TUNE CONTEST!! 21-28 (Finally)

[Peter Thomas]

Okay, apologies for taking so long  

Trails accidentally put Geoffkahn's name in the last comp instead of mine, and it took me a while to catch on. Silly me...

Anyway, On with the comp!!

I was originally going to post a picture, but decided against it, thinking that perhaps words can allow for more creative juices to flow.

Your task (which you absolutely MUST accept) is to write a song based from the title:    

"The Crystal Empire"

So basically any genre you want, as long as it reflects that kind of mentality. Only restrictions are that you must have two bars of an irregular meter in your song. (ie - if you're in 3/4, put in two bars of 4/4 or 6/8, or even 5/8) Just don't do anything sneaky like one bar of 4/4 and then another in 2/4 (thus equalling two bars of 3/4). They must be audibly 'different'.

And of course nothing over 1.5mb

Hope you enjoy! I'll answer any ??'s as quickly as I can.

EDIT: For some reason .ogg files have been playing up on me for the last couple of days. Send em in if you want, and I'll try and figure it out, but if you want to make me REALLY like you, send it in midi or mp3   (or wav... blah blah blah...)

[Gregjazz]

You can count me in!

Can we have those 2 bars of odd-meter repeat more than once in the entire song?

Also, the deadline seems a bit long... You might want to fix that typo.

[BerserkerTails]

I'm working on my piece right now (No, I'm serious, cakewalk is minimized!). I can't wait to get it finished, and if I can achieve all I've invisioned, it's going to be sweet.

Which reminds me... Can we have more than two bars in a different time signature? For example, my song starts in 4/4 time, but I want it to switch to 3/4 time later. Could I do this?

[BOYD1981]

So basically any genre you want, as long as it reflects that kind of mentality. Only restrictions are that you must have two bars of an irregular meter in your song. (ie - if you're in 3/4, put in two bars of 4/4 or 6/8, or even 5/8) Just don't do anything sneaky like one bar of 4/4 and then another in 2/4 (thus equalling two bars of 3/4). They must be audibly 'different'.

could you kind of elaborate on that? not everyone that makes music knows about these kind of things, i know what 4/4 is but all those other numbers just confuse/annoy me... things like that are a good way of preventing people from entering, it's just stupid.

[EldKatt]

x / y, where y is the note value and x is the number of these in a bar.

1 = semibreve / whole note
2 = minim / half note
4 = crotchet / quarter note
8 = quaver / eighth note

Of course, this can continue indefinitely, but if you go above that you'll confuse the performer. Well, not really, but anything else would only make sense in music of a more... modern kind.

It's not that difficult.

[Peter Thomas]

In regard to the 'repeating' questions, you can copy and paste those bars as many times as you like, as long as they are 98% identical (for example, the 2nd time you might want to use minor chords instead of major, but the top note must still be the same). No completely different bars allowed.

To Boyd, I think Eldkatt summed it up pretty well, but I'll add my dollar's worth too.

You know that 4/4 has four main beats per bar (pretty much every pop song ever written, really). Well 3/4 has (believe it or not) three beats per bar, much like a waltz, where there is one bass note, followed by two (typically) higher chordal beats. What I'm after is (for example) say, 20 bars of 4/4 followed by two bars of 3/4. Although the 4/4 of course doesn't have to be 'pop', and 3/4 doesn't have to be a waltz. Do what you like, just keep within the rules.  

Oh... and I fixed the deadline. So anyone who was planning to do this the night before (say, the 217th) now has to get their butt into gear.

Have fun  

EDIT: Beserker: You can certainly change time signatures in your song, however these changes must be lasting. You can't put in just 5 bars of 6/8 and then change back. Half/half is fine. With regard to CHANGING the two bars WITHIN this, a definite no-no. IF you have a piece (4/4), and you put in two irregular bars of 5/8, you can certainly then change to 6/8, however if you put in another two irregular bars they MUST be almost identical to the 5/8 bars you used earlier. Read the beginning of my post to clarify the 'almost identical' thing.

Hope this clears everything up...

[BOYD1981]

x / y, where y is the note value and x is the number of these in a bar.

1 = semibreve / whole note
2 = minim / half note
4 = crotchet / quarter note
8 = quaver / eighth note

Of course, this can continue indefinitely, but if you go above that you'll confuse the performer. Well, not really, but anything else would only make sense in music of a more... modern kind.

It's not that difficult.

that's not really that helpful, can people that host these tune contests stop showing the fact they know about music and all this stuff off in the future? surely it's up to the people that enter the competition to show off their musical abilities and not their knowledge, it just confuses people.

