James H. Posted January 12, 2008 Share Posted January 12, 2008 *Too busy cleaning room and doing housework and getting yelled at to actually start something* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oingo86 Posted January 12, 2008 Share Posted January 12, 2008 I have the Theme down so far... ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James H. Posted January 12, 2008 Share Posted January 12, 2008 Yes! I have my theme down... 24 measures so far! Is it okay if we never state the theme in it's original form? The first time I have the theme, it's altered, but it's immediately recognizable, so anybody would know the original. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morivou Posted January 12, 2008 Author Share Posted January 12, 2008 I don't really care, I said it could be original OR non-original... so I guess it is a little of both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Posted January 12, 2008 Share Posted January 12, 2008 can your arrangement of the theme count like one variation? I don't think I'm going to manage four variations, and theme arrangement plus three variations makes a nice form in my mind... I could probably scrape a fourth at a push, but I'm not sure it would fit... :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dev Posted January 12, 2008 Share Posted January 12, 2008 Does the fact that I used an original theme make me more special cause it should Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirk Gently Posted January 12, 2008 Share Posted January 12, 2008 Depends on how good the theme is :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
virtualshock Posted January 12, 2008 Share Posted January 12, 2008 I am done:O. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jujimufu Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 Are all the compositions going to be judged by every judge? And are we going to solely judge them by giving a text commentary on the score? I think that all the judges should judge the piece according to five agreed-upon criteria (for example, "instrumentation", "form", "development" (including the treatment of the theme and variations), "notation" and "compliance" (with the rules) ) and have like, 5 points for each criterion (a total of 25). Thus, we would grade the pieces according to those 5 criteria (X out of 5 points) and also give a general comment on each piece, so the composition with the most cummulative points will win (and also we could declare a winner on each distinct category - best "instrumentation" composition, best "form" composition etc, if we wanted to, of course). Moreover, this would be good because it will make judges elaborate on their markings, so that if a judge gives 1/5 in the "instrumentation" criterion of a piece and another gives 5/5, they will both have to explain why they gave that grade and not just by saying "1/5 because the instrumentation sucks" (it's obvious that that's what the judge thinks if he gave the piece a 1/5 on instrumentation..), but like "1/5 because the instruments' choice is not justified by the range in which each instrument plays, and dynamics have not been assigned to instruments which are relatively more suitable in this kind of dynamic range (e.g. the composer wrote a ppp on the low register of the tubas and fff on the high register of the piano)" etc etc etc, so conflicts in the grades would be more or less avoided. Also, anonymity brings up another problem: we don't know the musical background of the composer. One composer could be a composition graduate while another could be a recent member of YC and an amateur composer, and whose this is the first composition competition he enters.. Could the composers write just one paragraph explaining their musical background and what they want to accomplish through composing? This would give us an idea as of what kind of criticism we should give (thus making the criticism much more constructive and more personalised, instead of unified, but still anonymous). It's like trying to judge the actions taken by 5 poker players in a game: you have to know each players' background as well as their goals (maybe someone is a good player but wanted to lose because he is playing with his mother-in-law's money :P ). Just an idea (I've never been a judge before -at least formally- so I don't know how it's supposed to be done in YC). Oh, and how long do we have before we give in the marking of each piece? As in, since the competition ends on January 31st, that means that by the time we will have started judging the pieces, there will already be a February Monthly Competition going on. So we certainly won't have one month to judge the pieces, and I seriously do hope no-one is expecting us to go through all the pieces between the 31st of January and the 1st of February :P So, what do you guys (judges, mostly, but other people as well) think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morivou Posted January 13, 2008 Author Share Posted January 13, 2008 can your arrangement of the theme count like one variation? I don't think I'm going to manage four variations, and theme arrangement plus three variations makes a nice form in my mind...I could probably scrape a fourth at a push, but I'm not sure it would fit... :D That's cool, just please include the THEME itself. Are all the compositions going to be judged by every judge? And are we going to solely judge them by giving a text commentary on the score? I think that all the judges should judge the piece according to five agreed-upon criteria (for example, "instrumentation", "form", "development" (including the treatment of the theme and variations), "notation" and "compliance" (with the rules) ) and have