Ok, since Morivou has left the forums (temporarily), and he left the management of the Monthly Competitions to me, I've decided to make some changes.

Firstly, the competitions are going to be kind of bi-monthly. They are going to start on the 1st of a certain month, and run until the 15th of the next month, so between the 15th of that month and the beginning of the next competition, we're going to have the voting polls for the next competition's subject, and the judges will judge the pieces (and with the beginning of the next competition, the previous competition's results will be posted.

If someone has any objections to these changes, please tell me about it and if there are a lot of objections, we'll have a poll as of whether to keep the changes or not.

Also, to make things quicker, for the subject of every competition, I'll make a few suggestions as poll options, and if you have any other ideas quite different from the ones I've posted, then let me know through this thread, and I'll make additions to the poll as appropriate.

Lastly, there will be a poll after submissions are closed with all the submissions, so the public can vote too, and the results of the poll will account for 50% of the marking of the pieces.

So, vote!

EDIT:

I am also looking for judges, so if anyone wants to place for judge, please send me a message saying why you think you would be good as a judge, and (probably after a few pm exchanges), we'll see who is a judge and who isn't.

Nice! Hope it goes well.

Dammit, they all look so fun! Well, apart from the first one (non thematic? :wacko:)

Heh :P I actually prefer that one to the others >_>

"A piece consisting only of a family of instruments (strings, brass, winds, percussion, keyboards) written based on a text."

Does this mean ONLY all strings, or ONLY all brass, or ONLY all woodwinds? Or all together (I.E. orchestra) ... 'tis not very clear. Also... what is a text? Does this mean it must reflect a poem, or story? A novel? A specific theme FROM a book, story or novel (kinda of like themes are specific to certain elements of a movie) or must the text be a compressed form? Like something we can provide (I.E. a poem or speech)? Can the text be original (I.E. written BY us)? Will a passage be provided that we must write to, or would we each make our own choices as for what texts to choose from and use?

"... so the public can vote too, and the results of the poll will account for 50% of the marking of the pieces."

50%? That's quite large. I believe it was I who originally introduced this idea, I didn't have such a balance in mind. Who do WE want voting our piece? The public, or the judges? The judges are the ones who can be trusted for specific... well... judgments, but there are only few of them. Who all are currently judges? Please give us a list, we like to know these things, especially since Morivou has relinquished. OR... do we trust the general appeal to the public? I'm not questioning the fairness of the 50% balance, I'm asking if everybody else knows what this entails and fully agrees.

Can we still make a suggestion to add to the poll? If so, I would like to suggest a non-original composition, an orchestration of any piano sonata. Jair Crawford was doing Beethoven Op.2 and I ran across the thread and thought it would be a novel idea to see who could find the most effective piano sonata to orchestrate, and orchestrate it most effectively.

I love the family of instruments based on a text. I have great ideas already...

I think that option is very clear:

"A piece consisting only of a family of instruments "

If I wanted to write "orchestra", I'd write "orchestra" :P

Text, well, yes, you mentioned some posibilities: a poem, a story, text from a movie, or from an instruction manual perhaps, whatever inspires you, and as long as the music has something to do with the text itself :)

Ok, 50% is a bit too much already, do you think 25% is fine? The public's opinion should always matter anyway, but you're right, not as much as the judges' opinion :)

No, I don't have a list of judges, thank you for reminding me that... I am open to taking judges, although I won't just accept judges like that (I changed to original post).

About the suggestion, well, I'm trying to stay away from large-scale works for the monthly competitions so as to give equal opportunities to both people who are used to writing for orchestra and people who aren't. If we changed the option to "Orchestrating a piano sonata for any amount of instruments", then yes, I'd add it, and you could do an orchestral version if you wanted. Would you agree with that? :)

I really like the first option. But what do you mean by non-thematic? (Sorry, thats probably really a newbie question! :P )

Like, there won't be a theme which will be treated in a developmental way like in a sonata or something like that. You might want to check pieces like Dello Joio's piano suite and things like that :)

Option No 1 is quite interesting. Maybe you shouldn't restrict it to piano solo. Maybe piano + 1 to 3 freely chosen instruments (percussion or whatsoever) would be even better and more inspirational?

Btw, when we'll see results from previous competition?

gah, it seems the tide has turned yet again...all you damn good orchestrators out there make these contests hard.

I like the first and last choices the best. Those two are unusual for competitions around here, and I think it would interesting to do something new. But, I would like to write another woodwind quintet if that's what people are voting for.

sonuvascallop....I'm the only one who wants to write a solo piece :blink:?!?

Oh well, the (currently) leading option sounds good, as I was planning to write something for winds this summer :P.

I'd be interested in combining the last two. A piece based on a specific scale/mode, for only one family of instruments, based on a text.

Queries about choice #3: Would the text be given or could we pick a text?

Would voice count as a family? (ie write in a chorus?)

Would we be able to have the instrumentalists make sounds beyond their instruments (shouting, clapping, snapping, cellists stomping their feet, etc.)?

You can pick a text.

For question three, no, the point is not setting a text in a vocal/choral piece, but to some how make a connection between the text and your music.

And yes, you can of course do that if you feel like it, although I am not sure how many participants will do so.. :P

So... is anybody participating? I'm already working on my piece ... but we don't have a sign-up thread. :blink:

*pokes Juji*

So it's a piece for a family of instruments, then...well, considering I'm done with school, this should be easy to finish in a month.5 :P. Sign me up, too, whenever you make that thread...

Alright! This will be the first competition I really want to do. (AAnd, yes... I am sorta back)...

And, Juji, you run this one, 'cause I still have school. But, I wanna be in this competition.