This is an alternate top ten. Many parameters, and if you give too much weight to one detail, you can throw the entire list off. You can see this problem all over the official “Take the Lead” competition. There are some monster players buried down under 15, and solos that are way too highly placed. I plan to continue double checking my work, and making sure I’m correct in proper placement. 

I may write a 25 parameters judging sheet, and consider utilizing it during the next battle. I might post it out on blogspot for others to view. This might help “Mighty” and “Gavel God” list shakers to see through all the opinions, and to judge with more substantial parameters.  

Some things I discovered (late to the party as they say) There are easily over 200 submissions where the guitar player has over 2 years experience, and they need to be ordered properly. The two-year experience cut off was a parameter I adopted while doing head to head judging early on, and noticing some of the finest talent, not making it onto the “official” Top 100 Standings. Not to worry, I can fix this….  It’s actually a rather simple thing to manage. You’ve got to be willing to stand by the code of: “We want the best to rise to the top..”  Anything less, and your/our job description lacks the focus needed to deliver on that code. 

Upon going back over some of my span scans across, say level 29-60, I managed to locate some overlooked monster talent, and moved them into more appropriate areas. 

This is overwhelming when you think about it, and can’t be done recklessly. You will make mistakes when you don’t have the time, computer speed, or software tools to make things more efficient. I do have some ideas that would speed up the process immensely. The only hesitation I have is that I would rather be compensated for the work that I’ve done, and further technical consultation recommendations for system efficiency.  

Let me save you the first E-mail exchange dialogue. I don’t have a computer science degree, and I challenge you to get some MITgenius to make things better

The knowledge I’ve gained through the judging process, just the experience, hundreds of hours, was all I needed to experience in order to get a flash of insight as to how EVERYTHING can be modified to actually work as was intended, creating an environment where the best can rise to the top. 

So if OurStage would like a consultation? 

If I’ve not gotten enough interest, and no conversation is initiated by OurStage? hmmm..  I will at least create some type of online You Tube video, or blog where MY Idea can be posted, and the OurStage engineering team… CEO?  Can decide what of the many system update ideas of mine they would like to implement. 

The ability to come into an environment, and determine, not only the problem, but to solve the problem? That is rare, and if I don’t get financial compensation, or a job offer from OurStage, I will at least have proof that the improvements came from me, my ideas, and that will be an update on my resume for future employment.  and if those recommendations are installed into the main OurStage voting system… I will have proof that I came up with the idea. I don’t have an unlimited set of resources to keep doing volunteer work for multi million dollar companies, when they will simply take the information, profit from it, and I’m left without any compensation… it is wrong for me to do that. 

OurStage staff is perfectly welcome in contacting me about this issue.

mythhealer@comcast.net

Skype: myth.healer

(Myth Healer is connected to the details within a book I’ve been working on. )

Don't Look Back:

... that's a Boston song!

And that might be a way to move forward? Don't get hung up on all of what you are about to read. There IS a solution to all this mess. I will explain some of the things I've been working on. There is a system analisis report I generated, a flurry of solutions to this enigma came to mind... and I had to write it all down while it was fresh in my mind. Its up to 8 pages, and involves a possible job for me? I will deal with that in the future, but for now...

The reason the above list is different from the file containing 196 entries is on account of my not having enough time to pick out all the hottest players. When I get done sorting the 196 (its the one labeled Top 100+...)  This list will also change. 

I'm more interested in being efficient. I don't believe this sourting system is going to be effective when 50 to 75% of the people have little or no background in producing/engineering. Little or no profficiency with musicianship of an exceptional level. They are blind to quality, and that would explain the problem. You are going to get more quality sorting done with one qualified individual (that would be me) than you would with all the money in the world. Money doesn't solve problems, problem solvers solve problems....  and so here I am, solving the problem of "Where did all the good guitar players go"  Well, its interesting to note, the song tittle at possition 100 is called "Hate."   Is this some type of synchronistic thing, Jungian? Is it possible there are people doing this out of hate? I've thougt of other possibilities, but hate? Well, I would emagin that the 80 guitar players, once they discovered that they never made the top 100, and know they are better than 80 others on the list (you can cross check this with my file).. .they might be just a little upset with OurStage? 