like, 5 points for each criterion (a total of 25). Thus, we would grade the pieces according to those 5 criteria (X out of 5 points) and also give a general comment on each piece, so the composition with the most cummulative points will win (and also we could declare a winner on each distinct category - best "instrumentation" composition, best "form" composition etc, if we wanted to, of course). Moreover, this would be good because it will make judges elaborate on their markings, so that if a judge gives 1/5 in the "instrumentation" criterion of a piece and another gives 5/5, they will both have to explain why they gave that grade and not just by saying "1/5 because the instrumentation sucks" (it's obvious that that's what the judge thinks if he gave the piece a 1/5 on instrumentation..), but like "1/5 because the instruments' choice is not justified by the range in which each instrument plays, and dynamics have not been assigned to instruments which are relatively more suitable in this kind of dynamic range (e.g. the composer wrote a ppp on the low register of the tubas and fff on the high register of the piano)" etc etc etc, so conflicts in the grades would be more or less avoided.Also, anonymity brings up another problem: we don't know the musical background of the composer. One composer could be a composition graduate while another could be a recent member of YC and an amateur composer, and whose this is the first composition competition he enters.. Could the composers write just one paragraph explaining their musical background and what they want to accomplish through composing? This would give us an idea as of what kind of criticism we should give (thus making the criticism much more constructive and more personalised, instead of unified, but still anonymous). Oh, and how long do we have before we give in the marking of each piece? As in, since the competition ends on January 31st, that means that by the time we will have started judging the pieces, there will already be a February Monthly Competition going on. So we certainly won't have one month to judge the pieces, and I seriously do hope no-one is expecting us to go through all the pieces between the 31st of January and the 1st of February :P So, what do you guys (judges, mostly, but other people as well) think? Ok, well my personal thoughts are thus: Yes, all pieces should be judged by each judge. I love the idea about the cumulative point score! It's perfect, actually! I think on each of the five points we could give two or three sentences at minimum which could offer advice and our reasoning for doing what we did and also supplement our constructive criticism. On another point, yes they should provide their background in their report. AND, the earlier they submit their pieces, the earlier they get their results. I am NOT sure when the results should be released by, I am thinking by the end of the first week of February. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M_is_D Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 Just to say I just finished my variations. 8:31 minutes of fun :D ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morivou Posted January 13, 2008 Author Share Posted January 13, 2008 Alright... I have decided!!!! SINCE we have really not used anonymity in judging before (well, not a lot), and it is a HUGE hassle to get to work properly, I don't think it will be needed for THIS competition. Also, we all know which ones will be Tomas's; his probably will be the only one 8 minutes long! So, I will set up a submissions thread and a judging criteria for the judges to begin their work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morivou Posted January 13, 2008 Author Share Posted January 13, 2008 BTW- ENTRY IS CLOSED!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jujimufu Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 Ok, well my personal thoughts are thus:Yes, all pieces should be judged by each judge. I love the idea about the cumulative point score! It's perfect, actually! I think on each of the five points we could give two or three sentences at minimum which could offer advice and our reasoning for doing what we did and also supplement our constructive criticism. On another point, yes they should provide their background in their report. AND, the earlier they submit their pieces, the earlier they get their results. I am NOT sure when the results should be released by, I am thinking by the end of the first week of February. That sounds great :) Concerning anonymity, I don't think there's much point because if someone wanted a judge to know that a piece is theirs, all they have to do is just send them a note saying "the piece with the three flutes and the oboe in e major is mine", and so far for the anonymity, because the judge will be biased, for the better or worse, towards that member. Plus, with the marking criteria, it will be hard(er) to be biased towards someone. I saw the submission thread, but you only have four criteria. I was wondering why you combined "notation" with "instrumentation". They are two completely different things. Instrumentation is concentrated in the use of the instruments with respect to the material, techniques etc, while notation refers strictly to the score. And I don't just mean whether the score is handwritten, on finale, sibelius or lilypond, but whether the composer knows how to notate properly and doesn't leave the program do what it wants (well, not in the case of lilypond anyway) or if he forgets to notate things, he mis-notates others etc. For example, if a composer has notated a Bartok-pizzicato on a string part, in the instrumentation criterion he would be judged in terms of how effective