[Fuzzpilz]

But Boyd, this is really, really basic stuff. I don't necessarily think everybody who makes any kind of music should be familiar with it, but it's very much simple enough to be part of tune contest rules. (unlike that one time when I asked people to make twelve-tone music, I admit that was maybe a bit over the top)

Good one, I think I'll be entering.

[Peter Thomas]

I really, really must agree with Fuzzpilz on this one, Boyd. I don't mean to question your composing skills (which I'm sure are great), but, as Fuzz says, this isn't musical masturbation. It's very very basic stuff. I think this was THE ABSOLUTE FIRST thing I ever learnt when I started playing piano in pre-school (kindergarten, or whatever you wanna call it)

I think what you want, Boyd, is a tune contest where the host doesn't give any boundaries, and just says 'write a song, and make your own rules along the way and then I'll decide who has the best rules, and pretend that they were the rules I forgot to stipulate in the beginning.'     Sorry. I'm not doing that.

But I'm not flaming you, either. I understand that everone is at different levels of musical understanding. It's just that if I take out that rule, then there will be NO rules at all, and I'd just be screwing people over if I tried to create new ones.

So good luck and god-speed

[Ben]

BOYD: You understand what 4/4 means-- 4 beats per measure. The rythm is counted 1-2-3-4 1-2-3-4.

3/8 just means 3 beats per measure (1-2-3 1-2-3)
6/8 is a lot like 3/4, except without any accent on beats 2 and 3. Also, a quarter note is 8 beats long instead of four, but that's not really important here.

5/8 is less conventional.  The beats are counted 1-2-3-4-5 1-2-3-4-5. You usually only hear that timing in Jazz or progressive rock.

I could try and find some examples for you. Like Fuzz says, it's pretty basic stuff, but can be hard to explain just with words. If you could hear songs with these different kinds of timing, I think you'd understand right away..

[BOYD1981]

it might be simple to you, you've taken piano lessons, i never did, and i don't want a tune contest without boundaries, for me "The Crystal Empire" is boundary enough, you can make good music without all this music theory stuff whether it's basic or not, if people took time to explain exactly what they mean for people that don't know no matter how simple it may seem to be for them, these kind of problems wouldn't occur.
to me, something like below is 4/4 (which i usually associate with drumbeats), next to it is something i might understand to be 3/4...

(that's near enough exactly how it would look in the programme i use to make music)

[Peter Thomas]

Well, boyd.....

from what I can make out of your diagram, that seems to be correct. I assume that C-5 signifies the first beat, and that the little ... things are the other beats which you would put (obviously) other things into. If this is right, then you're diagram on the right of 3/4 is also correct.

But I still maintain that this is very easy stuff (And I'm not speaking as a college professor with 6000 years of experience to brag about). I didn't have to take piano lessons FIRST to learn it. This was in pre-school, before they're even teaching basics like 1+2 =3 . Any 5 year old who could not understand the 3/4 4/4 concept was not allowed to continue. And it wasn't because they were elitists. It was because it was a basic concept that should have been easy to understand.

If you don't like the rules, then don't enter.

In terms of the title being sufficient guidance, I'm a little split on that one. My opinion of the tune contests is music-lovers composing songs that show that they can conform to different rules (Which is most certainly what happens with REAL composers who write film-scores). I know, I know, no movies waiting for music around here, but most people seem to like a few boundaries, to keep the competition more specific, and, in some ways, making it a little fairer. This irregular bar rule I put in will show whether someone CAN make good music with odd beats, or whether they are just used to putting a 12 bar blues progression over and over again, with just 2 random bars of classic pop inserted to meet the requirements.

[EldKatt]

The explanations so far should be enough for Boyd to understand what it means, but I don't think that's the problem. What you need to understand, Boyd, is that musicians, just like all other people with any particular interest in something, have their own words for basic concepts. This makes everything a lot easier, and you can't expect anyone (musician or not) to just screw their terminology and explain everything just in case a layman comes by and wants to know what it's about. When musicians use their 'fancy words', it's not because they want to show everybody that they know these words (as so many seem to think), but because most other musicians understand these words, making it rather practical.

The vocabulary a person uses when writing is always chosen with the target audience in mind, and in the case of tune contests, the target audience is musicians. These are very basic concepts that any musician would understand--and that any musician that does not would probably be eager to find out. It's true that Fuzzpilz' twelve-tone rules might have been a bit over the top, and a bit too advanced for the not always highly educated musicians here. On the other hand, there are people who know these concepts and would probably find such a contest fun.

I for one would probably not participate in nearly as many of the tune contests as I do if the rules were any less strict and/or technical than they are now. But this seems to be a problem mostly with the tune contests--nobody complains about the usage of words such as 'pixel' or 'gradient' in sprite jams. Hmm.

