Well, I was talking to deathraider and here are some ideas we came up with...

We think the contest should end either around Halloween or Christmas.

We came up with...


Quartet
Make a Score, Assign a Number, and Draw Numbers Out of a Hat to See What Score You Have to Work With
Halloween Theme
Score to a Made Up Video Game/Movie
Piano Solo w/Mood
Compose to a Short Story
Different Genre then Most are Used To
Draw Number Out of a Hat for a Time Signature
Ethnic Music
Must Meet Certain Requirements


Suggestion: Let the judgment consist of 50% Judges and 50% Open Vote.

In this thread, let's brainstorm ideas for a while and then we'll move to a new thread to vote on the idea we want to do and we'll go from there. Let's brainstorm until sometime Saturday August 9, 2008 EST.

What ideas do you guys have?

Yay new contest! Even though I've never submitted a piece to one of them I always write something. Maybe this time I'll get up the courage (and the punctuality) to enter!
My idea: since it is around Halloween why don't we do a contest to match. Kinda like the Christmas contest of years past just more dark and "evil".
Also, what exactly does the second suggestion from your post mean?

Everyone in the contest would submit a blank score with their choice of instrumentation. Each score would then be given a number. Someone would post on YouTube a clip of them drawing a number out of a hat for each contestant. Then that contestant would have to use that score for the contest.

This idea is one I have had in mind for a while. It is to make a contest where the composer would be hired to score the main theme of a videogame/movie.

The composer would receive a letter that is requesting his/her services for make the main theme. The letter also would provide information about what is the request and a little of background of the videogame/movie which will help the composer to know what mood is required for the project and what kind of style should approach. The videogame/movie it would be also a no real one. I mean with this to avoid real movies or videogames that exists. So there would not be any comparative with the real music of it.

Another idea is a piano solo with a particular mood or moods for easier comparative with all the entries. That would help in the moment when the piece wild be evaluate. To see who approached better the mood and other aspects.

Hmm, so are there guidelines to what type of instrumentation you can submit? Would be rather interesting if someone decided to submit a score for, say... 8 tubas, knowing that his chances of getting that instrumentation is 1/(# of participants), and then just sit back and watch someone else struggle =)

Of course there would be limitations. :-P

BTW, for this contest I suggest we do 50% judging and 50% votes for the win. What do you guys think?

How is that? To judge first which one did a better job then to vote for the one you like?

There would be an unknown panel of Judges. Each one chooses an entry to be the winner. The entry with the highest number of selections from the judges wins.

I like the video game idea quite a bit, followed by the piano idea. Newgrounds.com just had an audio contest which was themed "Sorrowed Tears". The rules were simply that the song must be sad. We could adopt that but for the piano.

I've had an idea myself for some time. What if one of us were to come up with a short story scenario (Around 2 paragraphs) and we had to compose a piece based on the story? I think it would be very fun and challenging.

As far as judging, I also have an idea. A panel of judges would select three songs. Then, the three (or even five) submissions with the most selections would be put into the "finals". At this point, the people would vote on their favorite of the submissions. Or something like that. :P Also, would judges be automatically unable to submit a piece?

Also, would judges be automatically unable to submit a piece?

Yes, that is how we have done it in the past. The judges would also remain anonymous to the contestants.

This idea is one I have had in mind for a while. It is to make a contest where the composer would be hired to score the main theme of a videogame/movie.

The composer would receive a letter that is requesting his/her services for make the main theme. The letter also would provide information about what is the request and a little of background of the videogame/movie which will help the composer to know what mood is required for the project and what kind of style should approach. The videogame/movie it would be also a no real one. I mean with this to avoid real movies or videogames that exists. So there would not be any comparative with the real music of it.


This is an awesome idea! It gets my vote. :]
A piano solo seems so...blarghy, though. I like the idea of using an orchestral work, it sounds spiffy and such. And, allows for more creativity. ^^

Everyone in the contest would submit a blank score with their choice of instrumentation. Each score would then be given a number. Someone would post on YouTube a clip of them drawing a number out of a hat for each contestant. Then that contestant would have to use that score for the contest.
I really want to see Contrabass Clarinet and Piccolo instrumentation... that would make me lmao.

I particularly like a Quartet idea... though, what sort of quartet I hope is up to the composer.

Yup, it would be.

Caribbean or Latin music style! Salsa! Merrenge! Reggae! Steeldrums! Tango! Samba! Dance, Dance! To make something productive with those genres!

Now, anyone have an idea of those? :heh:

Another idea is to do again a competition of to make music based in your interpretation of an image? or maybe to make music based in the interpretation of a character?

We've already done the image one.

I've updated our list. Keep the ideas coming! Don't be shy! Suggest even the most outrageous ideas because good ideas can be spawned from outrageous one. XD

Something we did in my old orchestration class was take the numbers 1-32 and put them in hat A, and numbers 1,2,4,6,8,16 in hat B; pick three out of each, and that is your time signature (such as 12/4+13/6+3/16). It was rather amusing, though I'm not too sure that would be fun to make a competition out of.

Porn music! Battle music! Heroic music! The apocalypse!

Ethic music. The composer would be free to choice the music of any culture and to make a piece based in the music of that culture. There is a lot of cultures to choice. And a lot of styles that are great.

Porn music! Battle music! Heroic music! The apocalypse!

Ethic music. The composer would be free to choice the music of any culture and to make a piece based in the music of that culture. There is a lot of cultures to choice. And a lot of styles that are great.
Ethic music? "Ethnic" music would kinda be one sided at a place like this.... specializing in Japanese animation. :bleh:

Porn music made me lol since I just thought of that idea myself.

If we do apocalypse music I wonder if I can get away just repeating the last 5conducted notes of "Mars Bringer of War" for 2 minutes. :unsure: hehe!

I would probably do bagpipes for ethnic, I'm not gonna lie!

Techno/trance would be rather amusing... That, or my tuba octet idea =)

To go along with all the "drawing things out of a hat ideas": draw two unusual genres and write a piece that incorporates both.

*ahem* -looks around nervously-
i was just looking around and...i thought it'd b pretty neat if there was certain specifications like there must be a tempo change or change in key...also maybe the judges can make a slideshow or post a melange of objects and let the composers draw their inspiration from it...better yet make that a flash animation that we can add music to xD that'd b cool.

Ethnic music!

I love the duduk flute.

About 24 hours, give or take a few hours, and well move onto the next stage which will be to decide what will be the theme for this contest. All the ideas listed on my first post will be put into a public thread and the idea with the most votes will be this Fall/Winter's Composition Contest theme. ^_^

Can we vote for 2 ideas? Hard to choice. =p

I don't think the forums will let you vote more than once. :\

Ah, will be done with the poll bars.

Hmm how about who can compose the best short march? Need more marches around here.