Thread: TC Composers Competition Round 2: Judging!

Hi everyone!

This is the second round of our informal TC composers competition.

In order to judge the winner we hope for as many members as possible, composer and non-composer, to judge between the compositions on Youtube. To judge, pick your favourite two*, posting your favourite and second favourite. These will then all be added up to find out who is the winner after two weeks. No expertise is required unless you choose to supply it - this is simply a competition on which piece is liked most by most people. Scores are optional (no one has provided them) because we are more bothered about music as sound than squiggles, and want as many judges as possible.

The Youtube playlist description:

In this round entrants are tasked with composing a piece for five instruments and one soloist, the instruments used are entirely of the composer's choosing. There is a guideline duration of 7 minutes.

As in the first round, there are no special considerations to be made regarding form and scores are optional.

The competition is anonymous to help prevent bias. Composers, however, are unable to vote for their own pieces - any such vote will be ignored.

Two more things: there is a guideline duration of seven minutes - but as before this is only a guideline so please pay attention to pieces both well above and below this length of time. Also, like last time, please try to bear in mind that this is a composition contest, not a sound-engineer one, so judge the composition not the sounds.

Here are the links to the Youtube pages. They are in order of submission (i.e. more or less random). A playlist has also been made if you prefer.

Playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjx5r...=plpp_play_all

Individual links:

1. Bittersweet Tears:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjx5r9fEHUM

2. Call and Entry for Méaoire Seatain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jPNm5JTo64

3. Gloomy Greenwich in E minor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8kMLDsFQmI

4. Violin Sextet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AePH37E3qLs

5. Piece in 3 movements:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acFR11VREOg

* It has perhaps not escaped people's notice that there are less pieces than last time. This is perhaps due to the time of year: some people have told me they are busy with school etc. However, it is also to be noticed that these pieces are longer. It seemed sensible that instead of the top 3 votes like last time, the top 2 would be more suitable there being only five entries. I hope everyone will agree with me.

I would like to thank all any member who takes the time to judge. All comments that are not completely destructive are welcome - even on pieces you haven't included in your top 2, and any kind constructive criticism is very much appreciated.

Also, thanks go to every composer who has submitted an entry - and best luck to all!

1. Bittersweet Tears: A piece with plenty of abandon. Good harmony and interesting moves in general. A good piece.

2. Call and Entry for Méaoire Seatain: An absolutely fascinating use of instrumentation all round. This piece really explored the possibilities of the instrumentation restriction we placed on this round, which is excellent.

3. Gloomy Greenwich in E minor: This had an interesting use of the timpani quite reminiscent of a funeral march. Actually I suppose the whole thing is quite like a funeral march.

4. Violin Sextet: I figure that it has a kind of contrast between the atonal beginning and the tonal middle section. I like this.

5. Piece in 3 movements: Obviously the longest piece. Some good ideas, but I felt that the multi-movement format had to be compressed perhaps too much.

A tough call, but in the end I would have to go with:

1. Bittersweet Tears
2. Call and Entry for Méaoire Seatain

I will vote only one piece:

2. Call and Entry for Méaoire Seatain

What a great piece. I love the name also, I think it fits very well to the music. I have explored similar ideas in one of my pieces, although I think this one is better crafted, maybe because of that I like it so much.

Some interesting pieces! I have listened to them all, but I'll just limit my comments to my top two for now:

1. Gloomy Greenwich in E minor: I thought this piece had a good quirky character, and I appreciated the sardonic parody of Greenwich (unless it was supposed to be a sincere indictment of a broken society in which case I apologise for the misunderstanding :P). Although I couldn't hear the timpani clearly all the way through, I did think that, even though it is in character for a funeral march, a timpanist in a small ensemble piece like this might appreciate a slightly more varied part to play. Otherwise good all round!

2. Call and Entry for Méaoire Seatain: I think the best word to describe this for me is "mesmerising". It was great to listen to, and the instrumentation was wonderful, but I might have had a harder decision deciding which of these pieces to put first were it not for the fact that the string writing gave me a sense of seasickness. :P

If I am allowed, I will show my appreciation for this fascinating piece of music by voting for Call and Entry for Méaoire Seatain only. I am impressed that it came from one of our members. It was intriguing and fascinating, with a very inventive choice of instrumentation. Bravo!

If I must vote for another piece, it will be Bittersweet Tears. But only if voting for two is mandatory.

Originally Posted by CarterJohnsonPiano

If I must vote for another piece, it will be Bittersweet Tears. But only if voting for two is mandatory.

That seems a bit mean!

Originally Posted by Mephistopheles

That seems a bit mean!

Sorry! I did not say that the rest were horrible, just that Call and Entry is a clear first place and deserves recognition as such

1. Call and Entry for Méaoire Seatain.
2. Bittersweet Tears

1.Violin Sextet: A very nice piece. I can't get the melody from the beginning out of my head for several days (actually I should deduct some points for that ). The middle part around 0:45 and and 2:20 is also very nice. But you shouldn't call it "Violin Sextet". "Sextet for violin and woodwinds" makes more sense.

2. Piece in 3 movements: Also a really good composition. The quality of the work is hardly recognizable because of the the poor sound quality but there are some very nice ideas in the piece. Maybe the composer will present us the complete piece (without cuts) after the voting.

Originally Posted by CarterJohnsonPiano

If I am allowed, I will show my appreciation for this fascinating piece of music by voting for Call and Entry for Méaoire Seatain only. I am impressed that it came from one of our members. It was intriguing and fascinating, with a very inventive choice of instrumentation. Bravo!

If I must vote for another piece, it will be Bittersweet Tears. But only if voting for two is mandatory.

Well, because of that I never make prejudices.

1.Call and Entry for Méaoire Seatain
I was little confused at first because the only instrument we heard ( on the first minute) was the bell.
2. Is a very hard choice between Violin sextet and Bitter sweet tears but i have to go with the Violin sextet.

I am honored to cast my first vote here at Talk Classical. I look forward to entering next time around. Here are my votes:

1. Call and Entry for Méaoire Seatain
2. Violin Sextet

I will edit the post to describe what I liked and didn't like later on since I am hanging out with a friend right now. But I wanted to get my votes in. It was fun listening to all of them. Great effort by all!

Is there a deadline for voting?

Originally Posted by mmsbls

Is there a deadline for voting?

At the moment there doesn't seem to be, at least there's no information about it in the group.

Wasn't it established in the last one that voting lasts for two weeks?