The July 2012 Monthly Competition

July 5th at midnight to July 31st at midnight.

Judging from August 1st-9th.

Results announced on the 10th.

The Premise: The Composer will take any work of Art (defined as something 2 dimensional and creatively constructed to BE art. You may only use works that are not created by your own hands or mind. You may use works not in a museum or anything, but a link to an image or the image itself MUST be provided in the submission thread) OR literature (defined as any book or short story or quotation or paragraph or really ANY written word of ANY length. You muse submit a summary or a link TO this work. Remember, if it is a work the Judges do not know, it could be more difficult to judge accurately the representation of inspiration, which will be counted in the points. A suggestion, then, is to provide a GOOD summary or a short passage the judges could work with) and set a piece of music that was inspired by it. You don't necessarily have to do a whole work, either. You could be inspired by a passage from the book. Or, you might like an Einstein quotation and set it. Or, a Dalai Lama quotation. As long as you submit something that was written down by somebody, you are good. That includes art. Computer generated art, for this particular competition, will be excluded. Computer generated writing, will not be excluded. The techniques are more or less the same.

The Point: Please make a work of art from a work of art. This is called a "derivative work", and is a very important part of an artist's development. All do this, whether they realize it or not. They steal from those they admire to make their own style. Or, they don't. But, most composers will take something from somebody else. In essence, nothing is intrinsic in art. I am asking you to take this and go with it with a conscious mind.

You MUST USE acoustic instruments. But, there is no limit to the number of instruments you may use. In fact, you MUST use more than 5 different TYPES of instruments. So, 5 cellos won't cut it. But, 2 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello, 1 double bass, and a piano would.

The Points:

Capturing the essence of the Source Material: /30

Score neatness and clarity: /10

Instrumentation (do you use the right number of instruments? use more than 5 different types. All must be acoustic (organs still count, a live synthesizer would work as well. But, a digitally implemented synthesizer is not allowed): /10

Orchestration (How well do you use the large ensemble together? The more work you put into this, the more points you will get. This is not a category that you will lose points from the maximum, but rather... this is a category where you must EARN the points): /20

Creativity (this is where doing cliche things will get you points taken off. Don't do a love story and just go with the characteristic romantic moods. Do something different or out there that garners the same effect): /10

Musicality (is your piece a PIECE of music? Does it have a good beginning, development, and end? is it stagnant? What gives it its identity? Write about the musicality in A PARAGRAPH of 200 words. Make sure it matches what you wrote too. This is about awareness of your music. Does it do what you want it to do?): /20

Participants:

1. Austenite

2. WilliamJeffrey

3. joshm222

4. theviolinist7

5. ad hoc

6. muhmuhmuhmusic

7. jsands

8. MaqamDjinn

9. NathanHathawayAdams

10. Bachian

11. ImperialFlute

12. OpusOneTwo7

13. Joshua Harton

14. MaestroWick

15. Piano18

16. PianoForte

17. ChristianPerrotta

I'll expect a minimum of 9. Since 9 people voted for it. But, more are definitely welcome UP TO 18 people. After that,the waiting list principle applies.

JUDGES:

1. TreeHugger1995

2. Morivou (I haven't judged in a while. :P)

3. Tokke

4.