Allow artists to Request Their Needs, and Musicians to fullfill theirs.

Alright, try this one on for size. ...and it's a big one.

How about adding the ability for musicians to shout out to the peoples when they are looking for something specific to add to a works in progress? ...and likewise, a place where those with a desire to contribute to something can find those who are looking for a particular type of contribution.

Let me elaborate.

For example: Let's say John reeeeally likes writing melodies, but can't do harmony or accompaniment worth a whoee. And let’s say Jane (who does not know John) is great at writing harmony but not melody. Finally, let’s say Bubba likes making custom made killer beats and nothing else. All three each have unique talents, and unique desires and needs for the things they are personally working on. And all three want to actively contribute to something someone is working on or have someone create something specifically for them.

Solution: A “REQUESTS” page (something that could also be integrated into a users profile/portfolio page) that allows contributors/users to select a stem and put out a request for a musical component to be made for/with it. Requests could specify and be sorted by stem details like bpm, genre etc, as well as the “type” of material requested. (perc., melody, harmony etc.)

This would enable, for instance, someone who likes writing melodies for HipHop to be able to go to the requests page and sort by melodies -> HipHop to see if anyone has any requests for HipHop melodies. The searches could follow the same music/instrument tree hierarchy you already have in place for labeling stems. This could include not only music/song component requests (melody, chorus etc.) but ALSO instrument requests. Those who are looking for someone to play a big fat kazoo chorus to their unfinished works can REQUEST both “kazoo” and “chorus” for their stem. (or in our case “other”) and then comment on their request to further explain in detail what they are looking for in the contribution.

Let requesters be able to comment or elaborate on what they are wanting from the contributor(s), and likewise, allow the contributor(s) to communicate with the requestor via both the Requests page and through their profile. To keep it all tidy, you could allow users to have the ability to follow request activity and group requests they are following together like you do “downloads”, “portfolio”, and “pinned music” on their profile page. Allow users to be able to select in their profile any stem attribute combination (instrument(s), genre(s), and song component(s)) that they wish to be notified of if a request becomes available. ...you could call it their "proficiencies" listing. ...well...I'll leave that naming stuff up to you*chuckle*

Finally *huff huff* if an instrument or style or song component a user wants to Request (or contributor wants to track requests of) is not in the tree selection, just let them fill in the blanks so that others can find it by searching for that particular thing or by simply searching “other” or “all” in a trees field. This way, if I'm looking for someone to contribute a Balalaika solo to my song, the request will appear under "Balalaika", "other", and "all" when searched for.

*whoo* Ok...it's 3am ...so hopefully some of this made sense. I think it would be another giant step forward in catering to musicians, further increasing the productivity of the site, and benefiting its users! Whadddya thinks?