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Thank you for such a great competition! I had my own problems coming through with this, as I am a big fan of Kirby soundtrack and was originally going to do something for that track, but instead went for Dragon's Lair because I thought it would be more challenging. I am very glad to have participated in this and I marked for myself a few great composers, which their entry stunned me, ironically it's both Kirby entries which were my absolute favourite and I had a hard time choosing between them, who to give my vote for. I want to say special thanks to every judge that took time to make a feedback and reasons for their scoring points. That was immense and impressive. Thank you for your passion towards all this. Regardless, I wanted to point out some points of judges here and explain a few things in my entry: To Thatguy v2.0, chopin: The rip is due to rendering issue, which I noticed unfortunately only after I sent my work. It's not caused by db levels. I am extremely sorry to all listeners about it. I will mockup the piece later on and post it in a different thread so you can enjoy it with some libraries and without such noise 🙂 To PeterthePapercomPoser: You've got right feelings about the ending, because originally the piece was 15 minutes long. Not only was it not allowed to have such a long piece, but I didn't have enough time to complete in full details, so I had to cut everything I felt not needed for story. Further problems developed as I had some issues irl and was about to miss the competition completely, but I got it in the last second and seriously blessed to have this entry in 2nd place. To Henry Ng Tsz Kiu: About using transposing score. It really depends on the score and where you are based. I am from Russia and transposing scores here are definitely the most popular, but I felt like using concerto score just for the sake of everyone's understanding it without any issues, since I was sending it to the international competition. To Omicronrg9: Thank you for pointing out the piano mistake! No excuse for it. All in all, as for the score, I understood straight away, that I wouldn't recieve the highest remarks just because of the time constraints that I had on giving it more details and a thorough review as I sent my submission the last possible second. Very glad you enjoyed it. I definitely enjoyed researching the Dragon's Lair soundtrack and I am glad you felt that from the music. I also would like to again give my highest praises to Grape Garden and Revisiting Kirby as my total favourites. Both of you caught the sense of the initial soundtrack amazingly and delivered a total banger. Major thanks to all the other participants as well, I had a blast listening to your works! Really hope to participate in such events in the future! Very well done to organisers! Cannot thank you enough! P.S. Notice how @Ferrum did not recieve bragging rights, haha 😄

Thanks to all the participants who submitted music to the competition - the recipients of "The Participant Award"! Click on the links of each entry to read all the reviews for that entry: Entry A - "Blast Off!" by @Eickso Entry B - "Caprice for Solo Violin No.1" by @luderart Entry C by @MrMule96 Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur Entry E - "Fantasy on a Theme from Castlevania 2" by @bkho Entry F by @ComposaBoi Entry G - "Revisiting Kirby" by @Setthavat Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev For winning the Themes/Melodies/Motives category with a score of 7.65, Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev receives the "Tune Smith" badge! For winning the Harmony/Chords/Textures category with a score of 7.73, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "Ingenious Harmonizer" badge! For winning the Form/Development/Structure category with a score of 7.37, Entry G - "Revisiting Kirby" by @Setthavat receives the "Musical Architect" badge! For winning the Originality/Creativity category with a score of 7.80, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "Musical Explorer" badge! For winning the Score Presentation category with a score of 7.72, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "Immaculate Engraver" badge! For winning the Instrumentation/Orchestration category with a score of 7.63, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "Outstanding Orchestrator" badge! For winning the Execution of Given Challenge category with a score of 7.50, Entry G - "Revisiting Kirby" by @Setthavat receives the "Theme Winner" badge! For winning the Taste category with a score of 7.65, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "Impeccable Taste" badge! For winning 1st Place in the popular voting polls, with 16 points, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "1st Place Popular Vote" badge! For winning 2nd Place in the popular voting polls, with 15 points, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "2nd Place Popular Vote" badge! For winning 3rd Place in the popular voting polls, with 12 points, Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev receives the "3rd Place Popular Vote" badge! For winning the Favorite "Dragon's Lair" Banger in the popular voting polls, Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev receives the "Favorite Dragon" badge! For winning the Favorite "Treasure Master" Banger in the popular voting polls, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "Favorite Treasure" badge! For winning the Favorite "Kirby's Adventure" Banger in the popular voting polls, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "Favorite Kirby" badge! For winning the Favorite "Castlevania" Banger, Entry E by @bkho receives the "Favorite Castlevania Banger" badge! And now ==< drumroll >== for the official winners of the "From Bits to Bangers" Instrumental Music Composition Competition: For winning 1st Place with a score of 7.47, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "1st Place" badge and the $100 USD prize! For winning 2nd Place with a score of 7.29, Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev receives the "2nd Place" badge and bragging rights! For winning 3rd Place with a score of 7.25, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "3rd Place" badge and bragging rights! Congratulations to all the winners! And thank you to all the players @Tónskáld, @Thatguy v2.0, @PeterthePapercomPoser, @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, @Omicronrg9, @chopin for judging the competition! They will be the recipients of the "Player Award" badge! A special thanks goes out to @Tónskáld and @PeterthePapercomPoser for organizing the competition! They will receive the "Community Organizer" badge! And an extra special thanks goes out to @Tónskáld for financing the competition! He will receive the "Patron Award" badge! Here are all the reviews by player: Tónskáld, Thatguy v2.0, PeterthePapercomPoser, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, Omicronrg9, chopin. To check out the scoreboards where each player kept track of their scores, go here: Tónskáld, Thatguy v2.0, PeterthePapercomPoser, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, Omicronrg9, chopin. To check out the final results scoreboard where all the final scores were calculated, go here: Final Results Scoreboard We encourage all the participants to now submit their entries under their name for further feedback from the community! Also - the winners' bangers will then be able to be moved into the "Competition Hall of Fame"! To listen to all the submissions go here: Please take our "From Bits to Bangers" Competition Satisfaction Survey: For the competition announcement, where you can listen to all the original 8-bit tracks, go here:

