I was contacted by one of our long time members, about how we might boost participation in this group, especially of bluegrass players. He suggested that we revisit our past poll winners. I like the suggestion, but my feeling is that the best way to utilize our forum, especially when considering how this repository can best be utilized long after the current poll week, is to keep the tunes in one discussion, and not have a number of discussions for the same tune. While the current polling and contributing videos is fun, I believe we have far more people who use this huge repository of tunes, for research on tunes, than current poll participants! We do already have some tunes that are “other tunes” and then “official tunes”, and in those instances, I really try to have the two discussions linked to each other. We even have a few tunes that have appeared twice as official tunes, but I’m not happy I slipped up that way! So, what I am going to do is on the week that we don’t have a poll winner (since they are now announced every two weeks), I am going to start back at the beginning, and bring the past winners back up to the top. However, I am NOT going to give them a new discussion. I am just going to bring it back current, post a request for new videos on the old winners. Maybe you have contributed already? Consider making a new video, maybe a little different, maybe a little better? And if it’s a tune you’ve never contributed to, now’s the time!
Sounds like an interesting idea, Barbara. When you consider the numbers who visit the SAW group and then look at the tiny proportion who actually vote for a tune in the fortnightly poll, it is no wonder that you moved the poll from weekly to two-weekly. There also seem to be more Other Tunes being posted than Official Ones in many cases - I know I am someone who posts Other Tunes more than I respond to the Official Tunes, even if I happen to have voted for a particular one! In this week's poll I voted for Wind on the Heath, which I posted recently as an Other Tune and which folk have obviously wanted to have added to the list. I voted for it to see if anyone might respond to it this time round, so your idea of reviving old choices strikes me as a possible way to generate more interest. Thanks for all you have done for this group for a very long time! Time will tell!
Barbara wrote: "... revisit our past poll winners. ... keep the tunes in one discussion ..." Sounds like a good plan. I also like John's idea of also utilizing Other Tunes. Lots of great music there, would be nice to see more people making their own recordings of some of those as well.
Ok! Now that the format is back to normal, this is what I am planing to do. This Friday, March 6, I will post the first of our past winners, and when I do so, I will just bring up the original discussion, edit the title to say “revisited”, and go from there. Since we are going back over 10 years, it’s quite possible that many of the videos posted back then, are now no longer available (or have broken links), but it’s also nice to read through the comments and discussions. So, please also contribute to this new feature! My plan is just to start over at the beginning, and go through them chronologically, however, I am open to suggestions!
To address the suggestion of utilizing 'other tunes'... please do! I would absolutely love to see more people contributing their videos to the 'other tune' discussions. This group is obviously WAY more than just the 'official tunes' that we have voted on through the years. WAY MORE! When someone posts a tune that is categorized as an "Other Tune" (ie, not a Tune of the Week), and you happen to like it, please, do just like you would if it were an 'official' tune. Learn it. Video it. Add it in the reply section of that tune's discussion!
