A hollow theme for Halloween (Fall 2025 competition)

A 4:30 piece I made in online sequencer in G#. link to behind the scenes: https://onlinesequencer.net/4928420

I hope I at least get a 7.5 average rating

Hello there @therealAJGS

Entry: A hallow theme for 

Average Score: 7

Review:

Melodies Themes Motives (6.5): 

I feel there are too repetieve. 

Harmony Chords Textures(8):

As for textures, you have interesting textures.  They interreact well each other. 

Form Development Structure Time(6):

I feel this piece is rather repetitive.  I do not know what the general form is.  

Score Presentation(1): 

Thank you providing the score. However, is needs polished.  I do not what parts on the two trebles staff represent each instrument.  

Instrumentation Orchestration Playability(5.5):

Again, with out a proper score, I not be tell playable it is.   Having said that, the instrumentation is rather interesting. 

Taste(8):

For taste: and 8 is correct. 

Next time; please provide us a score! 

I don't know how to write a score and all the AI ones cost money

14 minutes ago, therealAJGS said:

I don't know how to write a score and all the AI ones cost money

 

then learn. it is actually quite simple.

15 minutes ago, TristanTheTristan said:

then learn. it is actually quite simple.

so your saying you want me to learn in 5 days.

7 minutes ago, therealAJGS said:

so your saying you want me to learn in 5 days.

 

why 5 days? 

Also, I could give you classes on music theory and these stuff on private chat too. Anyways, I am just going to say, try to write notation next time!

here it is:

2 minutes ago, therealAJGS said:

here it is:

 

PDF

• 60c2e405-329b-475d-b8a7-857a33b34572

thanks!

5 minutes ago, TristanTheTristan said:

why 5 days? 

that's the deadline for judging, and I want to add a score before then.

6 minutes ago, TristanTheTristan said:

Also, I could give you classes on music theory and these stuff on private chat too. Anyways, I am just going to say, try to write notation next time!

yeah, I've been  considering learning music theory because about half of the people on Youtube say you either need to know it, or don't have to know it.

@therealAJGS: you can learn after this.  

Any one here, can help with theory, form, and etc. 🙂 

13 hours ago, therealAJGS said:

that's the deadline for judging, and I want to add a score before then.

 

yeah, I've been  considering learning music theory because about half of the people on Youtube say you either need to know it, or don't have to know it.

 

It depends on your goal. Your intuition allowed you to make a piece of music that a normal person would say sounds fine/ cool.

For a more refined level, you can take that intuition and apply things like chords or melody structure. All of which will allow you to replicate your work more consistently versus "doing so because music theory is essential for writing good music". If you want a free, collegiate-level, link to start learning music theory, consider checking out Music Theory for the 2st Century Classroom. 

This site is the one I used as a Freshman and Sophomore. It's pages of music fundamentals to complex theory; it is also paired with exercises and worksheets for when you want to practice these skills.

Hi TherealAJGS.

Nice drrrrumset! 

It needs a bit (or a lot, depending on how tolerant your ears be) of production cause there are parts where the sounds turns into a wall and it gets perhaps too muddy —Maybe that's your thing, though—.  There's little dynamic shift apart from the one belonging to the instruments being present or silent into the piece which BTW, there are prolly more than five, right? I won't consider the score, I just took a look and it's a mess, only two staves, missing drumset (or worse, drumset into the parts with tuned instrument notation), and we could go on and on! But don't worry about it. IF you're interested, you may learn bit by bit, sooner or later. Imho score engraving is something interesting and worth learning. Music theory of any kind is as well, but you probably know that and I don't wanna be that guy!