Hi all, Slightly bummed my piece didn’t place in the competition, but it received a live premiere two nights ago. So, cannot complain. Pretty decent premiere, too! It’s just a fun work. Didn’t try to push the bounds too much. Wrote the music in 3 days and took another 2 days to engrave and edit. Just supposed to be loud and fast. I think the ending section is a pretty cool ending, though. I wish the drummer went a bit crazier. I told him like 3 times in rehearsals, but he wanted something mellower. We also swapped DB for electric bass. Video: Score: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9i2abuvvcwvltb8/Blast Off! - Full score.pdf?dl=0

Congratulations to all the entrants, they were outstanding and I learned a lot from all of you. A hearty congratulations to all the winners and most of all, thank you to the judges who clearly took a great deal of time to listen and provide constructive feedback to each submission.

It's that time again. I may have gotten weird with the score.

This is the first of the set and also the first one composed. This was also my first work in which I attempted tonal vagueness or an impressionistic style.

This is the short introduction movement of an orchestral piece that I'm writing for fun called "Legends, Fabled Tales, and Ancient Doings." My intention with this project is to compose the emotions and color of a world of fantasy and the theoretical epic tales that would come with it. Later on, I plan on adding several movements to it to make it a whole piece. Let me know what you think of this first movement! I welcome any feedback/suggestions/criticisms. 1. Entrance into the Mythic Forest (Score).pdf

The only other one I have is the first, and maybe second if I can find it, I'll post them shortly. I appreciate your feedback! Thanks for listening

I agree with @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu; this sounded more Gothic and scary-castle-ish to me. With soundtrack or ambience music, we have to be very careful when we write imitatively, as you've done here with the spinning clock and sounding alarm. There is a real chance that your imitations will fall flat with your listeners, that they won't sound at all like the things you're trying to imitate. It's usually better to go with representations of the sounds rather than straight mimicry. So, for example, rather than have the organ imitate "ticking clock" sounds, you might instead focus on creating a feeling of anxiety. It's not bad music what you've written, just might use a little bit of improvement. Thanks for sharing! Jörfi

I feel you've raised the most important issues and why serialism has been superseded by a return to plain atonality or partial atonality because one is less restrained by linguistic rules- by which I mean: set up linguistic rules uniquely for a particular composition, but don't expect the listener to be able to interpret what results. (A little like listening to a news cast in a completely unfamiliar foreign language. The sound of the language might appeal even if the listener has no chance grasping a meaning.). Having said that, it may appeal to those who can just listen with zero expectations but as Tonskald said, they're few and far between and there are always some expectations no matter what. A silence here and there for example. True, you thin out to a solo note here and there, like dead-on 5'00" and that was welcome...but then it reverts to its unchanging slow tempo. One might hope that what followed was episodically different. I sat through about 5 1/2 minutes hoping for a noticeable variation in tempo and dynamic but it was not to be. There are some lovely moments in it sound-wise nonetheless but more because of the combination your rules landed on than serialism itself. I wish you well with your underlying aims which will no doubt appeal to a few who appreciate them. Edit (I should add that more variation in dynamics, particularly instrument entries being more pronounced, may help but these will probably break your rules.)

Thank you for the review. My view on serialism is that it works only at larger structural levels and it is better for the lower surface levels to be done intutively / undeterministically if you want the result to sound natural. For example If you want to serialise rhythm its better to generate collections of rhythms and serialise the use of those than serialising individual durations and rhythms. About the chords, they are derived from combining two diatonic modes (with their important notes prioratized) each which produces often non-diatonic collections but retain some familirarity I think. About the counterpoint: I used to use too much, generating very dense polyphonic textures, maybe I went the other way in this now! I think it definitely can be improved in some ways you suggested with more focused phrasal structures and pseudo-cadences of various kinds so that the flow is less continued and the music breathes.

As a few of you already know, my tone poem El Cadejos, Op. 38 (a work resulting of another YC competition back in 2013) was selected by Costa Rica's National Symphony Orchestra for a live reading (and possibly a premiere in the near future). I was fortunate enough to have recorded a few sections of the rehearsal - and since none of YC members have ever heard a live recording of any of my orchestral pieces, I wanted to thank the community for its continued support by sharing a short excerpt of it (about 1:30 minutes, close to the piece's end). So... here it is. http://www.robert-f-beers.com/426370041 (BTW, that's my "official site" in Spanish, and the recording is the first listed piece). Let me know if the link is fine. Thanks a lot!!