Guild Wars 2

perilisk.1874:

The corollary is that if you don’t love Guitar Hero, don’t play it. It’s just AP.

Meta achievement reward says otherwise.

That said, 500 notes is not hard. This is my internet connection, during the good times:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/3945990167.png

And I Manage Perfect scores8. Maybe the OP needs to know when to hit the notes. Hint: it’s *after they pass the line. I set my camera to bird’s eye view for bell choir.

If this doesn’t work then listen to the songs and find whichever of the three octaves (upper, middle, lower) that you work best with and memorize when the notes should hit. Use music rather than your sight.

Also make sure you’re hitting the right keys.

UPDATE!!! After about 8 hours over 2 days, I made it! Turns out all the people saying “hit key when its in the ring you are standing on”, or “Wait for the note to PASS OVER THE LINE before playing it,” or whatever else doesn’t work for me at 10fps. I had to hit the key right as the ball was hitting the outside of the ring (even a little earlier). So most of the people giving advice on how to do it would have been completely wrong trying to do it on my computer. It took me about 6 hours of 0-3 notes per-song (oddly I was getting more on harder songs where you could get 2 of the same note quickly in a row and I was getting credit for the 2nd ball when trying for the 1st). Once I figured it out I was getting up to 15 notes a song. Wasn’t ever going to be perfect but I did mange to finish a few songs.

This does not however, change my chief complaint about this mini-game being needed for the meta with no alternatives. When you have 3 other mini-games (JP, Snowball, and Toypoc) that have achievements that don’t count for the meta why does this 1 have to? Why not make the achievement be complete 1 or 2 of them so many times. It seems really odd that the 1 mini-game that is needed is the 1 with absolutely no relation to any other part of the game. Snowball and Toypoc are still combat, in a game where the main objective is to kill things. The JP (which i will never be able to do) is at least a JP and there are tons of those all over the game world. But they make the Bells required. Makes no logical sense and is counter to idea ANET claims to be promoting of giving us more choices. On that note I do not agree with people that think the new dailies limit their choices, I just think there is a give-and-take there some people are not willing to give on. ANET gave us more choices, but not all of them are in the same area of the game.

Lothirieth.3408:

Luckily one doesn’t have to do every one of the achievements to get the meta done. One can pick and chose.

“Pick and choose” from an ever-shrinking number, and means of completion, you mean? Yeah – bully for that. Simply letting people rack up the meta points doing what they want would be fine, wouldn’kitten Why do they have to play content that they think sucks? What skin is it off of your nose, besides?

@OP: Also if you didn’t know already, you can complete the Grawnk quest rather easily and skip Bell Choir completely if you’d like to. So there are options or, at least, an alternative.

Grawnk doesn’t count. I had already done it, and even gotten my tree.

Or maybe Grawnk did count and it is 1 of the 11. either way I had already done it and was still missing the bells as the only 1 that wasn’t infinte

GZ to OP but i will pass on this winsterday meta.
people seems to miss quite a few thing.
- The BELL grind is mandatory for the eleven achiev in this wintersday.
- the infinite achiev doesn’t count toward the meta.
- the wintersday daily doesn’t count toward the meta.
- Some people like me SUCKS AT BELLS.

I never played it before and always completed my meta.
Now I can’t bypass it anymore so no meta for me.
My point; you like BELL but not everyone do.
So do not shove a minigame in our throat like that.

Guys are you serious ?

Believe me im really REALLY bad at huitar hero. Like UBER BAD. And im getting 550+ points at this game every time. Seriously dude you have to totally unskilled (no offence) or you just dont know when to press buttons (thats probably the problem).

When you go on a platform turn your camera UP (above your character head) so you can see lines better. Then wait for notes to PASS white line (well actually they can be on line but better wait for them to pass). You have to click buttons when notes are almost disappeared.

I totally feel your pain OP, I have a crap computer and lag. This mini game is pretty impossible for me because of those reasons. All I can say is you just need to practice the first 5 notes and it will take awhile to learn.

Takina.1739:

Or maybe Grawnk did count and it is 1 of the 11. either way I had already done it and was still missing the bells as the only 1 that wasn’t infinte

Well, that’s the main problem. Usually we get daillies to help us do the meta or bypass ones we don’t choose to do, but not here; it’s just unbelievably grindy to get the meta. Yes, I understand no effort = no reward, but this is one of the worst achievement sets I’ve seen for a while since the Scarlet invasion ones. Plus blatant goldsink ones like “donate several gold” are fine, but I just find the whole thing very unimaginative.