   I wish I just had access to the main 600 entries. It would have been easier for me to sort the mega file. I could have had it done in under 12 hours. That would have been faster than going through the hell of 3500 head to head battles.  I spent a considerable amount of extra time checking and cross checking for anything that looked out of place. 

Having had more time to familiarize myself with each and every solo, I’ve managed to uncover some surprising guitar work. There are some amazing performances in these tracks, and if you take the time to listen, I’m sure you’ll agree with my finalized top 10, version 2. 

Critical analysis:

The parameters involved can be overwhelming, and under such circumstances a person needs time to digest what it is they are hearing. Beyond this, they must have the ability to remember all solo proficiency levels long enough to move things around. Back and forth between listening to the solo, and making shure it is properly positioned can be time consuming. These are not just guitar solos, but also the future of guitar, that is if we had the ears to hear. 

Musicians come around who are reaching for something greater, and if mediocrity floods our OurStage judging queue (600 entries with my estimates of over 200 that are unbearably pathetic) and a permutation of 600 x 600, or 360,000 possible head to head judging combinations? hmmm, throw in the large numbers of persons who are biased, and here for even more sinister reasons than to find the best, and you.. as a judge, are lucky to rise above level 300 (that's down from the top 100). This being the case, it will be nearly impossible to achieve well-earned recognition for your efforts. We, as OurStage judges, have a duty to these musicians! It is our job to insure such talented artists need never worry about being shoved aside on account of our bias against excellence.    

Cross-reference my list with those individuals who’ve made it into the semifinals, and you will see something very disturbing. Shake, by Psycho Cats doesn’t seem to appear in the official Top 100 semi-final list. He made it all the way up into my top 10 list! What does that tell you?  He’s one of the world’s best guitarists today, and is this fair?

I got into the voting at the tail end of the judging, and I noticed the vote trolls had worked their havoc on the sequence order. It is my understanding that a judge entering late to the party is going to receive a head to head cue that has a mix of those entries considered to be the best. Now, if a group of vote trolls has just gone through the system, how many hours of level 400 and less (that's 400 down from the top) will that new judge be required to suffer through? Let me help you out with that answer. It is somewhere over 100 hours. Yes, for over 100 hours I was presented with the most pathetic entries. Now there were some fine performances, but they were few and far between. I did manage to collect each and every one that came across my screen. These entries are available in my top 160+.

Now here's where things get interesting. If you look at the top 100 list of those contestants who've made it into the semi-finals, you will realize that I've got a list of 160+ entries. The semi-finals only have 100?!? Why did I select this many? Wasn't shooting for a quantity, but a quality. I had one criterion for the creation of my list. If the guitarist sounded like they had been playing for more than 2-3 years, they made it into my list. These criteria helped me to speed up the process of collecting some type of data sample so that I could prove the damage caused by vote trolling abuse. 

This gets even worse. There was one instance where I came across a country band that had a far superior sound to the two country tracks that made it into the top 100. The reason I didn't put it on my list, is on account of my having made a mistake. I forgot to save it!!!   Now I tried to pass my mouse over the band icon (the one you see when you get the percentage in agreement feedback). I got the name of the band, put their name in the OurStage search window, and they don't seem to have an account, or if they did I was unable to get it to show up in the search results. So... because I had made a mistake, and the search engine was unable to locate this artist, they never made it onto my list. and thus no one knows anything about them.

Let me emphasize something. This is the result of vote trolls, and there should be some type of procedure put in place to stop it from damaging the process of finding the best talent. I've taken the time to write up several pages on how this might be managed, but it might involve hiring me. I don't think I can teach what I know to some other person. I have a written vote troll investigation procedure, but without musical expertise in the areas of song writing, producing, engineering, tracking, mixing, performing, and computer profficiency skills, some things are going to zip right past your awareness.