Trivial Matters

I haven’t contributed to the FAQs in a while, so here’s another.

WTF? I’ve been searching for “pub quiz” on Google and your blog came up, but you left me hanging after the Bingo Round. What gives?

Sorry about that. It’s been kinda busy around here, and there were some other things I wanted to talk about for a while.

Ok. All is forgiven. Just don’t tell me that I have to listen to quizzers sing in this round.

Nope. (Unless you really want to.)

So I just play a bunch of songs and have people write down the names?

Sure. That’s one way to do it. Of course, you don’t want to play the enire song. 1) It’ll be way too easy and 2) it’ll take way too long. You want to play just enough that the average quizzer can keep singing the song in their head and come up with the answer. It’s best to play a verse rather than a chorus because the title of the song is usually in the chorus.

How many times should I play the clip?

Like in any other round, you want to repeat the “question,” which in this case is the clip itself. But don’t play them back-to-back. Give the players a chance to work it out, then announce that you are going to repeat the clip so that they can pay attention.

Should I ask for the name of the song, the artist, or both?

That’s up to you. In my name that tune round, I played all cover songs and announced the artist that was singing in the clip. Then I asked for the name of the song and the original artist. It all depends on your style and theme of the quiz.

Another variation would be to announce the title and artist, play the clip, and then ask a follow-up question. Or have them complete the lyric. Or ask a totally unrelated question (but that would be kinda confusing… and a little mean).

Is there any way to set up my computer to play just the clip if I don’t have mp3 editing software?

If you’re using iTunes, then yes. I don’t know about other players, but I’m sure if you look around you’ll find something similar to the iTunes function.

In iTunes: First listen to the song and write down the timestamps for the beginning and end of the clip. Then, right-click on the song and select “Get Info.” Under the “Options” tab, you should see a start and stop time field. Check the boxes and enter the timestamps from before. Go back and play the clip again to make sure everythign it there. (The display will only give minutes and seconds for the timestamp, but you can tweak it by tenths of a second in the individual fields.)

It’s best to create a playlist with you clips, and uncheck all of the boxes to make sure they only play one at a time. Also, when you’re done, you have to go back and clear the start and stop time fields and uncheck those boxes to return the song to normal playing.

Any other tips?

If you are doing this in a public place, make sure you have a decent sound system. It’s unlikely that everyone there is playing, so they won’t be polite enough to shut their traps during the round. You want something loud and clear.

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