Music Contest #4 - Theme thread

[WherewolfTherewolf]

Planning for Music Contest #4, have any good theme suggestions? Post them here.

Note: in the end, the final theme is up to whoever hosts it - this is a theme suggestion thread, not an absolute poll as to what the final will be.

 

[JetFangInferno]

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Battlefields
Mythology
Comedy
Tragedy

Personally, I think Comedy would be the most fun, but My Little Pony would be incredibly amusing as well (though not everyone follows the meme).

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

I'd think it'd be cool to get numbers into play, like take a specific number or number sequence, like the Fibbonaci sequence, and somehow fit that to a song. Thing is, you can do it any way so long as you can explain it in your written statement, so that leaves you to figure out how to fit the sequence in it yourself.

 

[JetFangInferno]

That's a very interesting theme, WWTW. Another interesting concept could be the use of the Shepard's Scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard's_scale

 

[Bugz]

Adventure
Science fiction
Drama
Sadness

 

[bhusta]

Contrast / Opposite
- Day and night
- Victory and Defeat

 

[Devine]

l'amour perhaps?

 

[JetFangInferno]

Or combination of Devine and bhusta's ideas:

Contrast between love and love-less (heartbreak).

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

What about the concept of a Loop,
As in something endless eternally feeding into itself

Conceptually it's a fairly simple concept but there's so many ways you could approach it, you could get some pretty interesting theory going into play trying to express that theme.

 

[deepstrasz]

What about the concept of a Loop,
As in something endless eternally feeding into itself

Conceptually it's a fairly simple concept but there's so many ways you could approach it, you could get some pretty interesting theory going into play trying to express that theme.

That leads to monotony.

 

[JetFangInferno]

deepstraz, like WWTW there's many ways to approaching and defining loops. You can define it in terms of rhythms, melodic motifs, instrumentation, chord progressions etc.

Loops is another cool idea because it is the foundation for a lot of music. From the repeating chord progression of Pachabel's Canon to the looping rhythm and beats in Deadmau5's music, there is a lot of repetition (in a good way). Ravel's Bolero is also a famous song where the main melody is looped over different instrumentation, which prevents it from being monotonous (that is quite subjective though).

I think if you mix and match all these ideas together you can get some interesting and challenging themes. For instance, the contrast of love and heartbreak using only a loop that is permuted. However, we don't want to scare people off because that is WAY too specific.

 

[Steel_Stallion]

Blues


...



It's all I play

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

Blues


...



It's all I play

Blue as a color could be an interesting theme, but generally I find it best to avoid specific genres as a theme because not everyone's equipped to create music up to their standards for every genre, It'd be interesting to see how it turns out (I'd love to see someone pull of orchestral or electro blues) but it's very limiting and it would turn off many potential entrants. On top of that most people are working with sequencers and not actual instruments, because of that it makes blues very difficult to pull off because to get the feel right you have to have that swing going, while it's natural for a human to play it that way it's difficult to translate into a way that most sequencers understand - while it's close to triplet pairs, it's not exact so doing it that way just makes it sound very synthetic and lacking of the human aspect which makes blues a very appealing form of music.

 

[Steel_Stallion]

Blue as a color could be an interesting theme, but generally I find it best to avoid specific genres as a theme because not everyone's equipped to create music up to their standards for every genre, It'd be interesting to see how it turns out (I'd love to see someone pull of orchestral or electro blues) but it's very limiting and it would turn off many potential entrants. On top of that most people are working with sequencers and not actual instruments, because of that it makes blues very difficult to pull off because to get the feel right you have to have that swing going, while it's natural for a human to play it that way it's difficult to translate into a way that most sequencers understand - while it's close to triplet pairs, it's not exact so doing it that way just makes it sound very synthetic and lacking of the human aspect which makes blues a very appealing form of music.

See its the opposite for me lol, I'd like to get involved in one of these things, but I just play guitar. I've tried tinkering with those MIDI programs and I've experimented with guitar pro a few times, but I just can't orchestrate it that well. I just pick up my guitar and start improving, man. lol.


but don't mind me, I'll see if I can jump in regardless of the theme.

 

[JetFangInferno]

I think colors is way too subjective for a theme.

 

[Jazztastic]

Blue as a color could be an interesting theme, but generally I find it best to avoid specific genres as a theme because not everyone's equipped to create music up to their standards for every genre, It'd be interesting to see how it turns out (I'd love to see someone pull of orchestral or electro blues) but it's very limiting and it would turn off many potential entrants. On top of that most people are working with sequencers and not actual instruments, because of that it makes blues very difficult to pull off because to get the feel right you have to have that swing going, while it's natural for a human to play it that way it's difficult to translate into a way that most sequencers understand - while it's close to triplet pairs, it's not exact so doing it that way just makes it sound very synthetic and lacking of the human aspect which makes blues a very appealing form of music.

