Conceptual Music Competition 28: Secret Lab

CMC: Conceptual Music Competition

This competition is based on the rules of the classic TOMC (Thematic Original Music Competition).

The CMC (Conceptual Music Competition) is designed so that each participant enters a piece of music based on a set theme. The participants take the theme and interpret it as they will to come up with something that fits. Any style can work, as long as it portrays a sense of what the theme is.

Feel free to be imaginative!

Each successive theme will be chosen by the winner of the previous competition. For example, say the theme of the last competition, CMC 30, was "Oil Spill" and the winner, Paul, submitted a piece that knocked the socks off of everyone, so he won. Paul then gets to decide the theme for CMC 31.

This competition is open to registered members of the forums of

OverClocked ReMix, VGMix, VGMusic, Gaming World, Young Composers, and GameDev.

CMC 28: Secret Lab

"The harmless dark of night, challanged by the glow of many candles and vials. The sinister dark of the human mind, challanged by boundries and ethics, but driven by a powerful lust for knowledge. Blinded to the shift, when science becomes madness." -Omri Lahav

Results!:

• Text results and critiques

There are 8 entries for this round...

Laoshi Ma - "Found in the Thuringian Forest"

• "From the final research log of an unidentifiable scientist, dated 13/12/98. Found in the Thuringian Forest 15/3/09. He had no face."

• No description given.

Nario - "Hallucinogenic Ethics"

• "Dr. Korvasic was pondering his own existence while surrounded by his many self-made vaccines and concoctions in his dark lab. Having decided he had no reason to live, he took one of his potions labeled 'Quick Suicide' and consumed it. Oh, but it did anything but quickly kill him: all the sudden, he stood up, turned on the lights, and started to work on potions that would improve the bloodflow and health of his body. All day and all night he combined chemicals together in order to improve his own self. However, slowly but surely, he was combining dangerous chemicals in ratios that contained more harmful effects than helpful effects. When he had finished his concoctions, he drank them all at once, thinking that he would become the healthiest human ever. It was then that his body instantly shut down from the dangerous combinations of all of his concoctions, failing to animate amidst his numerous vaccines."

• "This piece is something different, a little inspiration from Stockhausen and the reputable John Revoredo, who wrote '31 seconds.' The samples are taken from The Twilight Zone season 1 'The Monsters are due on Maple Street,' property of Cayuga Productions and originally hosted by CBS (donkey covering complete). The song begins with the ending monologue in which Rod Serling (Twilight Zone host) explains how outward threats can be blown up in the 'minds of men,' in the form of suspicion and prejudice, which has the ultimate consequence of the destruction of a civilized society from the inside out. Basically, out of fear man can destroy itself, from pointing fingers at others to constantly trying to find a 'scapegoat' to blame, directing hatred at others instead of taking a good luck in the mirror."

The J - "Untitled"

• "Entering his lab, he looked grimly at his equipment and the project. Collecting his pen he started to work, thinking of the fame he could achieve, his mind lost in many formulas and calculations, he grasped it, lost it, just a little more effort.
  ...it was there, he saw it, so beautiful and fresh, but also very dangerous. Now his consiencesness was fighting between devotion to his family and this...will he unleash this to the world?"

Divine Wrath - "Night Terror"

• "When I first read the theme I thought I could have done a lot with it. So I spent a while trying to throw some ideas together, but nothing came... Then one night as I was about to go to sleep about 1000 ideas hit me at once. In a nutshell, the story is about a mad scientist who believes his intentions are good; however, his morals are skewed and he create malicious consequences only to cycle back again. The title, Night Terror is a metaphor for the situation. In a night terror, the "victim" is awake and asleep simultaniously."

• "(Measure 1) Imagine a flim scene. You discover a dark and shabby looking house. You have a bad feeling about it but you're curious. You're going in. There's not much in there but you see a staircase leading downwards. You take it and its getting darker and darker. The smell is disgusting. (29) Finally you see a door. You hear noises you can't associate with anything you've ever heard before. You feel very scared by now; then you open the door. (33) Ther's fire everywhere and after you've acclimatized to the bright light after the darkness you see a hooded figure murmuring spells that run your blood ice cold, even with the fire around you. (55) Something moves. The strange sounds are getting louder; the experiment has begun! Everything's chaos, the fire switches from red to green, then to blue and red again. It's getting louder and louder and hotter and hotter. (87) The noise is gone, only the wondrous shapes of many coloured light are left. Somehow all the light is moving to one point. Something emmits from it that doesn't look like the random colours that are floating through the air. A creature of light has been created. (97) Now your glance falls on the creator, the hooded figur that stood in front of the experiment, observing it with a gaze of madness and enthusiasm. The way he looks at the creature now is filled with amazement and even a sinister kind of love. (108) But something must have gone wrong. The creature's eyes that were white as snow have turned jet black. For a moment the creator allows himself to show fear and horror on his face. Then the creature leaps to its feet, takes two steps to cross the room and slams its body on its maker that is now to become his first victim. (111) You can't watch any longer. You close your eyes in horror and collapse on the stony floor."