that pizzicato is in that range, on that particular string, in those dynamics, on that instrument and whether it's possible for the performer to do that in context, while in the notation criterion he will be judged depending on whether he meant "bartok-pizzicato" or "harmonics, but why does this line keep appearing on my circle?!" :P So, it's two different things for me. Plus it would round up the total to 100, which is a grading standard :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morivou Posted January 13, 2008 Author Share Posted January 13, 2008 That sounds great :) Concerning anonymity, I don't think there's much point because if someone wanted a judge to know that a piece is theirs, all they have to do is just send them a note saying "the piece with the three flutes and the oboe in e major is mine", and so far for the anonymity, because the judge will be biased, for the better or worse, towards that member. Plus, with the marking criteria, it will be hard(er) to be biased towards someone.I saw the submission thread, but you only have four criteria. I was wondering why you combined "notation" with "instrumentation". They are two completely different things. Instrumentation is concentrated in the use of the instruments with respect to the material, techniques etc, while notation refers strictly to the score. And I don't just mean whether the score is handwritten, on finale, sibelius or lilypond, but whether the composer knows how to notate properly and doesn't leave the program do what it wants (well, not in the case of lilypond anyway) or if he forgets to notate things, he mis-notates others etc. For example, if a composer has notated a Bartok-pizzicato on a string part, in the instrumentation criterion he would be judged in terms of how effective that pizzicato is in that range, on that particular string, in those dynamics, on that instrument and whether it's possible for the performer to do that in context, while in the notation criterion he will be judged depending on whether he meant "bartok-pizzicato" or "harmonics, but why does this line keep appearing on my circle?!" :P So, it's two different things for me. Plus it would round up the total to 100, which is a grading standard :P Sure, sure... it was late, and, I wasn't thinking... :whistling: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James H. Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 Just to say I just finished my variations. 8:31 minutes of fun :D ;)I hate you. :dry:I'm trying to make mine sound as least like theme and variations as possible, as I hate the concept of theme and variations, it's boring. So I'm trying to make it sound like a concerto-like piece thingy. So far I have 55 bars at 108 bpm... not sure how much time that is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morivou Posted January 13, 2008 Author Share Posted January 13, 2008 Hey now, the length doesn't matter, you have no clue... It might be 8 minutes of BORINGNESS!!! (however, I doubt that... :whistling: ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M_is_D Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 I hate you. :dry:I'm trying to make mine sound as least like theme and variations as possible, as I hate the concept of theme and variations, it's boring. So I'm trying to make it sound like a concerto-like piece thingy. So far I have 55 bars at 108 bpm... not sure how much time that is. The theme and variations concept is boring only in boring hands. Who doesn't love virtuoso variations? ;) my new ones, for this contest, are actually far less difficult than the first (linked in my sig.) Not to say it's super quality music, but I do think they manage to grasp SOME interest :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XxCransworthxX Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 There better be some good themes here. I don't wanna hear variations on bad themes. Also, I wanna see some creative variations! I don't wanna hear just different tempos or different instruments. I wanna see some really awesome, crazy, totally "WOW, That's a really crazy awesome way to change that melody!" variations. I don't need it to be any Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, but it better not be really boring. :angry: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saiming Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 wanna see some really awesome, crazy, totally "WOW, That's a really crazy awesome way to change that melody!" variations. I like your limited vocabulary... i.e crazy and awesome... :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob_the_sane Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 Count me in. I'll hopefully get something done... EDIT: Damn, I'm past the entry date, surely you could find room for one more? :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James H. Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 The more, the merrier. Come on, let him in! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morivou Posted January 13, 2008 Author Share Posted January 13, 2008 Of course! The due date is just to scare people! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob_the_sane Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 heheh, awesome, thanks guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted January 15, 2008 Share Posted January 15, 2008 OK, Sounds like this competition is gonna be fun (compared to the new years' competition, with only two contestants, and only a little competition :musicwhistle: )! So, Morivou, what ARE these criteria for us judges to use?? Humbly, Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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