The themes this time around are:

1) Time of Season - In other words, whichever season it currently is in your hemisphere, so autumn or spring.
2) Alternative - Experimentation with instrumentation or styles that you've not used before, e.g. ethnic music, atonal, instruments that rarely get solos, or just instruments that you've never used etc.
3) Combination – A mixture of 1) and 2)

It'd be too hard to set up a separate voting system for each theme, but oh well. Just pick the best song out of them all. Great turn-out guys, 8 entries! Please tell me if the links are broken. Feel free to comment away to your heart's desire!

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Title: Spring Painting
Composer: Sukarufu
Theme: Time of Season
Link: http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=At...=post&id=112448 (http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=112448)

Title: My CMA song
Composer: Badgerglue
Theme: Alternative
Link: http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=At...=post&id=112726 (http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=112726)

Title: Tentative Torrent
Composer: spc1st
Theme: Alternative
Link: http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=At...=post&id=112990 (http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=112990)

Title: Clouded Sun
Composer: Osse
Theme: Time of Season
Link: http://www.somebodyreviveme.com/Music/CloudedSun.mp3

Title: The Winds of Spring
Composer: Alfonso de Sabio
Theme: Time of Season
Link: http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=At...=post&id=120462 (http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=120462)

Title: The Laird's Dance
Composer: madmazda86
Theme: Alternative
Link: http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=At...=post&id=120477 (http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=120477) [mp3 sample: http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=At...=post&id=120480 (http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=120480)]

Title: Blooming
Composer: Matthias Samland
Theme: Time of Season
Link: http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=At...=post&id=120550 (http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=120550)

Title: Rains of Renewal
Composer: James Greterman
Theme: Time of Season
Link: http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=At...=post&id=120568 (http://forums.ichigos.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=120568)

EDIT: Contest closes Tuesday, May 10th @ 12 pm!!!!!

Spring Painting-
Marvelous. It really was. At times it seemed a little sporatic, but guess what, so's Spring, right? I love some of the things you did with the main theme, adding all those lovely accidentals.

"My CMA Song"-
I liked it too. The layers were nice, I just wish you did more with it. More variations, more themes. But I liked what you did. It kind of reminded me of my own style plus drums.

Tentative Torrent-
I like the mood, and your sound quality is superb, but it lacked essence.

Clouded Sun-
I really like this style. It reminds me of the first movement from Moonlight Sonata. You're not Beethoven yet, but it's good.

The Winds of Spring-
I plead the fifth.

The Laird's Dance-
This is fun stuff. I approve. Great job of adding more instruments. They balanced nicely.

Blooming-
It's cute, but it sounds too much like all the other piano solos on this forum. I can tell that you have the ability to compose; it'd be nice if you'd branch out from this kind of song. To your credit, I like the way you jazz up some of the themes.

Rains of Renewal-
Sounds like Uematsu. I think I've heard this one before in your thread. I like it, it's refreshing to hear a kind of orchestral piece with actual movement and structure.

My vote goes to Laird's Dance.

Spring Painting

Wonderful use of accidentals. Quite a memorable theme that has a very old-school RPG sound to it. :) Trills?! Congrats! Not many of us around here use trills anymore... ;) Love the tempo changes. Very reminiscent of Spring.

My CMA song

For some reason, this song reminds me of something that would fit into a Game Boy Final Fantasy game. :P Interesting beat, but I felt sometimes that the violin was a tad monotonous. I liked the cello's counterpart.

Tentative Torrent

Very atmospheric! I do like the title, and the ocarina creates a free-flowing and dignified melody. The strings in this piece are magnificent, and the chord progression is unique. The part about 1/3 through reminded me of the Koyaanisqatsi theme song a bit, but perhaps I'm mistaken. You sure know how to create an ambience. Although there was no solid melodious line tying the whole piece together, I quite enjoyed the emotions that the variety of instruments brought forth. The part half-way through is my favorite, the part with all the flourishes in the woodwinds and brass.

Clouded Sun

Wonderful title. The piano is moving, emotive, and radiant. Please don't ever lose this aspect of composition, because it's wonderful. :) Seems Autumnly enough to me.

The Winds of Spring

Woohoo for the harpsichord! It's a rare instrument these days. I liked your idea of meshing the three instruments into different representations of the season (gentle breeze, birds, etc.). It works out well, and the flute makes me picture a tiny bluebird that's just learned to fly and is celebrating his first escape from the nest and his squabbling brothers and sisters. This song also loops fine. Well done. ^_^ One thing to note is that I would've enjoyed one more cadence just after the last rolled chord of the harpsichord, but it was still good nonetheless.

The Laird's Dance

Are those Scottish soldiers rallying on the emerald bluffs by the seaside?! Oh, wait, that's just The Laird's Dance. ;) This song sounds very traditional to me, and the drumbeat is also a great addition. The drone is also something that adds to the realism of the song, and I commend you on having noted that the bagpipes have a constant drone. ;)

Blooming

Peaceful, pensive, and pretty are perfect phrases to praise this piece of yours, Matthias. I still don't know how you do it; you take something so simple and make it move something inside the mind and heart. The high parts are tender and touching, and I wish I could learn how to make this effect in my songs, but alas it still eludes me. Maybe some day.... Good job, and keep it up. Don't neglect instruments other than piano! (Also, don't forget about electric piano SFX, too. :))

Rains of Renewal

I am exempt from adjudicating my own composition. :)


Tough choice, but I think my vote goes to Tentative Torrent by spc1st. ^_^ (If only I could have two or three votes.... It's so hard to choose with so many good songs! :( I'm sorry if I disappointed anyone in my voting.)