Maquis - "Monster Lab"

• "Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to this hallowed haven of inhuman intellect. This underground laboratory has long been my refuge, ever since I was hounded out of the highest echelons of the scientific establishment - scorned by small-minded insects, vilified by the self-appointed gatekeepers of intellectual progress over things like ethics or common decency. But now, after years of toiling and scratching a living for myself under miles of rock, I have finally completed my life's work, my masterpiece, this... machine. Oh, they called me a monster, ladies and gentleman. But I ask you: Who's the monster now? Why, in a few moments, I think you'll find that... you are.
  Ha ha. Ah ha ha! Ah ha ha HA HA HA HE HOO HA HEH HA HAAA HAAAAAAA!!!"

Voting Rules!:

• Voters will be allowed to pick one first place (3 points) and any number of honorary mentions (1 point). Only one set of votes from any one voter will be accepted and a person cannot vote for any one piece more than once. Corrections to votes, from the original voter only, will be accepted, but corrections will void the previous votes. Basically, a voter can vote and correct the vote, but only the final form of that vote will be counted. Send all votes to

• To be eligible to vote, you must be a registered member of at least one of the participating forums, prior to the beginning of the voting period. In your PM or e-mail, please indicate which forum you are a member of and your username.

• The voting period will last from the moment the entries are posted in the thread to the Saturday of that week. The voting period for this round ends June 13, so be sure to spend some time really listening to the pieces.

• Any participant in the competition can vote, but not for their own pieces. However, in an effort to encourage voting among participants, any participant who votes will have 2 points added to his/her voting score (unless the participant chooses to be anonymous).

1. Each piece must be originally composed for this competition. Arrangements and remixes will not be accepted. (Pieces composed by the participant prior to the competition will not be accepted.)
   
2. Each piece must be 2:00 or longer and match the competition theme.
   
3. Only one entry per person. Collaborations will be allowed, but each collaborator may not submit any other pieces. (This also means that a person cannot collaborate on two or more different pieces at the same time.)
   
4. A link to the entry piece must be e-mailed or PMed to Abadoss prior to the deadline set for each competition. DO NOT POST THE LINK IN THE THREAD!
   
5. Important: Each file must be labeled accordingly: Composer_Name_-_Composition_Title_CMC#.mp3
   (For example, if Nina Wilson submits a piece called "Knight's Dawn" to CMC 34, then her filename would be: Nina_Wilson_-_Knights_Dawn_CMC34.mp3)
   
6. MP3 file format is required. Know that even OGG will need to be converted into MP3. (If anyone is unable to do so themselves, Abadoss would be willing and able to do it for them.)
   
7. Entries should be accompanied by a description and/or story to help listeners understand what the piece is about. (Not required, though.)
   
8. All entries must be submitted by Saturday, June 6, 2009 at 11:59 PM - PST, GMT-8.

You can find the competition threads for each forum listed below:

• OverClocked ReMix: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23535
  
• VGMix: http://www.vgmix.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1939
  
• VGMusic: http://www.vgmusic.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12082
  
• Gaming World: http://www.gamingw.net/forums/index.php?topic=78930.0
  
• Young Composers: http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/conceptual-music-competition-28-secret-lab-20079.html
  
• GameDev: http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=535252

Good luck and have fun! :D

Previous CMCs: Conceptual Music Competition (1-9)

hey i've read quite a few of the comments on the last 2 competitions, who are the judges on this?

Everyone. Anyone that listens can send in their votes to me and the winner is decided by the vote.

i've read the last voting rules from #27, so there's like a 24hour window for the votes on the last day of entry?(maybe all this info should be available with the thread/rules so you wont be spammed to death ?)

Usually, there's a week after the entries are posted before voting is due. I generally put up the voting rules once the pieces are up. However, they're already up on the website: http://www.abadoss.net/CMC-Current.htm

Do we have to tell you if we want to compete? Or do we just sumbit on the deadline?

from what i understood you can send it now even if you have it ready, also it says here:

# A link to the entry piece must be e-mailed or PMed to Abadoss prior to the deadline set for each competition. DO NOT POST THE LINK IN THE THREAD!

so no need he will post it after deadline.

Are sound collages OK?

Are sound collages OK?

There are several ways one could define that. Which are you inferring?

Ambient track from soundfiles?

I'm taking from your tone that only certain styles are accepted.

No, that's not it. I'm concerned about defining original composition in that situation. Something like concrete music, creating an original composition out of pre-recorded sounds, is acceptable, whereas using recordings of Puccini's operas meshed against each other may not be along the lines of an original composition. It's a bit grey in that area.

I haven't entered one of these for awhile I shall have 2 give it a go :)

Oh dear I don't think I will be done on time :(

About time I got to work on my entry then ain't it? lol hope I'll have time in a few days.

All entries are in! Time to vote!

please fix maquis monster lab link..

No worries. I just did.

I chose to sit this one out, I already had too many ideas for the subject I chose, that I couldn't produce anything without using them - and that's against contest rules.

That said, I'm casting my vote now, strange that this subject turned so many entrants to electronic music, but there are some very nice entries here.

Good luck to everyone :)

Omri.

Hey I've just come to realize that the measure information in the "Description"/Story to my piece "The experiment" won't be so helpful without the score. So here it is.

Good luck to all other participants!

Oliver_Brehm_The_Experiment_CMC28.pdf

I regret to inform everyone that the results are going to be a little late this time around. I picked up some food poison and haven't been particularly well enough to do much. I will get them out as soon as I can. My apologies.

Aww. I just ran out of time :/

I think I bit off more than I could chew.

The results are in (finally)!

Stay tuned for the next round...

The next round is posted! Here's the link:

http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/conceptual-music-competition-29-star-force-one-20565.html