Hey guys and gals,

So there's been a lot of talk about future composition contests. Great! Let's discuss all your ideas here! (I'm going to try to figure out how to copy your posts from general chat into here. If I can't I'll just quote them in this post).

One idea I was thinking about was doing an "Iron Chef" competition but called "Iron Composer." The Iron Composers would be made up of contest winners and alumni members from the past. Each entrant would declare their challenge of which Iron Composer they'd like to challenge. Just like in the Iron Chef TV series, there would be a "key ingredient" that the composers would have to feature in their composition. The entires would be judged by other "famous" Ichigo's members and if a challenger should upset and Iron Composers, they win the title of Iron Composer as well and hopefully we can arrange for their "Member" status to read "Iron composer" for a while.

Keep the ideas coming guys!

So... you know how we'd like to get some Comp. Contests going monthly? Here are some ideas that I'd like to share with you guys for the August contest:



Given a rhythmic/pitch (or combination of the two) motif, compose a piece - minimum length: 3 minutes.
Ask those who would like to participate in the contest to choose a # from 1 to 50. Each number is associated with a composer. Each participant will write a work, attempting to mimic the composer's style.
Write a twelve-tone piece.
Write a piece that requires a parallel 2nd/7th/etc. for each note that is heard (e.g. if my first two notes are C, I have to have a D or a B at the same time; D, then C or E at the same time)
Write a piece based off of a mathematical constant.
Write a piece based on poetry.
Given a 30-second except of music, continue the piece. (4 minute minimum, including 30-sec. excerpt.)
Given a melody, continue the piece. (3 minute minimum.)
Write a piece based off of a chord.
Write a Theme and Variations, given a Theme.

Also, the 10th anniversary of September 11th is coming up. We could do a competition on that theme. Though, that might be a little unfair for me since I just finished a piece along those lines.

Yeah, that's a lot of ideas you have, clarinetis. Additionally I have following ideas:

- Write a composition to a picture.
- Write a piece to a video.
- Write a piece with a fixed chord progression, but an own choice how long each chord takes.

In addition to contests, I'd like to see some composition challenges.

For example: Any composer may freely create a Challenge at any time, where compositions must be written according to the rules or restrictions.

Example rules/restrictions might be:
- 16 bars 120 bpm 4/4 time
- 10 second jingle
- 10 second jingle, single instrument
- orchestration of an attached audio
- single instrument arrangement of an attached audio
- write a melody for an attached accompaniment part
- write an accompaniment part for an attached melody
- etc.

The important thing is to keep these short and simple, so as to differentiate them from contests, and to allow new composers easier entry into the world of composition.

Challenges are meant to be open for any composer to create and participate in at all times. The idea is to give people plenty of opportunities to exercise their composing muscles in ways that they might not have thought of on their own. It's like a buffet of composing exercises. Hop on the forum, take on a challenge and practice your composing skills.

Single instrument of an attached audio competition is currently in progress on transcriber thread haha.

My idea is musical cherades. Each composer who wants to participate receives a word bound by the same motif. For instance- Motif is Color and each composer is given a different color. The audience then tries to guess what color the composers are trying to express through their music. To avoid unfairness different colors may arise, 2 or 3 colors can be given to each composer for which they have to write a different them for in their song. The composer with the most correct guesses by the audience wins the competition.

How about a children's song? Something that might be on kid's TV show, or something that a group of little kids (elementary school kids) can play live.

Let's not try to limit the style of the piece. That would just put off people, except people who are good at that style, and would therefore win.
I say there should be a composition using specific instrumentation (eg. string quartet, flute choir, 3 vibraphones...).
I like the idea of composing to a picture, but it would be hard to pick a favourite, as you'd just think of the first one. Different pictures would avoid this, but it would be unfair. Maybe have a selection of picturesthat can be chosen, but not by two different people.

clarinetist's ideas are good, but many are not suited for beginning composers. I absolutely love the idea of composing to a picture or poem, though. That way, there's a connecting theme, but there's also plenty of room for individuality. One other thought would be composing to a title. What would a piece called "Cold Fusion" sound like? Or one called "Smog"? That was how John Mackey's Asphalt Cocktail (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y23r6J5GmaI) was written.

Youngcomposers.com did something interesting — there was a "theme" for each contest, basically a description of what the piece is about, and the winner of each contest got to pick the next theme. Pretty fun.

Hey guys and gals!

We've got a lot of excellent ideas! Would you guys like to vote on your favorite or be suprised by a choice from your moderation team? I'm thinking it'll be a good idea to keep up with these small competitions for a little while, and then sometime in the future we can have a more grand competition. Let me know what you guys think!

anonymous voting seems best. I hate it when judges pick winners with logic I disagree with... :P
I enjoyed the last one, so I'll probably enter the next one no matter how you do it, but I do prefer voting to having judges...