Though yes, I’d be willing to do 2000 notes than deal with toypacalypse that I can’t even play with friends anymore.

I personally LOVE Bell Choir. I’ve done it enough now that I can achieve a perfect score of 600 almost every single time. If you’re even halfway competent at it, getting 500 notes can be done in 3 or 4 games, or about 40 mins. (If you can get an average of 250 notes per game, you’re done in 2 games, or ~16 mins.)

BUT I do get that it’s not for everyone, and is why I’m quite baffled that doing the Wintersday dailies don’t count towards the meta. It was a great system that worked in previous years; why change it now? Those who are skilled at all the activities could do the meta in a single day; those that aren’t could just get it with some dedication by doing the dailies over a few days.

The one consolation I guess is that the meta doesn’t really offer anything unique. The miniatures/gifts can be gotten elsewhere, same with the AP.

Gw2 too hard. make easier please.

I’m deeply sorry but if you understand the rules of Bell Choir, it’s terribly easy to get near perfect scores, unless of course you have a health issue.

But, I know that a lot of players failing do not understand the rules. Because every year I completely fail once because those rules do not make completely sense for me and a lot of players.

Hit the note once they pass the white border of the blue circle. Not before, not during, but after they pass that border. You cannot hit the note too late (unless you completely miss it) but it’s really easy to hit it too late.

And if you’re still having a hard time : make sure your skill key are 123456789. Then place left hand finger on 1234 and right on 56789. After one or two songs you should really pick it up and be able to get near perfect scores each time.

Hell even using your mouse you should at least be able to get 1 note right every song.

People try things once and decide its too hard for them and never try again. People should try a couple of times before coming to the forums and raging……

If you fail, try and try again. Practice makes perfect. It’s a game, enjoy it, learn it, get good at it. Like playing an instrument ironically. You’re never going to be playing as well as a professional musician when you just pick it up are you? Try more than once really.

Carighan.6758:

garcialak.9215:

Why should you be rewarded for something you can’t do? Bell choir is one of the activities of wintersday.

And this, agreed. You simply cannot say “Hey, I cannot or don’t want to play Bell Choir, but you know, I should still get rewarded for achieving it”. Erm, no? You just said you don’t want to achieve anything in regards to Bell Choir, so why would you get the achievement for it? You just said that you shouldn’t!

Arrow.4619:

@Lothirieth: Unfortunately this is a required achievement for the meta achievement.

It’d be very weird if it were not.

Wintersday has a meta achievement.
“Achieve all achievements associated with Wintersday.” Makes sense, right?

So next year can we make Winter Wonderland one of the required achievements for the meta?

Can we put in Liadri as part of the next time the Queen’s Jubilee (or whatever it’s called) returns?

You’d be okay with this, I presume? And okay with using this same reasoning in the inevitable QQ threads?

See this is why games are so easy these days. The devs listen to players who are simply unable to beat content because of their personal skill. What do the devs do? They create games that take one button to do every action , or make the content so easy so everyone with down syndrome can beat it.

What does this do for the higher skilled players? It makes it completely boring for being so easy. Now players set high standards for wanting great rewards for pressing 1.

500 notes? did that in three sessions(wasn’t trying hard). Also got many presents. I am done with bell choir , but I enjoyed doing the content because it promoted a slight challenge.

When an obstacle gets in your way find a way to get passed it. Don’t cry to someone for an easier obstacle.

Palador.2170:

It’s funny that in the same patch where they revamped the dailies to reduce the grind for AP, they also put in an achievement like this.

That really isn’t fair this is holiday content. I really found most of wintersday to be a drag. It didn’t take me long to figure out i was gonna sit this one out. OP makes a fair point about 500 notes.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

See this is why games are so easy these days. The devs listen to players who are simply unable to beat content because of their personal skill. What do the devs do? They create games that take one button to do every action , or make the content so easy so everyone with down syndrome can beat it.

What does this do for the higher skilled players? It makes it completely boring for being so easy. Now players set high standards for wanting great rewards for pressing 1.