Now, the piece itself after 2-3 listenings seems a bit over the place to me. The arpeggio-motif is almost always present as some kind of glue but following that metaphor I think there's an excess of glue on the whole theme. It's like when you add so much ketchup to the burger that the burger ends up becoming ketchup, but with some meat. Combine that with the, again, lack of dynamics aside of "volume dynamics" (in terms of number of instruments) and prolly automatic sound normalisation and you get something with lots of room for improvement. It has potential, yes; the part in which you get the drumset going is awesome, and I would have liked more of that. But I believe it's raw and unpolished in terms of sound, but also in terms of structure.

The beginning is also good. The ending, though, did not convince me at all. The halloween-ish sound, well you did include harpsichord and organ, but it sounds to me more like the tune for the local boss of this region (beta version), which isn't bad either, at least in my opinion.

Thank you for submitting your piece and for participating in this little cozy informal contest :). 

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ø.

@therealAJGS

I would not mind helping you in making sure you score that looks pretty and such. Also, a great book is Behind bars. 🙂 

Hii, I had to say I really like this submission! It's so very fitting of the actual theme of halloween as a festival, reminds me a lot of dungeon synth genre and pixel art video game music. I love how the melodies intertwine and there is a constant flow that's being developed as well as the factural changes (from 1 instrument to many). I can definitely hear this going on in the background of a halloween party, keep it up! ^^

Hey dude

Apparently some aren't aware you aren't using notation software. Don't worry about your score, your program isn't designed for that. You're writing music and that's all that counts, and we have ears so we can hear what you're doing. I used to use Cubase to write music, and I submitted a piece for a competition here some years ago and all people did was whine and cry about the score, asking me if it's playable. I tried explaining that I wrote it to be playable, but it was impossible to make the score it creates legible. I didn't win, and I knew I wouldn't, but who cares. I wrote something cool, and I still like it to this day. 

If you ever want to try musescore or something similar, it's free, and I'm sure if it's not already optimized for mobile, something exists that does or it's soon to be in the future. Those are designed with score creation at the forefront, and if you ever get the hang of it, you might learn about areas in music you otherwise wouldn't. If you decide against it or like what you use now, that's fine too. Most people in the world DON'T use notation software for writing music. This site mainly has people who write with notation software because they're writing for performers, but your music is just as welcome. 

This had all the Halloween elements, and instrument choice was great! I'm not giving out any scores, but you get one of these:

🎃

I like the chord change at 2:15 or so, it broke up the static harmony really well. Sounds like your in minor, know all the chords you can go to? Try other ones out if you're ever stuck on ideas, might give you new options for your harmony. Your ideas worked really well together, nice job on this! Be sure to vote 😄 

1 hour ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Hey dude

Apparently some aren't aware you aren't using notation software. Don't worry about your score, your program isn't designed for that. You're writing music and that's all that counts, and we have ears so we can hear what you're doing. I used to use Cubase to write music, and I submitted a piece for a competition here some years ago and all people did was whine and cry about the score, asking me if it's playable. I tried explaining that I wrote it to be playable, but it was impossible to make the score it creates legible. I didn't win, and I knew I wouldn't, but who cares. I wrote something cool, and I still like it to this day. 

If you ever want to try musescore or something similar, it's free, and I'm sure if it's not already optimized for mobile, something exists that does or it's soon to be in the future. Those are designed with score creation at the forefront, and if you ever get the hang of it, you might learn about areas in music you otherwise wouldn't. If you decide against it or like what you use now, that's fine too. Most people in the world DON'T use notation software for writing music. This site mainly has people who write with notation software because they're writing for performers, but your music is just as welcome. 

Thanks!  by the way, this isn't my normal software, my main one is FL studio. I also didn't know musecore was free, because it kept giving me pop-ups advertising the Premium version.

On 10/25/2025 at 9:18 AM, Kvothe said:

Score Presentation(1): 

Thank you providing the score. However, is needs polished.  I do not what parts on the two trebles staff represent each instrument.  

i used an ai because i have no idea how to write one

10 minutes ago, therealAJGS said:

i used an ai because i have no idea how to write one

 

That is fine. what  @Thatguy v2.0 is triue.  All genres are welcome. Most composers here want their music to be perform. However, in the media world, that is far from the case. It still takes practice.  It takes time to make solid demo. No rush. 