[loominous]

I think a big part of the issue is simply the sound of musictheorizing which to many (myself included) sounds very pretentious n pompous.

Another thing is the disproportionally small effect this knowledge usually has on the results given how fancy it sounds (fancy words should mean fancy result; if not, it s regarded as pretentious talk).

I m educated in musictheory/composing myself and I think the knowledge assists me everytime I write so I m not an antiacademic. I don t think people would actually mind learning a bit about different meters to be able to enter a contest, though it would have to be presented in a careful and humble manner.

Meters other than 4/4 aren t used very often in modern music so for most musicwriters learning about other isn t required. I know people who have composed music for many, many years and who are very proficient but simply hasn t really encountered 3/4 since it s not of relevance to them.

The kind of arrogant approach this contest has taken would filter these people out. It wouldn t be because they aren t interested in learning about different meters, but because the approach questions and offends their skills (skills that could be far superior to anyone else though not including knowledge of any technical terminology).

Let s keep it humble.

[JimmyShelter]

I'm just a newbie here, but isn't one fun thing of this kind of contests trying out new things you didn't try out before?

Maybe you learn something from it, or discover you really like playing with strange rythms.
(Think for example about the music form the Ring, it had weird rythms, thus unsettling the viewer, great horror effect).

I was listening to some Foo Fighters today, and was pleasantly surprised to head a 6/8 song (Floaty  from their first album). Bands like A Perfect Circle use 6/8 sometimes too.

[EldKatt]

I think a big part of the issue is simply the sound of musictheorizing which to many (myself included) sounds very pretentious n pompous.

Indeed, that's probably the issue. However, terminology of this kind exists everywhere; among carpenters, golfers, programmers, the lot. Having names for things makes everything easier, and this outweighs those who get irritated by it. I don't understand half of what the commentators of a pool game on television say, but I accept it. Were I interested I would be eager to learn the 'fancy words', rather than eager to make the bastards stop and give me a chance.

I don t think people would actually mind learning a bit about different meters to be able to enter a contest, though it would have to be presented in a careful and humble manner.

I'll believe that when I see it. It should be noted that Boyd didn't really ask, from the start, what the numbers meant. He said they annoy him, and are stupid.

[BOYD1981]

well, if you read the post again you'll notice that i asked him to elaborate, but i really think that people should start entering into the contest and not a debate.

[Archangel (aka SoupDragon)]

Meters other than 4/4 aren t used very often in modern music so for most musicwriters learning about other isn t required.

Maybe they aren't used that often, but some great songs have been written in 3/4 time. Breaking the Girl by the Chillies, and a couple of Silverchair songs - these are in no way intellectual or pretentious songs, and they're written in 3/4! WOW. And what about the millions of pieces that have been written in 6/8 time? Are these somehow incomprehensible to the average listener, or musician for that matter?

[Gregjazz]

No entries yet, but no fear, my entry will be complete soon!

[Peter Thomas]

Well, never fear.

Boyd has shown us all (through his loverrly little diagram) that he understands 3/4 without ever actually having composed in it, which is definitely a skill in itself.

Keep the smiles coming, and maybe a few entries wouldn't hurt either  

[BOYD1981]

i actually make stuff in 3/3 sometimes, and for certain tunes i'll use a mixture of different bars, but now that i've helped myself understand them just through guesses based on what i already know i won't get confused in the future...

[Gregjazz]

Wooh, 3/3 is such an awesome time signature! You must be pretty skilled to be able to compose music in 3/3. Wow!

...

[Peter Thomas]

Could someone explain 3/3 to me?? This is a serious question, because as far as I know, it doesn't technically exist. Shouldn't it be 9/4 or some such?

The denominator of a time signature works by doubles (I'm trying to make sense here......). The most basic time signature you can have is 1/1. Doubling it gives you 1/2, and again is 1/4, and so on: 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 etc etc. This is my understanding of time signatures anyway, and it leaves no room for 3/3, because there is no such note value as a 3 (a dotted minum, perhaps, which is what makes me say 9/4, assuming there are three dotted minums in a bar....)

If someone can produce evidence to the contrary, then I revoke every word of this post....

Sorry if this looks like 'music masturbation'. It's not. It's a genuine question and I want a genuine answer

I'm still hoping for an entry or two as well.....

[Gregjazz]

You probably know all this stuff about the time signatures -- it's pretty basic:

4/4 means there are 4 beats in a measure, hence the first '4'. The second '4' means that a quarter note is one beat long.

4/8 means an eighth note is one beat long.