500 notes? did that in three sessions(wasn’t trying hard). Also got many presents. I am done with bell choir , but I enjoyed doing the content because it promoted a slight challenge.

When an obstacle gets in your way find a way to get passed it. Don’t cry to someone for an easier obstacle.

This is holiday reward content. Its not supposed to be a chore or a hassle. So because you liked it or thought it was easy = he’s QQing? Honestly, You are being obnoxious.

500 notes is a grind. If you want to play it and master it, what is stopping you? Go and finish 6 all songs flawlessly.

Don’t you realize difficulty is subjective? You’re probably the kind that enjoys a good korean grinder and thinks everyone is a noob. Again……obnoxious attitude.

I did this achievement over a period of three days just doing the dailies. Altogether, I think it took ten to fifteen minutes. But it felt more like five if that.

The sky is not falling.

Ayrilana.1396:

It could be that you do not know when to play the notes. There’s very little reason for there to be lag in that instance.

I’m sitting on 300ms to the ANet servers most of the time, just because of the speed of light. That’s enough of a delay to make a difference. When your listening to music and the timeline is nearly half a second out it doesn’t even sound like music.

Games like Rocksmith actually have to calibrate for the delay caused by the console and TV, and that’s usually less than 50ms.

I know exactly what is Takina going though. I live in SEA region and latency is always an issue. On good days I can get near perfect scores, but when my ISP decides to be non-cooperative, none of the keys I press will be registered correctly, doesn’t matter if I pressed it earlier, just hitting the ring, or in the circle. Doesn’t work.

The achievement itself is very easy for most players, but if you have latency and/or FPS issues, its a nightmare. Thank your stars for your fast ISP and fast PCs, for some of us do not have the luxury to own either.

Lothirieth.3408:

Luckily one doesn’t have to do every one of the achievements to get the meta done. One can pick and chose.

This year, you do need to do every one of the achievements, and can’t pick and choose. There are 11 achievements that count, and you need to complete 11. There is no room to drop one or two that you don’t like.

Nobody’s saying to eliminate achievements because they’re inconvenient, just give options to allow you to eschew one or two of them. Heck, the donation achievements seem custom-made to allow leeway: make it require 9 for the meta, and you can then use the Silver for the Season achievement to bypass one, and the Golden Generosity achievement to bypass a second – but if you can do all of the others, you’re rewarded by being able to save 3g plus silver for the achievement.

Me, I’ve got it even worse than the OP: I can’t even load the instance (tried four times, got kicked back to DR before the map even loaded each time). And like Wanderer, I’m expecting to have issues due to speed-of-light limitations if and when I do ever get in.

Mileinnor.7125:

I know exactly what is Takina going though. I live in SEA region and latency is always an issue. On good days I can get near perfect scores, but when my ISP decides to be non-cooperative, none of the keys I press will be registered correctly, doesn’t matter if I pressed it earlier, just hitting the ring, or in the circle. Doesn’t work.

The achievement itself is very easy for most players, but if you have latency and/or FPS issues, its a nightmare. Thank your stars for your fast ISP and fast PCs, for some of us do not have the luxury to own either.

True, but that applies to most things in the game. If you’re playing on a slow PC or with slow internet, everything is a lot harder than usual.

Tman.6349:

@OP: Also if you didn’t know already, you can complete the Grawnk quest rather easily and skip Bell Choir completely if you’d like to. So there are options or, at least, an alternative.

Nope, there are no options nor alternatives. You need to do specific 11 achievements, including bell choir, for the meta. You cannot pick and choose.

Teon.5168:

Takina.1739:

You seem to be missing the major point.

Takina.1739:

I played about 10 songs and have a grand total of 5 correct notes. It doesn’t seem to matter when i hit the key, I don’t get credit. Maybe it is the fact I, on a good day, play at 10FPS (this is also why I don’t do speed/time based jump puzzles) and so when I think it is the right time to hit the key the game says it has already passed. I had this problem getting my 10 wave jumps at Teq. Some days I have to jump way early and other days i don’t just because on some days I lag more than others.

I would say the problem is your computer and/or internet connection. If you’re only getting 10fps on a good day, how on earth are you able to play any part of this game?

I paly at 20FPS on a normal day. You get used to playing the game and accountign for your own lag I suppose. Unless my FPS tanks to 3-5 FPS on a popular map I can even do JPs.