I was actually thinking more along the lines of a way to decide the theme for the contest: voting or mod choice, but you bring up a good point as well. :lol:

ahahahaha... theme-wise, if you're not intending to enter, why don't you choose? if you are, maybe a well-known ichigo's-type?

I was gonna mention a theme that we should consider, but then I thought, 'What if I chose a theme based on what I want to compose next?' So I came up with an alternative. Why don't we grab a dictionary and randomly pick out a word, and then add that word into the title of one's song. Like... if the word is "poop", which I highly doubt, one can title his/her song, "Poops are Oops" or something. What do you think? Has that been done already?

anonymous voting seems best. I hate it when judges pick winners with logic I disagree with... :P
I enjoyed the last one, so I'll probably enter the next one no matter how you do it, but I do prefer voting to having judges...

I actually think transparent voting is best.

Here's a question for you guys. If there was ever a larger contest, would you pay an entry fee if the top entries won some fraction of the collected entry money and all entry money went to the prizes? If so, how much would you be willing to pay as an entry fee?

Are we gambling now, on a website whose visitors are dominated by 13-17 year old girls?

It's a bit much to be honest. There are other forums better suited for serious competition.

Personally, I think the critiquing and glory (whatever that means on a random internet forum) would be compensation enough. And I know that an entry fee would keep newbie composers (like me) away. When money gets involved, it stops being 'just for fun' and starts being something more intense. People would have to start deciding what the 'best' composition was rather than which one they liked the most, etc. But that's just my $0.02.

I always ignore contests that ask for entry fees, even I having the money it just makes me turn away of it.

I likely wouldn't enter. How would you make it larger, by the way?

If money is involved and people don't have to pay, the turnout will increase. The simplist way (in respect to other) is to find sponsors. This may require some benefits to go to the sponsors. eg: write a jingle that would go well with the sponsor's ad campaign. The difficulty in doing this will be that we need some way to show that there are enough people that care about the competition such that it will be worth their time in sponsoring us.

I have been thinking that for a while. But so far I keep seeing it very hard for what I would like to try.

Years ago I used to participate in competitions in another forum that had as a prize sample libraries or software that were given from the company that produced them. Eastwest, Garritan, Kirk Hunter, Notion and other famous ones were sponsors of the competitions.

But Zero have a point that makes it hard to think of a sponsor to contact.

Personally, I like the general atmosphere of this forum the way it is. It's casual and competitions are more suited for people who do music as a hobby rather than professional. I am...definately not within the market zero had stated but I keep coming back to this forum because its not that serious. I think most people participate in the competition to read other people's reviews about their pieces more than for any sort of recognition or prizes and I think we should keep things that way.B)

Keep it casual and fun. That's how Ichigo's has always been. Just, maybe, have more steady competitions to keep up activity. I only wish I was able to get my hands on Finale, since I had the time for the last competition, but... couldn't submit anything :|

Anyway. Keep up how it has all been done. It's great, and keep up the great work mods!

Maz

Whatever it is or however we decide one...
I hope we get one soon "D

I was hoping someone would organize a halloween composition challenge or something but it never came lol.

There's always the winter season. :)

I was actually thinking of making a "Monthly Composition Assignment" in that each month a few of us (the people who "run" it...preferably members a little more experienced in composition) would decide on what we should do each month, and then have a little forum chat about our pieces at the end of the month...? [It'd be open to everyone/anyone obviously...] (something like that) For example, an "assignment" we all might do would have us each writing a waltz, and then submit all of those and see what everyone else did. Or maybe we'll all write a piece in a form of a rondo, and the month after that something about instrumentation in which we'd all write a string quartet.

Maybe this isn't the place to talk about the idea, but [anyway] I think it'd be a great jump-start activity for the composers here, young and old(er). Also, it'd just be great exercise having to write a piece that wasn't based on a holiday theme or some sort of blatant "character piece contest" (however, I'm not saying that it wouldn't be an option for us to do).

Thoughts?

There's always the winter season. :)

I was actually thinking of making a "Monthly Composition Assignment" in that each month a few of us (the people who "run" it...preferably members a little more experienced in composition) would decide on what we should do each month, and then have a little forum chat about our pieces at the end of the month...? [It'd be open to everyone/anyone obviously...] (something like that) For example, an "assignment" we all might do would have us each writing a waltz, and then submit all of those and see what everyone else did. Or maybe we'll all write a piece in a form of a rondo, and the month after that something about instrumentation in which we'd all write a string quartet.

