Hook, Line, and Singer - Official Rules

Time/Deadlines:

Starting Date: Tuesday, April 17th
Number of Rounds: 10
Time per Round: 5 days

Note: Rounds can be pre-recorded so contestants will have MUCH more than five actual days to record.

Scoring:
1) The entire FE site will have five days per round to vote on their favorite. There will be three votes per person.
2)Contestants' scores per round will be the total number of votes +/- any bonuses or penalties.
3)Final score is the total tally of votes for all ten rounds. The person with the most total points wins and receives the prize (TBA).
4)To encourage contestants to participate in every round, five bonus points are awarded for just posting a song.
5)Using electronics to alter one's voice (pitch, speed, etc) results in a 10 point penalty.
6)Failing to show up for the duet round (and thus hurting your partner) results in a 10 point penalty.
7) Points can be docked for selecting music outside of the category. TMW will be the judge of this. If, after submitting, another contestant feels that a song is not of the category for that round, he may file a complaint with TMW. If TMW agrees, the person with the offending submission will be docked five (5) points. If the submission is found to be within the category, the one filing the complaint will be docked five (5) points.

Miscellaneous Rules:
1) Songs with dirty lyrics/cussing are not permitted.
2) Contestants won't be disqualified for missing rounds. They just won't receive points for that particular round.
3) It's permissible for contestants to change the pitch of the MUSIC to which they are singing, but may NOT alter their own voice using sound equipment.
4) Contestants may choose to do a video karaoke or just a sound file.
5) Unless specifically mentioned, rounds do not have a time limit.

The Rounds:
1) Song of Choice.
2) Country/Bluegrass
3) Oldies. Like a crooner, 30' - 50's, etc.
4) Hymn/Religious. A Capella.
5) R&B/Rockabilly/Old Rock/Soft Rock.
6) Song of Choice
7) Modern. 80's - current. Also excludes music from any previous genres listed, so no modern country.
8.) Pick a song for someone else to sing. Maximum of three (3) minutes duration. Must be in English! The track should be available on YouTube and have the words timed to the music. Send your choice to TMW and myself (The Curt Jester) when asked to.
9) Duet. Each contestant gets a random partner to sing with. Plenty of fore-warning will be given for this. Melding recordings together can be done with a program like Audacity. If your partner doesn't show up for that round, he/she will be docked points.
10)Voters' Choice. The voters (FE populace) will vote on songs they want sung by the contestants. A link to the karaoke track must be provided. Maximum of three and a half (3:30) minutes duration. Must be in English!

How Everything Works:
Every five days a new round will be announced. Contestants have five days to submit (via PM) their songs to me and TMW. After the five days have passed, we will post a poll and let it run for five days. During this time, the public will be able to vote and the contestants will be working on round two. This process is repeated until all ten rounds are done.

About Duets: Duets can be done in a number of ways. Basically, you and your duet partner just have to sing something together. It doesn't have to be a duet in the strictest sense of the word. You could choose to do melody/harmony, polyphony, alternate sections of non-duet songs, do a true duet, or anything else you can think of that involves both people doing a part in the karaoke.

Audacity is a nice program that is free that allows you to mix recordings, which will be necessary (unless Deusdark and OCLittleflower get put together!) to put you and your partner's voices together. It would be (in my opinion) the best method to make the duet video/sound file, but I'm sure there are other ways, too, such as using a voice chat to sing together or something like that. Note that Audacity needs the LAME plugin if you want to export MP3 files.