At the OP If you don’t know you have to hit the corresponding notes when the colored ball is in the blue circle before it hits you. If you are playing with high lag like I do.. I hit the note when I see the ball at the white line .. I have gotten several perfect games this way.

Dude, it’s easy. It’s your horrible PC. Simply don’t complain about it, and buy a new PC kitten …

FIVE HUNDRED!!! I know right…

But it IS an achievement after all.

Its like Anet has these GREAT ideas one day and the WORST the next day.

Achievements should be HARD, not TEDIOUS, know the difference.

Okay, I got in, and did it then and there, because I didn’t want to have it waiting for me later in the season.

Didn’t time how long it took. Less then an hour. Short enough that I wouldn’t consider it grind…

…if it was something I had any enjoyment and/or interest in in the first place. I don’t. The whole time I was there, I was mechanically pressing buttons and waiting for the achievement to finish so I could do something I actually find fun.

Here’s the thing: ArenaNet has put in a lot of various things that fall outside the normal gameplay of an MMO, and are not the things people sign up for an MMO expecting to do. There is nothing wrong with this. All these little minigames are fun for somebody, even if they aren’t somebody else’s cup of tea, and they make for refreshing diversions from the normal gameplay.

But at the bottom line, each one of these is going to have some people who like it, and some people who don’t. In the past, festival metas have allowed people to have some leeway in how they completed it – you generally had to do some of the special festival stuff, but if there was something you particularly hated or were uninterested in, you could avoid it. This Wintersday, there was no such choice.

For all of you saying this isn’t a problem: think back to whichever the piece of content put out by ArenaNet that you least enjoyed doing, whether out of yawn-inducing boredom or teeth-grinding frustration – be that a minigame, a particular game mode, hanging around the south camp of Vandal’s Claim waiting for enough Sinister Triad mooks to spawn to complete the event, or whatever. Now, imagine that the next festival meta requires spending an hour or so doing that, and if you do not, you are locked out of the meta regardless of what else you do. Be honest here, now: How would you feel?

draxynnic.3719:

For all of you saying this isn’t a problem: think back to whichever the piece of content put out by ArenaNet that you least enjoyed doing, whether out of yawn-inducing boredom or teeth-grinding frustration – be that a minigame, a particular game mode, hanging around the south camp of Vandal’s Claim waiting for enough Sinister Triad mooks to spawn to complete the event, or whatever. Now, imagine that the next festival meta requires spending an hour or so doing that, and if you do not, you are locked out of the meta regardless of what else you do. Be honest here, now: How would you feel?

If I feel the reward would justify it, I would do it and not complain. If I feel it does not, I would not do it and also not complain.
Since I value my free time highly, I quickly decide a reward is not worth it if I do not like doing whatever is required for it. Luckily, I do enjoy doing different things so the chances of the second option happening are pretty small in my case.
Perhaps the only way it would bother me hard enough to complain is if the reward was not merely cosmetic but gave the other party gameplay advantages beyond very simple QOL improvement.

That said, I thought the system where there were a bit more options than the amount of tasks required for meta was quite good for those who have stronger and more limited preferences than me. Returning to the format of a strict checklist does seem like a step backwards.

I think most of you are missing the point.

Personnally I finished this achievement in less than half an hour, I typically have scores of 580+ at the end of the rounds. So I thought, why complain about this, it’s easy…

But then I had that EU-lag, that happens from time to time. And then you will not complete a single round. I quite often score 100/100 per song, but then I was thrown out of the bell choir after a few seconds. There is no feedback on what happens, nothing, you’re just out.

So I can now understand how it feels if you have to do this and you are not in the lucky situation of having fibre-channel connection somewhere in the US. This game is fun (at least for me), but too fragile.

Halvorn.9831:

I think most of you are missing the point.

Personnally I finished this achievement in less than half an hour, I typically have scores of 580+ at the end of the rounds. So I thought, why complain about this, it’s easy…

But then I had that EU-lag, that happens from time to time. And then you will not complete a single round. I quite often score 100/100 per song, but then I was thrown out of the bell choir after a few seconds. There is no feedback on what happens, nothing, you’re just out.

So I can now understand how it feels if you have to do this and you are not in the lucky situation of having fibre-channel connection somewhere in the US. This game is fun (at least for me), but too fragile.

