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It's that time again! Time for another Young Composer's Musical Composition Competition and thanks to @TristanTheTristan who has instigated this poll! There are a few things we'd like the members to help us determine (and to help gauge the level of interest in another competition): 1) What should the competition be about? To write background music for one of @chopin 's Retry Bro's YouTube videos. Explanation: @chopin has a new YouTube channel! It's called Retry Bros. and consists of him playing Super Mario Maker levels and coming up with entertaining narration from Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Bowser, and other assorted characters. There's also a musical element. So far, Mike has come up with some clever lyrics and used AI to make realistic sounding songs that go along with the video. Now, where you would come in is that you'd be writing background music for one of @chopin 's new videos! To write some kind of autobiographical piece with a paragraph describing how the music portrays the autobiographical material. This one is @UncleRed99 's suggestion. The idea is to "write a piece that simply tells a story about your life, and something meaningful within it. Utilize complex elements to express emotion, tension, or any other desired emotional or mentally relatable expression. Provide a brief summary describing the root of the story being told." @Thatguy v2.0's proposal is for everyone to write a piece about their home landscape. This theme could be called "Landscapes - Soundscapes." @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu bestowed his theme proposal to me so I decided to include another theme in the options: "Sound Mimesis - Acoustic Anatomy". The idea is to use the instruments at your disposal to mimic sounds in your natural environment (although the sounds don't technically have to be created by nature - they could definitely be artificial sounds, but should be mimicked by acoustic instruments). My own idea is for the members to write M&M&M's - Mock-ups, Mash-ups and Medleys. The idea is for the members to take 2 or more preexisting themes from different genres of music and to make mash-ups and Medleys with them. 2) What kind of ensemble should the competitors be free to choose to write for? Solo piano/keyboard or solo polyphonic instrument (such as guitar or harp) One monophonic instrument accompanied by one polyphonic instrument Choice of mixed trio/quartet/quintet of individual instruments Chamber orchestra (string orchestra) Full orchestra 3) How many months should the competition span? (1 month, 2 months or 3 months) The duration of each piece should once again be between 3 - 7 minutes. Reviewing the entries will once again be spearheaded by the members/competitors at large. You are free to use the Official Competition Reviewing Template or you can review the entries in any way you see fit or create a template of your own making! There will be tiered "Ardent Reviewer" badges given out for this event: Featherweight Reviewer - for reviewing 33% of the entries submitted to the event Welterweight Reviewer - for reviewing 66% of the entries submitted to the event Heavyweight Reviewer - for reviewing 100% of the entries submitted to the event We are instituting a policy of not allowing any AI generated works in the competition. Because of this you will be required to detail how you created your piece and submit a PDF score or midi file for the perusal of the staff and members at large.

Hello @Marek , I see, that you have joined the forum recently and now at the first topic you have the fortune – or even the evil – that you’ve received a very detailed review which is not only intended as suggestion on the improvement of your particular piece but useful to all other members in this forum. So I could imagine, that there will be many replies on this topic in the future – perhaps a discussion or even a little dispute about the issues MK_Piano pointed out, especially on engraving. So there is my advice, take that serious, but not personal. I remember on a topic by Frederic Gill where some members had (their own) conversation about details he surely had not in mind and finally was a bit overwhelmed and „overteached“, so that I was a bit afraid he would be too disappointed and would leave the forum at all. Therefore, I now come first to your music, where I only speak from my listening impression: I can really imagine a shore in the morning where the fog is slowly lifting and the sun comes on shining through the clouds. It’s a very calm and serene moment, in which the perception of time seems to be gone away. After you’ve walked an endlessly seeming time at the shore, you turn your head and look back – now discovering the great lighthouse you hadn’t seen before, since it was hidden by the cliffs above, you now have passed. I tell that story to express the sole criticism which I have, and that is the length of the piece in comparison with the things that happen. And in this I can only agree with MK_Piano’s comments on his final pages of the annotated score. Now to the comments concerning engraving: Hello @MK_Piano, thank you for your effort you have put into annotating the score. I think this is helpful not only for Marek, but also to me and many other forum members. There are a few general rules you pointed out which one should follow to achieve a clear score presentation, for example • No dynamics on rests. • Not to prolong notes using ties whenever it is possible to notate otherwise, for example with dotted notes. • No separated rests whenever it is possible to combine them into a larger rest. • No diminuendo to „nothing“ (e.g. unplayable dynamic marks like „pianississimo“). • Some aesthetics (clashing dynamics symbols). And in the examples in that particular score, it is „obvious“ to follow that rules would be a huge improvement. However, as I remember at some of my piano preludes and fugues, there are some situations where I intentionally violated that rules in situations where I find that the score becomes more readable when using tied notes instead of dotted ones or when separating longer rests and put the shorter against the notes of the same length in another voice – to mention some examples. I don’t want to go into detail with this at Marek’s thread here, so I would ask you whether I could discuss that topic with you in the future, for example when I’m about to present that respective pieces here on the forum. One advice I can really emphasize, is to maintain two different scores. One as the „printing“ score to be used for playing from, and one solely for the purpose of recording in your software. I do so with all of my pieces, and the „recording“ score is full of exaggerated articulations, dynamic marks and even micro tempo changes to achieve a satisfying, more realistic recording result wherein I can express my ideas about the interpretation.

I'm creating an absurdist world, where the series link together...so it might be weird if you aren't into that kind of humor lol. But I rely on music to help with storytelling. Here's an example of a musical, but I also started doing mini episodes.

