common to almost styles of music, such as balance, tastefulness, originality, style, diversity, impact, emotion, and, last but not to the lowest degree, commercial potential.

You're complimentary to permit the creative person know that you lot don't similar that fashion or genre, but it would be unfair to charge per unit an individual vocal low on those grounds. Don't let your personal gustation cloud your judgement of what could become a major hitting.

Sample Reviews

Hither are some sample reviews to give an thought of the types of reviews that artists find useful, even if yous're telling them something they don't want to hear. Compose your own reviews in your own style, of class, only aim to make them relevant, descriptive and informative.

Slicethepie likewise has quality controls in identify that automatically decline reviews that are offensive, too brusque, lacking in musical terms, or too like to your previous reviews (hence the need to take a wide vocabulary of descriptive terms). On the other mitt, they pay a higher bonus for reviews that meet and surpass their quality standards.

Be concise, not long-winded. If your review is besides long it will probably exist rejected with the message that it's not specific plenty. That's considering the number of musical terms will be low compared to the number of non-musical terms and the system will reject it due to low 'keyword' density.

Example one: A Glowing Review—9/ten

This is a dandy song and performance. The melody is stiff and tuneful. The vocaliser has an bonny vocal tone, and puts existent feeling into the lyrics. The lyrics are interesting and meaningful with some punchy phrases. Instrumentally, the vocal has a rich, full accessory that complements the vocal rails perfectly. Great guitar solo too, although I think a grittier tone would suit the dark mood of the vocal better.
The functioning quality is high throughout, both vocally and instrumentally. Overall, the vocal is distinctive and original, and I think it has stiff commercial potential.

Example 2: A Good Song Badly Arranged—6/ten

I think this song has some expert musical qualities merely needs a meliorate musical system. The singer has a distinctive and attractive vocal tone, only is often drowned out by the powerful instrumental accessory. The synth tones are far as well harsh and strident. The singer should be allowed to dominate the vocal without having to compete with the accompaniment. The lyrics seem quite interesting, but can't e'er be heard clearly because of the poor song-instrumental residue. It's quite a tuneful song, though, and could be easily improved with a more tasteful instrumental arrangement.

Example 3: A Negative Review—3/10

This song has some bug. The intro is too long, and doesn't really develop or build up enough to justify such a long intro. The singer has some pitch accurateness bug. [That's a diplomatic way of saying "out of tune."] The melody is weak, and the lyrics are quite plain and repetitive. The instrumental system is reasonably good in terms of residual, and it provides a solid enough accompaniment, but it needs to be a bit more varied and interesting, and definitely more than expressive for greater touch on. Overall, I call up the song doesn't have enough quality in its nowadays land.

Note: If you submit your review and become a message that your score doesn't appear to lucifer the content of your review, don't worry about it. Information technology's not a alert. It'southward just request you to double bank check that you haven't made a mistake with your score. If you lot haven't, then but click 'submit' again and information technology will exist accepted.

Musical Terms

Equally mentioned earlier, sometimes a review will be rejected if y'all don't mention enough musical terms or 'elements' of the runway you're reviewing. Here'south an alphabetical list of common musical terms. Treat the list as a reminder of terms that yous're already familiar with. Don't use whatsoever that you're unfamiliar with, as the artist reading the review will likely complain to STP if the review is full of terms used in a mode that doesn't make any sense.

Accompaniment, audio-visual, alto, arpeggio, organisation, atonal, backing, backbeat, ballad, bass, vanquish, BPM, brass, bridge, chords, chorus, chromatic, archetype, classical, coda, composition, counterpoint, development, dissonant, drumming, dynamics, fills, catamenia, harmony, harmonise (harmonize), harmonics, hook, instrument, instrumental, improvisation, intro, cardinal, lead, lyrics, tune, metre (meter), center 8, modal, modulate, offbeat, percussion, percussive, phrase, phrasing, pitch, range, refrain, register, rhythm, scale, sequence, shuffle, singer, snare, solo, soprano, swing, syncopation, synth, tempo, tenor, timing, tonal, tone (timbre), tremolo, triplets, melody, tuning, vamp, poetry, vibrato, vocal, voicing

Become a Slicethepie Reviewer

I promise you found the reviewing advice in this article helpful and are encouraged to submit meaningful reviews that artists will find useful and benefit from. If not already a reviewer, why not give it a try? It can be quite addictive—and it pays.

