"From Nothing, to Something" - Satisfaction Survey

Followers

1. How satisfied are you with the "From Nothing, to Something" Competition overall?
- Extremely Satisfied
  
  66%
  
  4
- Satisfied
  
  33%
  
  2
- Neutral
  
  0%
  
  0
- Dissatisfied
  
  0%
  
  0
- Extremely Dissatisfied
  
  0%
  
  0
2. If you didn't submit music to the competition, why not?
- I submitted music!
  
  42%
  
  3
- Found out too late/Didn't have enough time/Competition was short notice
  
  0%
  
  0
- Didn't know about the competition
  
  0%
  
  0
- Didn't like the theme/Didn't find the theme inspiring
  
  14%
  
  1
- Don't consider myself a competition composer
  
  14%
  
  1
- Other (please reply to this topic to voice your opinion!)
  
  28%
  
  2
3. If you didn't participate in the popular voting/reviewing, why not?
- I participated!
  
  71%
  
  5
- Didn't know about the polls
  
  0%
  
  0
- Didn't care/Didn't think it mattered
  
  14%
  
  1
- Too much listening time/effort involved
  
  0%
  
  0
- Other (please reply to this topic to voice your opinion!)
  
  14%
  
  1
4. What would you like to see in future competitions?
- More time to compose the music
  
  4%
  
  1
- Use some of the other competition themes we didn't get to use this time around
  
  16%
  
  4
- Offer monetary prizes again
  
  0%
  
  0
- Keep the competitions just for fun without monetary awards
  
  20%
  
  5
- Require stricter reviewing from participants
  
  8%
  
  2
- Keep the competitions as casual as possible
  
  8%
  
  2
- Make the competitors and judges anonymous again
  
  0%
  
  0
- Make more awards/badges so more people win
  
  0%
  
  0
- Make fewer awards/badges so there's more competition
  
  0%
  
  0
- The number and theme-ing of the awards/badges was just right for the competition
  
  20%
  
  5
- Offer live performances to the winner(s) given appropriate instrumentation
  
  20%
  
  5

Poll closes on 10/09/2026 at 06:59 AM

Please sign in or register to vote in this poll.

Thursday at 06:17 AM4 days

Please fill out the survey to help us organize better competitions in the future! The survey is anonymous so we won't be able to see who voted for what. The poll closes on 10/8/2026. Thanks for voicing your opinion!

For the results and winners of the competition go here:

For the popular voting polls go here:

For the submissions thread go here:

For the competition announcement go here:

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Friday at 11:13 PM2 days

2. If you didn't submit music to the competition, why not?

I just wanted to review this time

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Saturday at 01:58 AM2 days

this went well I do want to reuse some stuff from earlier and also maybe experiment with more instrumentation. I do have ideas for other themes as well if they are selected resample with the medley thing I do want to compose for a string Orchestra as that the idea I have would work perfect for that. I think these competitions should be somewhat semi casual with a very competitive sort of feeling around it, but also do not include money into the thing but something where people are pumping out actual hard work and where people have to kind of put up a good fight to get like first place and what not

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Saturday at 07:29 PM2 days

As a judge, it was honor to review each of 12 entries of this competition. I enjoy give feedback to this composers. I hope they learn from this experience!

I feel that (maybe) having at having work in the ensemble category and possibly others and showing how members how you can take draft to full polish piece could be requirement. Again I said maybe..

For the time requirement: 3-6 mins with a 5 mins would work.

Ensemble: we can always vote on this.

Let us add style to the mix! Let challenge them only write in one write style and see what happens.

So the core requirements: “Write a piece in early romantic style (Chopin, Schuman, Schubert) that is roughly 3-7 mins long given the following forces..”

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Saturday at 07:32 PM2 days

Author

2 minutes ago, Kvothe said:
As a judge, it was honor to review each of 12 entries of this competition.

There were 9 entries though🤣😂

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Saturday at 11:31 PM1 day

4 hours ago, Kvothe said:
As a judge, it was honor to review each of 12 entries of this competition. I enjoy give feedback to this composers. I hope they learn from this experience!
I feel that (maybe) having at having work in the ensemble category and possibly others and showing how members how you can take draft to full polish piece could be requirement. Again I said maybe..
For the time requirement: 3-6 mins with a 5 mins would work.
Ensemble: we can always vote on this.
Let us add style to the mix! Let challenge them only write in one write style and see what happens.
So the core requirements: “Write a piece in early romantic style (Chopin, Schuman, Schubert) that is roughly 3-7 mins long given the following forces..”

Let us add style to the mix! Let challenge them only write in one write style and see what happens.

I think this would work better as a specific contest portion rather than adding another section like that because if this was a portion, then this would contradict a bunch of other things so this should be better off as its own given challenge other than a additional aspect

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Yesterday at 06:51 AM1 day

Not nessacarily.

It could work with in the current frame work.

The current frame work is a bi monthly competition. The constraints for each one is voted on: forces and etc. So style can be voted on. Then after that, those who want to join have to say so and are given two months to write a piece.

so I can see this working

Oh that is right! There were nine entries! :)

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Yesterday at 01:05 PM1 day

6 hours ago, Kvothe said:
Not nessacarily.
It could work with in the current frame work.
The current frame work is a bi monthly competition. The constraints for each one is voted on: forces and etc. So style can be voted on. Then after that, those who want to join have to say so and are given two months to write a piece.
so I can see this working
Oh that is right! There were nine entries! :)

true. I feel like competitions happen every season so every four months but I feel like adding too much constraints is going to form a layer of monotony. making every piece of music, aesthetically and stylistically the same, which takes away from the main philosophical concept of composition

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42 minutes ago42 min

Hello dear fellow composers!

The two months of the YCF 2026 Summer competition are over and we have now the results.

For me, participating in that competition was (again) a great fun – but also a huge challenge! And I think, I’m not alone with that impression, since – on the one hand – only roughly the half of that members which initially intended to participate have finally posted a submission and – on the other hand – the most submissions arrived during the last two weeks, signifying that almost all participants had to do a hard work to meet the requirements of the contest, to produce „Something“, that was related to Paul Verlaine’s poem, from „Nothing“ (in this regard, the specific task made it difficult to use an existing piece; therefore, I believe that most submissions were composed “from scratch”).

I’m very pleased, that I could win the third prize, however the most takeaway from the contest are – in my opinion – the reviews which had an outstanding quality this time. It was the fourth consecutive competition (or event) I participated during the past year, and I think the overall quality of the compositions and of the reviews has been improved significantly in that period. The reviews tend to be longer and consist not only of the impression and taste of the listener/reviewer, but have become full of profound feedback and suggestions, concerning for example questions of engraving or of the playability and/or specific characteristics of certain instruments that a composer must take into account, even if he or she may not be very familiar with the one or the other instrument. With this respect, I would especially thank @MK_Piano, @Omicronrg9 and @Thatguy v2.0 for their reviews.

I'm already looking forward to the next competition, though to be honest, I need a few weeks' rest until then.

Finally, there is just another little concern I would share: I noticed that some of the participants voted for themselves in the final poll. That behavior ultimately had no impact on the awarding of badges and prices in that sense, that a participant has not earned the respective badge due to he did hesitate and not voted for itself. However, in my opinion, it is not a good practice to vote for oneself, since - if everyone would do so - voting would become merely useless, especially since we have relatively few voters at all, and this time more participants than other members. Therefore, I would suggest to introduce an explicit statement in the rules of upcoming competitions, that participants shall not vote for themselves in the final poll.

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"From Nothing, to Something" - Satisfaction Survey