Hello everyone! I‘m very excited looking forward to the next competition I would like to participate. The suggestions concerning the the topic in combination with the instrumentation are very interesting, but also challenging. After a quick look, I’m not really sure yet which topic/instrumentation I would prefer, and which musical idea would best fit for any of them, so I need to take some time thinking about, how to vote in the poll. (Hopefully, I won‘t miss the deadline ...)

That sounds really interesting. Is there a video of @chopin doing something like this that I can watch? I like this idea, as well as the landscape one and the mashup. As for the overall theme, I don’t know—it should be open-ended, right? And as for the duration of the competition, maybe two months at most, so it doesn’t spill over into the next season.

Wonderful suggestions! I am eager to see what this one turns out to be. In my opinion, I wish I voted for two genres as both landscapes or autobiographical writing seems very interesting to me. I do like writing for large orchestra, but for things like this, I find the intimate nature of a chamber group or solo instrument befitting for a few minutes depicting spring. Two months seem very appropriate to start a brand new work and finish it.

As smooth as the rolling seas with the fog. -fruit hunter approves! I’m a serious note even with MuseScore basic sounds this sounds amazing. This is definitely a good ballad to program into a concert orchestra and we need more music like this although that I may say that the orchestra is kind of a dying art in itself hopefully in the future change will be made that academic full orchestra’s can be existing and play music by composers and just not arrangers This would sound incredibly beautiful with real instruments or even just muse sounds

Hello everone 🙂 My first post here is part one of larger composition I am currently working on. The composition is called The Great Lighthouse and is inspired by Christopher Paolini's book Fractal Noise. Part one is written in largo - A minor and is called Discovery. Please enjoy and any feedback would be appreciated 🙂 Musescore: https://musescore.com/user/60829534/scores/32485457

@Wieland Handke Of course! Feel free to message me here, on discord or other! As a brief reply: With all the rules or trends in music, it is equally often to see breaks in the trends. If you know the product will be effective, then it is only in your best interest to do so! Again, @Marek, I am eager to see how your music will change. Even me, if I shared my first attempts…. It would be bad. 😅

This forum update was a big one, which is why I put it off for a year. But I have about 90% of things back. As of now, I just made another update. MP3s and PDFs are back and with improvements. We have proper view counts now (finally!). I will be working on getting our old colors back, and don't worry, the logo will be back too. Hopefully I can also bring back the chatbox, I just need a few more days. Another major update which has been quite hidden, is the integration of a new music notation software that I've been working on for some time. That's why I had to update the forum, I'm getting ready for a release of Version 1 soon. The early adopters of Music Jotter will be migrating here and I'll be using the forums for issues and customer management. I'll also be opening up a subscriber tier (The forum will always remain free but the subscriber tier helps me develop Music Jotter, for those interested in the new technology). Overall, this forum software also should be a lot faster, so hopefully we see some improvements with speed!

The beauty about music is that even simple things can sound complex or can be just as effective. Before you completely scrap your work (as we all know that is annoying to do), with the theme consider writing a 2-bar version, 4-bar version, and 8-bar version. You already have a motif or material to base from. You can do this separately on a manuscript or other file before the main work too. With the accompaniment parts: To Me, sometimes long sustains in the orchestra translate to when I use the sustain pedal on the piano. Where I take the long harmony I am sustaining from my improv and translate it to paper. The French Horns are great for gestures like this, or even simpler, the strings. (Bassoon + clarinets are good too!) Take whatever harmony, divide between the accompaniment instruments and just hit the harmony every few beats or on the beats. It’s probably the most basic way to pulse harmony.

A short song I wrote in two days. Do you guys have any critique on any "breathing issues" that may arise? Also do you think it ends too abruptly, or is it okay for a short piece? Though it's mostly classical, do tell me if it works in your opinion. Note: I usually sing my own songs if I can--but this one was way too difficult for my cigarette-smoking, untrained throat to handle XD. So I used an AI-based vocaloid sort of. (Yeah, I kind of feel guilty for using an AI vocaloid, but everything else just sounds so trash, I wanna tear my hair out. Sorry ;_;)

So you might not suspect it, but microtonality is actually much more common than you'd think! When blues singers and soloists bend their notes up or down, they're using microtonality. When Pop singers accidentally sing a little bit out of tune, it's microtonality (even though it might not be deliberate). When out of tune sound effects happen in VGM or Film music that are just part of the vibe, it's microtonality. When string instruments do glissandi or guitars are played with a slide or a bend, it's microtonality So don't be shy and bring on any example you can think of that exemplifies microtonality! Here's my example from Chrono Trigger, the classic RPG for the Super Nintendo. This is the music that plays during 2,300 A.D. and is called "Ruined World": The microtonality in question can be heard in the background sound effect of what I presume to be a set of metallic cans being hit against each other.

Hello Marek Please don't despair or feel Broken hearted, for trying hard to make a composition be appreciated, for being Special . It is appreciated and special , because its Totally Unique, your the one who created it. Medicine can taste Horrible, and make you feel ill, but in the Long-Term, it can actually help. and its the same with advice from those who are qualified to give it ,and without payment required, so thats a good thing. This is your First Post, and it was good, but MK's advice can also lead you to better things in future posts , so please don't be too despondent There's even greater scores for you to discover , in your future compositions. i wish you luck. MK.............. Im pleased your post was recognized by PeterthePapercomPoser!