Also, be patient as there are occasional glitches on the site and there aren't always songs available to review. They tin can simply requite united states of america songs to review if people upload them in the first place to their sister site Soundout.com. If, after reviewing a few songs, you get a bulletin telling you that there are no suitable songs to review, just stop for a while and come up back later.

Here's the link: Slicethepie

This article is authentic and true to the best of the author'southward knowledge. Content is for informational or entertainment purposes only and does not substitute for personal counsel or professional communication in business organization, fiscal, legal, or technical matters.

Questions & Answers

Question: I tried to change my review style to resemble the higher rated sample, and Slicethepie still only gave me $0.01 for my in-depth review. Do you have to keep reviewing to gain more per review or am I simply that bad? I would like to remember that I am a good critic and writer.

Answer: You can normally earn more if your review is in line with reviews submitted by others for the same song. If yous write a glowing review, but ten others write a scathing review, yous won't earn much.

© 2012 chasmac

Itoya on August 08, 2020:

Amazing tutorial, so edifying

chasmac (author) from Uk on December 01, 2013:

Thanks Rebecca. Yes, genre option is just there to requite them an idea of reviewers' tastes in music and then that they tin see, for example, that if a item song is hated by Country fans but loved by metallic heads they know in which markets it volition do best. Genre selection doesn't determine the types of music that you lot get to hear. STP say that information technology'south random.

chasmac (writer) from UK on May 16, 2013:

Hi Daisy - Yes, a lot of people think it's a US site because they pay in dollars. In fact, in the early days, Americans weren't allowed to use a particular part of the site. In those days, we didn't but review songs simply could also buy and sell shares in the artists for profit. As that was a grade of online gambling, Americans couldn't apply that part of the site because of their strict gambling laws.

chasmac (author) from UK on March 04, 2013:

It was a completely different arrangement when I joined. They paid in British money. It was meliorate than at present. .07c sounds virtually right. That's 2c for Silverish rank + 5c bonus, only information technology means that y'all're not getting any of the special bonuses that bring the total upwardly to around 20c or more. I can encounter from my referral commissions, that a lot of Silver rank members are getting around 5 - 10c, but quite a few accept been getting 20c plus. The highest I've seen is 43c. These big bonuses are due to special high-paying tracks that are given to sure people to review depending on their age and maybe location. I can't exist sure of that, though.

chasmac (author) from UK on July 25, 2012:

Hello geeraffe. Although most are unsigned artists, it's not that uncommon to hear signed artists too sometimes. The songs are sent in via Soundout.com by tape companies or radio stations looking to test the waters for a new release or a re-release.

geeraffe on July 25, 2012:

Thanks, very interesting. Is it possible you could tell me why, having joined slice the pie, I have been asked to write a review for Cheryl Cole singing Dear Killer. At first I thought that information technology was a encompass, but and so I Shazam-ed information technology and lo and behold - Cheryl Cole, Love Killer. I thought this site was supposed to be for unsigned artists???

chasmac (writer) from UK on January 30, 2012:

And that's one of the best comments I've ever received. Thanks very much, Lee. It'south much appreciated.

Lee on January 30, 2012:

Wow. This is one of the best articles I have ever read - clear, curtailed and coherent. Amazing quality of writing and written with a sincere voice.

Thank you (-:

Proceed up the stellar work...

huttoandiry.blogspot.com

Source: https://toughnickel.com/self-employment/slicethepie-reviews

Share this post