Hi @therealAJGS!

 I like the hook you use throughout the music, it kinds of reminds me Gamelan music with the percussion bell-like instrument. The organ definitely adds some ghostly mood to the music. I think acting as a sort of Halloween background music this one will definitely work. The solo music in 2:50 sounds nice to me. Harmonically except the modulation to Bb minor in 2:12 the music mostly stays in G sharp minor, so the music is more or less moved forward only by timbral contrast, not harmonic progression. i am sure in some spot there can be some modulations! Thx for sharing and joining the competition!

Henry

Entry:  A Hollow Theme for Halloween (Fall 2025 Competition) by @therealAJGS

Average Score:  7.13

Review:

Your piece really captures the creepy and tense Halloween atmosphere through wise instrument choices.  You have Vibraphone, Harpsichord, Organ, Drumkit, and Celesta?  I’m guessing though.  But like others have said, it would really help to be able to see a score and it might also cause you to refine how you write your music overall.  But in my opinion, you’re a top contender for the “Creepiest/Scariest” badge.  Of course, the piece has many weak points, such as the fact that it repeats basically the same harmony/melody throughout the whole piece with cosmetic changes coming only from different kinds of layering of the different instruments.  There was a wise choice to modulate up a step at a certain point in the piece to infuse it with some much needed excitement/novelty.  The score you provided is pretty bad - the rhythms overlap in such a way as to make it difficult to know where the beats land.  I think the link to the piano roll view in your online sequencer is better in this case and saved you from getting a zero in score presentation.  Thanks for participating and good luck in the popular voting!

Intro is very cool, and the melody created by the organ is definitely fun! The issue is that the piece is very repetitive, and your one key change at around 2:00, feels too forced without any smooth modulation to that key. There are of course times in music that this can work, but because the harmony rarely changes, we needed a bit of this forward momentum. Think about this, if you are in one key, and you simply transpose it up a half step without modulating through other keys, you are still basically in the same harmony. This is why I like when you break up the piece with the solo vibraphone, because something needed to break the monotony.

But you did a good job at getting the vibe of Halloween.  After all, this is a Halloween competition! And you know what, getting mood right is not an easy thing to do. Also, you have a good melody, it's a little hard to pick out because of the very robotic midi render.

Melody and Harmony: Fun melody but the harmony needs to be a little more varied. This will help break up the monotony.

Form and Creativity: Pretty creative! The form seems easy to follow enough.

Score: Basically, N/A, we won't count this metric.

Playability: I'm sure it's playable. The midi render makes it hard for me to judge this because of the lack of musicality in the audio.

Execution of Challenge: You nailed it!

Taste: Fun piece, but a bit on the repetitive side. Great melody, but buried in poor midi render. Melody could easily be enhanced with better / more varied harmony.

Using the key of G sharp minor for a Halloween theme is, in my opinion, a perfect choice, since for me that key has an inherent mystical and gloomy character.

The overall character reminds me of a carousel at a fairground or a piece played on a historical mechanical music box. With this in mind, I can really good imagine a Halloween like spectacle.

Concerning instrumentation, form development and structure, your submission is a little out of the ordinary. All other participants used the „traditional“ approach – either in tonal or atonal pieces – to use notation software that produces the score (and finally the audio/video). Your usage of „online sequencer“ is perfectly fine to produce the music you like, however implies some difficulties for the comparison:

I am not able to judge whether you have met the competition requirements to use a maximum of five different instruments, your choice using different bells and percussion instruments does not let me count them and you have not specified your intent what instruments you present as the five ones, neither in your score nor in an explanation of the submission.

The question of score presentation (or even the requirement to have a score at all) has been discussed in the thread already, but without an ordinary score, for example, the playability is hard to evaluate.

Average Score: 5.938