This doesn't really count as an FAQ, as none of these questions have been asked yet, but I'm doing this in anticipation.

What is Brony Music Spotlight?

Brony Music Spotlight is a blog intended on featuring very high-quality brony music. Currently, the brony music scene lacks an adequate way to highlight the very best music this community makes without regard to who makes it, what style it's in, etc. It also lacks a way for brony musicians to get guaranteed feedback on their music; the most popular sites usually don't give rejection notices, and genuine feedback from experienced musicians is absent from any major site focused on brony music. Pony.fm will almost assuredly have a robust artist/track spotlighting system built into the site that provides a method of getting guaranteed critique, and this blog is intended as a precursor to that feature.

In short, this is a place where any musician, regardless of popularity or musical style, can get the respect they deserve if the quality of their music warrants it, and feedback on how to make their music better if it's not quite there yet.

Sounds great! How do I submit my music?

See the Submission Standards and Instructions for info on how to submit your music to Brony Music Spotlight.

What's Pony.fm?

Pony.fm is an in-development brony music hosting site. The site will offer unlimited bandwidth to brony musicians to host their music for free. Notable features of the site include automatic transcoding and tagging of downloads of your music in various formats, detailed stats regarding your songs, off-site sharing through embeds and customized badges, a social experience similar to deviantArt, as well as the music featuring system that this blog is intended to eventually lead into.

In short, Pony.fm will be the place for brony musicians and brony music fans, second-to-none in content hosting and delivery of brony music. For more information, visit Pony.fm.

Why MLP Forums? Why not Tumblr, or any of the other popular blogging sites?

Two reasons. The first and foremost being that this forum is the largest brony forum community on the Internet right now. The second, but pretty much just as importantly, this site will have inter-connectivity with Pony.fm, where the artist/track spotlight feature will be employed in full. This blog will hopefully be replaced by that artist/track spotlight system on Pony.fm if/when it launches, so it only makes sense for this blog to be here on MLP Forums. I may cross-post entries to Tumblr if I ever feel the need, but right now, I don't.

Hey, hold on a second! What makes you think you're in a position to judge everyone's music and decide what's good and what's not?

Experience. Specifically, experience beyond what most brony musicians have. I was "raised" by a community that has been doing quality fandom music best since 1999: OverClocked ReMix. If you're not familiar with them, visit the site, but if you don't wanna sift through all of that (though if you like video game music, you really should), I'll give you the rundown: Their quality control system is top-notch, second-to-none on the Internet, and they only accept the best pieces of music remixers have to offer. About 90% of music submitted to that site gets rejected, just to give you an idea of how stringent their standards are.

I've been posted to OverClocked ReMix three times and counting, with one of those being a direct post (meaning it bypassed the Judges Panel entirely), and I'm also directing an album for that site. This all sums up as the following: I have the experience and know-how to produce good music, better than most independent self-taught musicians, and have the ability to critique others' music in an objective and knowledgeable way. It's that knowledge that has allowed me to identify the shortcomings in how brony music is currently being spotlighted on major sites.

Wait, I know about OC ReMix! I may have even been rejected before! If you're judging based on OC ReMix's standards, how is anyone supposed to get featured on Brony Music Spotlight?

The standards for getting featured on Brony Music Spotlight will be a bit lower than what's required to get your music onto OC ReMix. I recognize that the brony music scene as a whole is still young and inexperienced (most bronies are under the age of 20, according to polling), and I especially recognize that the failings of major brony sites to spotlight quality instead of popularity or specific aesthetics have resulted in a stifling of creative output and growth among the fandom, notably among musicians. These same sites refusing to provide specific reasons for sidelining or rejection also hinders musicians' ability to improve their music, in addition to a lack of transparency that can also hinder creative output. Simply put, aspiring brony musicians are being untrained -- impaired, even -- and kept in the dark. This has created a music scene that in no way matches up to a robust community willing to help others reach new musical heights, OC ReMix being a notable -- if not the most notable -- example.

So for those reasons, I won't be judging music to such a high standard that OC ReMix's panel does, even if I could. This may change in the future, as the fandom as a whole gets better at making music, much like it did with OverClocked ReMix and the video game music arrangement community as a whole.

They have a judges panel. Do you have a judges panel?

I'm planning on it. Pony.fm's discussed system seems to be leaning toward having a judges panel similar to OC ReMix. Because this blog is intended to be a precursor to that system, I'll also be looking for panelists. If you're an experienced musician and can provide several examples of your work and, even more importantly, examples of you critiquing others' music in a knowledgeable, friendly way, feel free to PM me here on the forums. Keep in mind that I'll be looking only for people that I feel with 100% certainty can objectively and knowledgeably judge music regardless of what name is attached to it or what genre it's done in.

Also keep in mind that, when Pony.fm launches, Feld0 has final say in the selection of panelists if that system goes live. Being a panelist here does not guarantee you will be a panelist on Pony.fm (not even I am guaranteed that role), though it may help your chances quite a bit.

What exactly will happen to this blog when Pony.fm's artist/music spotlighting feature is launched?

Can't say for sure, actually. The most likely scenario at this point would be that this blog would stop being updated to facilitate the move to a better system, possibly with some sort of recognition for music on Pony.fm that was spotlighted in this blog. We'll just have to wait and see where the cards fall.

Pff. I don't need you or this blog. I've been featured on Equestria Daily/Everfree Network/*insert brony site here*!

To each his own, but keep in mind, being featured on those sites doesn't mean you're good, nor does being rejected from those sites mean you're bad. Regardless of how you feel about other sites, the fact still remains that there's not a single site, blog, or community that does what BMS aims to do: Review and showcase brony music in a purely objective manner, and provide critique from experienced musicians. Well, at the time, just one experienced musician.

What if I want to get feedback on a track, but don't feel it's good enough to get spotlighted?

I recommend posting it in the Fan Music section of Octavia's Hall. Feel free to even PM me as well after you've posted it.

I have a question that wasn't answered here!

Feel free to comment on this blog entry or PM me with your question.