As Peter says, the most basic time signature you can have is 1/1 (though, I've never seen it used before), then 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, etc.

3/3 technically does not exist as a time signature, because there is no note length without a dot that is 3 beats long. It just doesn't work that way.

My reply to BOYD was in humor. My apologies to anyone I may have confused. On with the contest!

Here's my entry: http://www.sonic.net/~schlae/herculeaneffort/crystalempire.mp3

Enjoy!

[BOYD1981]

for me 3/3 is like 4/4 but with one less gap between the notes, which i suppose is probably technically the same as 4/4 but how i read it in my music app would lead me to the assumption that it's 3/3 as there is a note on every third bar, surely it would be easy to guess what i mean without needing to be sarcastic?

[Peter Thomas]

Sorry, boyd. But it WAS a little confusing, and it wasn't as easy to figure out as you might have thought. How you read your program and how I think are VERY different things. Remember that I've been stuffed with Theory since I was in preschool  :'( !! You, on the hand, have a more 'natural' / 'humanistic' interpretation. It's hard for me to just forget everything I know to try and understand a concept.

By the way, from what you've described, it sounds like your composing in 3/4.

Oh, and thanks to Geoff for his entry. Top stuff!!! I'll do a more complete review when the deadline ends.

[Damien]

Great entry Geoffkhan!

It's like Dream Theater meets Serious Sam

[Ghormak]

Well...

http://www.agagames.com/ghormak/ghormak_crystal_empire.ogg (796kB)

[Gregjazz]

So you got 2 bars of 12/4 there, eh? Nice job on the melody in the first part!

[Ben]

Really great entries, both of you. I'm trying to get mine done before the weekend is out..

[Peter Thomas]

Thanks Ghormak! Great stuff!

As I said, I won't do full reviews until I judge, but both entries have been VERY cool!!

[Damien]

Here's:
Escape From The Crystal Empire, my entry.

[Peter Thomas]

Thanks Damien

[loominous]

Not what I pictured it would sound like but:

Entry

[Peter Thomas]

Okay guys... sorry I'm a bit late posting, but some *insert very insulting name here* broke into my house last night and poured soft drink all over the computer

So I'm currently on a friend's computer, just posting a quickie...

GeoffKahn: A very mystical piece, with a beautiful melody accompanied by a soft, warm 'wash'. The non-metrical bars were amazingly well done, and the heavy reliance on percussion for that part really gave the piece a magic flavour.

Ghormak: I was really pleased to hear this entry. It was the type of piece that I could play over and over again, and I could truly picture these intricate paintings of a distant world coming to life before my eyes (well...... my EARS if you want to be technical)

Damien: An awesome slant on my idea. I'm glad you took the initiative to do something different. It worked out for the best, and even though it was a million miles away from what I expected, I really REALLY like it.

Loominous: If I were a man of few words I would just be saying "WOW!!!", but I'm not, so I'll take my time... The opening was very simple, but extremely ethereal, like drifting into a wild dream where you didn't recognise anything, but could still tell that it was a good place. The strings were the perfect accompaniment, and the melody truly soared.

Okay, now for the judging (my friend is getting impatient!! Why?? It's not like I'M paying for his internet hours..!!)

All the entries were great (I really mean that, too. They were astounding), but there can only be one winner, and this weeks award for excellence goes too:

LOOMINOUS!!! Congratulations, buddy. You now have my complete permission to go ahead with the next comp...

[Gregjazz]

Congrats, Loominous. Btw, what sounds are you using? (i.e. soundfonts, synthesizer, etc.)

[loominous]

Thanks. Competition will be up shortly.

Geoffkhan, I use gigastudio/files.

[Ghormak]

A well deserved victory!

(And a good server you hosted it on, I managed to get 500k/s from it. You need to put more stuff up there )

[Gregjazz]

Ah, gigastudio. I know gigastudio is a commercial product, but are the sounds free? I'd like to get some of those string sounds...

[loominous]

are the sounds free?

The ones used, no. Do free ones exist, yes.

Edit: For the record, the strings are backed up by many instruments, though not very audible, giving them a lush, full sound. It's miles away from the common practise of choosing a patch called 'full strings' and playing a chord.

[Gregjazz]

<quote>Edit: For the record, the strings are backed up by many instruments, though not very audible, giving them a lush, full sound. It's miles away from the common practise of choosing a patch called 'full strings' and playing a chord.</quote>

I could tell. The strings (mixture of instruments as you said) really did have that nice, rich sound to them. I could even imagine the string section playing in the studio. Very well done!

We should set up a soundfont/sample exchange. I have many original super-realistic soundfonts (or I can convert them to any other format you need) that I'd like to share, if possible. What do you guys think?