Try playing on EU from South Africa, nightmarish…

DaveGan.8065:

So next year can we make Winter Wonderland one of the required achievements for the meta?

It’s not? :o

I didn’t really pay attention to that because it was pretty much the first thing I did, but honestly if it’s not then it ought to be.

DaveGan.8065:

Can we put in Liadri as part of the next time the Queen’s Jubilee (or whatever it’s called) returns?

Again, I thought on normal mode it was already? If not, should be.

To explain my stance on this a bit more, achievements which are trivial / automated / overly easy to get are entirely pointless, IMO.
Why have them in the first place? What achievements can do is reward content requiring skill, dedication or persistence (or any mix), in a situation where giving factually superior rewards would be unwanted.

As an example, if completing event A gives you (random example) a lvl80 exotic, then the hard mode version event B could give you an ascended item. Easy enough.
But what if event A already gives you a specific ascended? Then you cannot simply reward an even better item without going against the core idea of GW2’s item system.
So what you can do is instead reward an achievement. To then attach bragging rights to it, this achievement could give a special skin, minipet, title, finisher, anything fluff to show to everyone “Hey, I did this!”.

An example I thought up for another thread would be to give Agent of Entropy (remove the current repeatable stupid version) for salvaging a Legendary. It should then award a title, “Agent of Entropy”. Good luck showing that around, but it would be an interesting achievement to have in your game.

How are the bells different than doing the meta-achievements for the living story (ie: for the glowing armor pieces)?

If you want the gear/skin/mini/etc… you have to go through the gate.

I am on vacation right now, stuck with an old laptop, no proper keyboard or mouse or even comfortable chair, terrible (throttled) internet connection, and with anything between 5 and 15 FPS (that is, outside boss fights, which I can outright not do right now).

I absolutely cannot do the jumping puzzle under these conditions. You miss one jump, you have to start over.

I can do bell choir. You miss one note, or even quite a few in a row, you have the chance to heal back up by hitting a right note.

Last year, playing from my own PC, I got pretty good scores at bell choir, and I really enjoyed playing it, so I have that going for me.

This time, I have to live with getting between 20 and 60 points out of 100 per song. But, unlike the jumping puzzle, it is doable.

Because for the daily, all you have to do is survive a single song. (And if it’s the first song and you pick the lower part… it is quite doable, even under the conditions I deal with right now, which are pretty bad and do not fulfill the MMO minimum requirements.) And for the meta, just do the daily a few times in a row and the 500 notes will be done in no time. The patch has been out for not even one week out of four. You have all the time in the world to do this bit by bit.

I realise that there is a handful of players who have it harder and on top of it all have no fun doing it and I feel for you guys, I really do. But… with everything in the game there is always some (in this case, fewer than usual) few players that are not able to do it, for an array of possible reasons.

But honestly, it could be so… much… worse. It could be 6/6 for dailies.

the bell isnt demanding as any rhythm game
it doesnt require u to hit the note exactly on the right timing, u cant get exact timing either due to the lag
it only require u to hit the note after it pass the line

And another tip to help you get more notes right:

do yourself a favor and turn OFF the sound. It will make a huge difference :-)

I found hearing other player’s notes and mistakes to be hugely distracting.

I managed to do the achieve on an ergonomic split keyboard which originally I had thought would be impossible. I also put up small numbered sticky notes on my screen on each note bar and got them lined up in the arc so each time I got back on I was able to angle my camera so they more or less lined up again. It totally helped me as a totally non music player get enough notes that I was able to get the achieve. (I do believe someone put that out there as a hint last year). You do have to wait until the note gets down into the blue area before hitting the key.

Also I am not sure if there is any difference if you are on the high, low or middle as far as ease in getting through the songs. I thought the high and the low bits were easier than the middle, at least for me.

Carighan.6758:

snip

We don’t seem to be in disagreement.

My post was aimed at the hypocritical white knights who defend the status quo because simple because it is the status quo. I simply wanted to see if the guy was actually 100% serious that every achievement should be required for the meta.

PS: The Queen’s Gauntlet meta allowed flexibility, and Winter Wonderland is not required in the current meta.