Spring Painting - I like how you try to develop different sections with a motif, though in regards with the title, it seems like you are programmatically scraping and repainting with each occurance of the motif (since the transitions are very abrupt). But I guess does work in a cute way, when in the end, the final notes seems to give off a sense of satisfaction at the final version/revision.

"My CMA Song" - As Gnomish have said, it reminds me of an old-school RPG dungeon theme, especially with the limited voices. It sounds pretty solid for the most part, though when you recasted the original section, the transition could've been smoother; ditto for the somewhat abrupt ending.

Clouded Song - The chord progressions and cadences remind me lots of Philip Glass' stuff, but of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing (depending on your taste for his stuff ;)). It works pretty well in the context of Autumn (especially those little "humanized" tempo changes, hinting at a sense of hesistance into the unknown). It sounded like it probably could've been longer, but other than that, quite a nice piece.

The Winds of Spring - The title initially made me expect a more "windy" ensemble, but you make good use of your instruments. My favorite part was the flute "cadenza" section, which would've made for a nice fugue/canon if you chose to expand on it. I'd kind of expected a more ephemeral, fleeting mood for the piece with the title, but the general mood does seem fitting with that of Spring.

The Laird's Dance - Sounds pretty authentic, though I can't say I'm too familiar with traditional Scottish music. The drums are a nice touch, though perhaps you could've made it less mechanical sounding with some velocity deviations (especially for the rolls). The mp3 version was particularly nice, though it seems to be transcribed and slowed down from the MIDI. Good job.

Blooming - The intro kind of sounded kind of jumpy, but the main part of the piece sounded pretty appropriate for the title - slowly but nobley does that bud begin to blossum to the first days of Spring. Unfortunately, it sounded like the "blooming" was sadly cut short with the sudden minor ending section... But outside of the fragmented feel of the piece, the harmonies/melodies really have a sort of emotional touch to them.

Rains of Renewal - I really like the instrumentation for this piece - each instrument seems to propagate a part of the scenery you've set up. That said, I still wish you'd added a more contrasting section to round it off a bit; the persisting obliggato parts started to wear after a while. But overall, I believe this piece best expresses its intentions, and so here my vote is cast.

Can I just congratulate everyone here. I don't think that there was a totally worthless piece submitted. Everyone did a really awesome job. Normally I don't feel that way about the CMA.

Spring Painting, by Sukarufu:
Actually, I wasn’t as fond of the trills/accidentals as Alfonso and Gnomish =T but that’s just me. In your middle section, when you used a chord for each note of the melody, I felt that it got too heavy, and the harmony seemed distorted. As for the melody itself, it is indeed cute and memorable, but because of its repetitious use, perhaps your piece would work better when structured as a rondo? I got the impression of false endings.

cma song, by badgerglue:
Yeah, I agree with what everybody else said. I was expecting more =) For sure you have the harmony and chords, but it still sounds “empty” to me. So maybe you could add some soft keyboards in the background? And the false ending in the middle doesn’t work well, because it isn’t justified.

Tentative Torrent, by spc1st:
I can’t really think of anything bad to say about this piece, haha. Anything worthwhile I’d like to say has already been said by everybody else =P I don’t know, your piece borders between 1) and 2), leaning more towards 1) especially since your ocarina lead didn’t have a big as a solo as I’d thought it’d have . . but does that really matter? Nah, great job. [Edit: That'd make it a 3) wouldn't it? hahaha]

Clouded Sun, by Osse:
When I hear this, I think of leaves in the wind, swirling around, and hesitating like spc1st said . . and your style still reminds me of the movie, Amelie ^^ A shame it’s too short!

The Winds of Spring, by Alfonso de Sabio:
What an interesting concept you have! Indeed, with spring, you’d get the vestige of the winter wind and the coming of the warmer wind, so it’s a nice mixture. I love how you send out the message that the bird first starts to fly during the warm breeze.

The Laird's Dance, by madmazda86:
It’s amazing what you can do with a pedal point, eh? =P Writing for bagpipes is hard enough (you guys have no idea the amount of research she did), but a duet? Wow, because I’m normally not interested in this sort of music. And the drums are so fitting. Oh, I love the resolution at the end!

Blooming, by Matthias Samland:
I agree with everything that the other three have said so far. Nevertheless, great job Matt =)
@ spc1st: perhaps the minor section signifies that the flower wasn’t able to complete its blooming ._.

Rains of Renewel, by James Greterman:
xP you are forgiven . . anyways, I’ve heard this piece before, so I have nothing new for me to comment on.

Originally posted by Al@May 1 2005, 12:56 AM
EDIT: Contest closes Tuesday, May 10th @ 12 pm!!!!!
*bump*

Just reminding people to vote ^^ . . also, we currently have a winner (like omg, yay!!), so I hope the last few votes that come in don't change the results much =)

Well, I doubt anybody's going to vote with half an hour to go, and I have to leave for my flight, so . . I'm gonna close the contest now, hehe. (Please forgive the double-post)

Important Announcement: CONGRATULATIONS to madmazda for winning the April CMA!!!!! =D Yay!!

Oh, I forgot to vote this time! X_X

Originally posted by Al@May 11 2005, 01:29 AM
Well, I doubt anybody's going to vote with half an hour to go, and I have to leave for my flight, so . . I'm gonna close the contest now, hehe. (Please forgive the double-post)

Important Announcement: CONGRATULATIONS to madmazda for winning the April CMA!!!!! =D Yay!!
OH! OH! I only just noticed this XD Yay! Thanks to everybody who gave feedback on my piece, I'm glad I achieved the alternative feel ^_^