Maybe this isn't the place to talk about the idea, but [anyway] I think it'd be a great jump-start activity for the composers here, young and old(er). Also, it'd just be great exercise having to write a piece that wasn't based on a holiday theme or some sort of blatant "character piece contest" (however, I'm not saying that it wouldn't be an option for us to do).

Thoughts?

I like it. Tried to start something like that with the last mini contest and thought to continue it through the lessons, but grad school has gotten me side tracked for a little. We'll see about something in the coming days.

I was still waiting for your orchestration practice part 2 to come out porsche lol

There's always the winter season. :)

I was actually thinking of making a "Monthly Composition Assignment" in that each month a few of us (the people who "run" it...preferably members a little more experienced in composition) would decide on what we should do each month, and then have a little forum chat about our pieces at the end of the month...? [It'd be open to everyone/anyone obviously...] (something like that) For example, an "assignment" we all might do would have us each writing a waltz, and then submit all of those and see what everyone else did. Or maybe we'll all write a piece in a form of a rondo, and the month after that something about instrumentation in which we'd all write a string quartet.

Maybe this isn't the place to talk about the idea, but [anyway] I think it'd be a great jump-start activity for the composers here, young and old(er). Also, it'd just be great exercise having to write a piece that wasn't based on a holiday theme or some sort of blatant "character piece contest" (however, I'm not saying that it wouldn't be an option for us to do).

Thoughts?

Composition exercises.

You could start a subforum for people to create composition exercise threads (an exercise can be something like that composition competition we had a while back, except maybe shorter, and with more variety). The idea is to have people hop on the forum, dive into a buffet of exercises and practise your composition skills.

You'll be able to get feedback from others, as well as learning by listening to others' compositions of the same exercises.

Instead of a major event with deadlines, these exercises are meant to be approachable for both experienced composers and newcomers who have never composed alike - An invitation for young musicians to put their inspiration to work.

I like the monthly idea. Every months contest should have a theme related to the month XS
We should have a one week Halloween contest right now. We wont have time for judges if we are to hear it by the 31st so we can just have forum voting maybe :p

One week would not be enough to generate enough entries. I was going to launch Ichigo's Villain Contest to have a little fun composing a theme for a villain. But after a small chat with Porsche it would be better to give a chance to prepare the winter contest and give composers the enough weeks to work in their entries.

Any thoughts?

Winter Contest it is then. What would the theme be though :o
Just some randoms ideas I'm jotting down:
Isolated Forest(in winter of course)
Snowflake
Holidays

Another thing, I hope we can have more than just Piano compositions. Nothing again Pianos but more diversity is good :D

Let's do a Winter Contest. Yes.

when? and how will it work?

We do not know yet when the contest will start or how will work, that is in process. But we want it to be soon enough for people to have time. Everybody is welcome to throw ideas here like Equisix did.

what about... bell song, where only instrument we can use is bell type.

what about... bell song, where only instrument we can use is bell type.
That might be fun and interesting but Im afraid it might scare away some.

I say we just have a theme given by someone respected on Ichigo's who's not entering... and a limit on length. I doubt that that would scare anyone away, and it wouldn't need any preparation.
However, I have no idea what that theme would be.

Hey guys and gals!

Nyu and I have been talking, and we think we have a winter contest arranged for you guys! Stay tunned for more info!

Another good idea is make more composition contest, but focused on a style: rock, jazz, funky, or with only a certain ensemble: string quartet, piano or little band. This will encourage people to learn about different styles and improve their composition skills. And we would have lot of variety on it!

PD: October is finishing, so we can do something like Mistery Music Contest or something like that.

We can apply this to the exercises also. I think the idea of the exercises is very good. ^.^

... :/ I'd rather that the style wasn't limited... it would discourage most possible entrants... and there would likely be one person who would definitely win... plus, there are many other ideas that could work for the contest (see entire thread).
Of course, that's not to say that it couldn't be done.

Don't worry. This one will have its freedom in style and instrumentation. :)

However, seeing limitations in contests is a way to push forward your creativity and ability to solve problems. There are always people that are best in something in particular, and that should not be seen as something negative but as a challenge to do the best you can do and to learn and improve from that experience.

Back to the topic of money
Its been established that an entry fee would scare many people away. However, what are the possibilities of having ads on the main site and forums to fund contests and the site?

We the moderators do not have control over that. The only person that can have a word about that is the Administrator. Advertisements' money is used to keep Ichigos alive (in my understanding) and money generated by that type of ads is extremely low.

Google adsense will probably generate 1-6 USD per day. That should be enough to fund a monthly prize. Gand can probably tell us more.