Hi Composers’ Forum members, as you know, the 4 elements are earth, air, fire, and water. For this proposed contest, you will write a piece of music of no more than 2 minutes duration based on one of these elements. Any instrumentation, any style of music. If the contest is a go, I will give 3 months for interested composers to submit their entries to me, which I will then put up anonymously. Voting will be by the membership of this site. You can submit entries for more than one element. An MP3 or link to a soundcloud/youtube/etc will be necessary. A PDF of the score is highly desirable, but not required. In order for this contest to be a go, 10 composers need to express interest by Sunday, Jan. 21 at 5 pm EST. To express interest, reply to this thread or send me a message. Please indicate in your expression of interest what element or elements you think you might want to compose for (you can change this later). Please note that I do not need any music at this time, just an expression of interest. I have run these contests before, they are a lot of fun and a good way to get feedback about your music from your peers, hope you can join us!
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I'd say that needing three months to complete two minutes of music (when there is no specific call for instrumentation or score) is rank hobbyism. Even if many here do consider music just a casual hobby, many of us do not and spend a lot of time on it every day. We should at least try to meet somewhere in the middle!
As evidenced by any sort of reality competition show, a fair comparison of creative work requires that 1) all the work done is done according to the same spec and 2) completed within the same, limited timeframe. This is why I objected strongly to allowing people to submit work they've already written. Without any foreknowledge, we will be judging stuff written in a month for the contest against pieces that may have been finessed over multiple years for totally unrelated purposes.
Finally, one contest on this site every five months (1 month to register interest + 3 months to write two minutes of music + 1 month to evaluate) means maybe two contests a year. We should aspire to do more than that!
Dave Dexter said:
This string is hilarious...
How many composers does it take to change a light bulb?
One hundred. One to change the bulb and ninety-nine to say they could have done it better.
Three months is great. Some of us have other things to do and have to fit this in to an already packed schedule. And who th is complaining about to MUCH time anyway? Hilarious :)
True. Why only 3 months--maybe we should target January 2019?
Johannes Bergcrantz said:
Nah. The head of the competition sets the rules, it shouldn't be up for debate imo. But I'm sure it will sort itself out :)
John Driscoll said:
Gav, I only propose this as 'food for thought'
Expand the voting process - just a bit.
With 80 entrants (hypothetically) and 4 categories, and... in consideration
of the time it will take to listen to, and give a fair chance to all, we should
have the 'play-offs first. Ask the 'judges' to pick their 5 favorites in each element.
Then, have a 'play-off' of those 20 finalists, following the existing format of top 1-2-3
for each element. This could be carried a step further if necessary, to a 'most liked' of the
4 categories. The final 12. And, just for fun, throw in a wild card pick at all levels. RS
I don't know if you have me as a commit for water, but I think I will. It takes me a long time to write, so I'd probably vote for 3 months.
If 3 months is too long, can't you still sign up? And start writing it 2 hours before closing time. Better yet, improvise it 2 minutes before. What would Mozart do?
OK everyone, I believe we're really overthinking this one. Although it's a 2 minute piece, there are many of us (probably the majority of us) that don't make a living from composing. If you do, congradulations and I'm happy for you. But the rest of us are probably working non-music related jobs to pay the bills, have family obligations, etc., and need the 3 months to do this RIGHT. I don't want to submit a piece that's half-baked. If you have written something already then great, but you'll probably want to revise or edit it before the deadline, of that I'm sure.
Just my two cents....
"And start writing it 2 hours before closing time. Better yet, improvise it 2 minutes before...."
Welcome to the world of writing music for media....seriously!
mikehewer.com
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