Takina.1739:

UPDATE!!! After about 8 hours over 2 days, I made it! Turns out all the people saying “hit key when its in the ring you are standing on”, or “Wait for the note to PASS OVER THE LINE before playing it,” or whatever else doesn’t work for me at 10fps. I had to hit the key right as the ball was hitting the outside of the ring (even a little earlier). So most of the people giving advice on how to do it would have been completely wrong trying to do it on my computer.

Congrats!

I’d like to point out that all the advice probably made you analyse your issue, however that you figured out what worked for you is more important.

Takina.1739:

This does not however, change my chief complaint about this mini-game being needed for the meta with no alternatives.

This is not new. There are many “major” meta achievements that you have to complete all parts off to complete and have no alternatives. Teq and Triple Trouble come to mind.

Peace.

One thing I noticed last night which was quite odd with the bells is despite my fps rate not changing, I went from several instances getting a score of 550 to 588, then my last instance I couldn’t hit one correct note.

Not that I care as I completed the achievement long ago, but I found it very odd that suddenly on one instance, it did not matter when the note was struck, it was always a miss.

DeadlySynz.3471:

One thing I noticed last night which was quite odd with the bells is despite my fps rate not changing, I went from several instances getting a score of 550 to 588, then my last instance I couldn’t hit one correct note.

Not that I care as I completed the achievement long ago, but I found it very odd that suddenly on one instance, it did not matter when the note was struck, it was always a miss.

I found myself in the same situation yesterday, however, just leaving the instance and joining a new one fixed it for me. Maybe this lag is not always only to blame on the clientside.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I realise that there is a handful of players who have it harder and on top of it all have no fun doing it and I feel for you guys, I really do. But… with everything in the game there is always some (in this case, fewer than usual) few players that are not able to do it, for an array of possible reasons.

In the past, there was a simple solution for this: You had choice. You had a range of things you could do, and as long as you did the majority of them, you could skip one or two you didn’t like.

For those citing the Tequatl achievement, there are several reasons this is different:

First, Tequatl is supposed to be advanced content. The festivals are supposed to be something lighthearted and silly that everyone can participate in.

Second, Tequatl is based firmly in the core mechanics of the game – jumping and dodging to evade attacks, killing monsters, finding loot, and so on. None of the Tequatl achievements involve anything that go out of the norms for GW2’s core gameplay – there’s no achievement that’s based on a Risen-themed Frogger-inspired minigame, for instance. At worst, they ask you to do something you wouldn’t normally do as part of the event, like allow yourself to be caught in the undertow once.

Third, the Tequatl meta is self-contained. Everything you need to do the Tequatl meta is contained within the Tequatl event. If you like Tequatl, then you can do Tequatl exclusively and get the meta. If you don’t like Tequatl, then you can write it off without having wasted the work of a half-dozen other achievements that contribute towards a meta achievement that is gated behind Tequatl.

Last and possibly least… Tequatl is an untimed, non-repeating meta-achievement. Finish it off whenever you feel like it (spawns permitting). Once you’ve finished it, it’s done, and if there was anything you didn’t enjoy about it, you don’t have to worry about it coming up again next year.

I was telling people the same at release in regards to jumping puzzles.

“If you like Crash Bandicoot go play it…”

Nothing changed…I’d build a bridge OP.

I did this cheevo in 20 minutes playing nonstop.

Add I suck at timing (and did I mention I’m a mouse clicker, and don’t use the keyboard?)

It’s not that hard.

Just a few days ago, I was going crazy with the bell choir game too – none of notes registered as well, and it was the most frustrating thing ever.

But than, I started playing the notes AFTER they come into your circle, it is at that moment that a huge time window opens for you to press it, which is about of a whole second.

And i have also STOPPED looking at the character animations. The animations are completely off, and the way I played before was, to sync the character animation with the notes so the character would “hit” the notes just before they entered the circle. That is COMPLETELY wrong and more than a second too early. Once I started to ignore the character animations and pressing notes only when they enter the circle, I immediately went from 0% notes hit to 100% on easier, and about 50% on the hardest songs (which is more than enough to complete).

So if you do it this way, you are able to hit 500 notes in about 3 or 4 series of games easily.

Ever since than, the most frustrating game mode has become very relaxing and enjoyable for me, and now I play it every day, for fun. It is a lot of fun, and the penalties for missing notes are really forgiving, so after just a little bit of practice, you really cannot fail a song – even the hardest ones.