Music Challenge Topic Suggestion Box

[Chris Alpiar]

Please post on this thread any suggestions for a weekly topic. If your topic covers anything arcane in the slightest, you will probably have to explain your concept(s) with the suggestion, and also talk about it in some depth during the week.

[AndyStootz]

How about:
- any style interpretation of the chorus of a specific song e.g. country & western version of Smells Like Teen Spirit :-)
- pastiche of a particular composer like Henry Mancini
- a piece made from totally organic sounds from your house e.g. cat, squeaky door, pots n pans
- use only your mouth for musical sounds
- use only 4 notes from C Major but any rhythm & any harmony

Cheers
stootz

[AndyStootz]

Here's an interesting one... (LOL I think so anyway)

Set a fixed tempo, meter, bar length and chord progression (any way to give a bit of manageable scope)

Assign each composer one instrument from a fixed list.

Nobody knows what each other has done and then when you get all the finished pieces together you compile them wihtout any edits and see what we get.

Cheers
Stootz.

[Chris Merritt]

I love the mouth only thing! Or organic. Or maybe just "All Real"...

[Chris Alpiar]

create 2 short patterns or phrases using major pentatonic and 2 using minor pentatonic.

major pentatonic = 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 (eg C, D, E, G, A)
minor pentatonic = 1, b3, 4, 5, b7 (eq C, Eb, F, G, Bb)

[Marius Amado-Alves]

Harmony ear challenge

Identify the harmony (the chord) at seconds 11, 30, 49, of the attached sample of "Bor sadila moma Evgenija".

Express your answer in music theoretical terms, considering the tonic of this piece naturally the major harmony listened at seconds 3, 23, 43...

"Bor sadila moma Evgenija" is a track on the album "Bozilak", of orchestral arrangements of Macedonian traditional songs, featuring Tose Proeski as singer.

You may use any resource whatsoever for this challenge including looking up the score if you can find it.

[Marius Amado-Alves]

Yes that sentence needs rewording.
I want to say that the tonic of this piece is the thing (harmony, pitch?) that sounds at seconds 3, 23, 43... to establish a common reference for the answer.
Maybe we should establish a concrete pitch for the tonic, e.g. C, to facilitate the notation.
The whole text should be revised before launch.
I count on our "editor" (Alpiar) for this.
Anne, it's really great that this challenge interests you, but note that this is a proposal for a challenge to be launched more widely via whatever channel is used for that purpose (again, Alpiar, we await your interjection).
Also it's great that you'll dig up the score because that way we will have an official 100% correct answer.
And personally I am relieved that I am not the only one finding it hard to identify the harmony by ear alone. (But it's beautiful isn't it?)

[Marius Amado-Alves]

Relaunch the tritone challenge or make it a permanent challenge.

Also, it seems a weekly cycle is too short. Make it bimonthly or so.

[Scott Lord]

hmmm...

My first post in the Composers Forum, so I will go with the flow ....

A weekly challenge seems fun - but it doesn't take much to get overdue!


Monthly composing challenges seem more viable? However, the "name that chord/interval/note/microtuning" challenge is more fun on a weekly basis (I would hate waiting a month for the answer!!!)

Does that mean there could be both weeky things to do, and monthly bigger things to do?

I am sure I can't be the first one to think of this - so sorry if it's been mentioned before, but I thought I'd try and post a friendly "hello forum" type message to introduce myself!

[Marius Amado-Alves]

Scott, welcome to this strange and friendly network.

If you have time to manage a weekly challenge of "name that thing" why don't you go ahead and create a group for that. Or take charge of this one? Alpiar seems to have abandoned it.

[Britt]

It looks like there isn't much activity here...
but

I had an idea. I propose a cantus firmus be chosen (a given melody to do counterpoint studies off of), and we each do a counterpoint exercise. The number of voices would be up to the composer, however instrumentation must be for voice. (i.e. SATB SSAA TTBB TB SA ST AB SB AT... ect.)

If no one else has the time, I have absolutely nothing to do, so I could potentially organize some of this stuff.

[Chris Alpiar]

Chris just loves to run his mouth only, thats all!! :D hehehe

[Marius Amado-Alves]

Like the Longest Piece project I am only interest if it is done at the conceptual level, i.e. with a score, each composer assigned a part. I hate production work.