Triplet pairs being hard for a sequencer? Hip hop as a genre evolved from sixteenth note triplet pairs swung on, guess what, computers.

Blues is mainly defined by it telling a story (not always in words), and in that regard it is much like country music. Not all blues is swung, I've heard plenty without the usual spang-a-lang usually associated with peices in the genre, playing straight eighths isn't foreign. Blues can be anywhere from fast to slow to any tempo inbetween. However, blues does have to follow the blues variants of scales, mixolydian, if I recall correctly, usually in a 12 or 16 bar form

"Synthesized" Jazz music is still Jazz. Jazz grew in popularity due to the fact that it absorbed other styles of music to create unique feelings and sounds. There is absolutely no reason why techno couldn't be asborbed this way. Lack of the human spirit hasn't stopped people in music before, if anything, having perfectly calculated effects has only allowed musicians to give grander scale to their creations, and achieve a level of musicianship not possible by an orchestra, no matter the talent. Do I consider Daft Punk to be musicians, absolutely, just as much as Louie Gillespie or Louie Prima.

I'm a Jazz drummer and I've played gigs before. I've also spent my fair share on the computer tinkering with music programs. Blues is easily do-able, I made a blues song on my friends GUITAR HERO EDITOR for gods sake.

At the same time, I think Blues is the most irritating style of Jazz. Honestly my least favorite to play and listen to, but I am providing a counterpoint for why you shouldnt just chuck out genres.

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

I never said it was impossible, nor did I ever insinuate electronic music is less musical then acoustic (for f@#$s sake that's what I mainly do).

But there are plenty of reasons why you shouldn't pick a specific genre as a theme, not everyone's equipped for every genre, for someone with more experience in the genre then others it could be an easy win, etc. etc. Personally I think a theme should provide a similar level of challenge for all entrants by forcing them to find a way express it in a creative way, while some people may still have more experience expressing the idea it's not so easily a matter of how much experience you've had with it in the past. On top of that, more abstract themes allow for a larger variety in the entries - the competition's more interesting when you can see all the various ways people have come up with to relay the idea, while one may purely go off instrumentation and style to express the idea, someone else may come up with a very creative way to express it in the inner workings of the composition itself, or yet another may go a more sampled route finding a unique way to turn a sound related to the theme itself into a full piece - thing is once you've set a genre to go with, that begins to limit the scope of ways you can take the piece. While it's true that in the vast variety of sub-genres of any more genre you can get an unlimited variety of fusions and adaptions, for a lot of people having a specific name floating over them will be a bit of a damper on their creativity, for others they probably wouldn't enter at all instead of trying to adapt.

I'm not trying to protect people's usual habits, I'm all for pushing people out of their comfort zone so creativity can flow, but picking a specific genre is just to inconsistent to work there unless it's obscure enough that the chances anyone has any experience with it are slim to none.

 

[JetFangInferno]

Well said, WWTW.

 

[Crazed_seal2]

Dramatic Music?

Combat Music?

Epic Music

 

[JetFangInferno]

The problem with those three themes is that not everyone has the right instruments to invoke "epicness" for example. I would be given an unfair advantage because I do have the orchestral instruments while many others only have synthesizers at their disposal.

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

The problem with those three themes is that not everyone has the right instruments to invoke "epicness" for example. I would be given an unfair advantage because I do have the orchestral instruments while many others only have synthesizers at their disposal.

Ummm no, you're getting my point wrong
Expressing any abstract theme can be expressed with any instrument, it's not a matter of subject matter, which can be easily adapted for any sort of set-up, but limiting specifically to a genre, which becomes much more restrictive.

 

[JetFangInferno]

My apologies for the confusion then.

 

[deepstrasz]

Are we decided yet ?

 

[Dynamiczx]

hmmm...maybe a clash,a battle,or the preparing of a battle,u know the march and so on
or maybe some atmospheric or relaxing music,environmental which would fit with the environment/terrain it want to shows,like a relaxing,joyful music to a lushy,green forest,or a morbid,sad orgue like music to a macabre,death,blighted terrain

 

[JetFangInferno]

As much as I love battle music, it doesn't lend itself to a large number of creative interpretations. I think the Seasons could be a cool theme. Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall.

 

[bhusta]

In my opinion we should consider that this kind of contest is new to the hive.
Only a fraction of voters were involved in the last music poll as compared with the last terraining contest (music contest 26 voters / terraining contest 123 voters).
Reasons for this could be that not much people could indentify with the theme and that the duration of the songs were too long.
It could be a promotion for further music contest if the next music contest fits to another non-music contest which runs at the same time and that the songs could be limited to 2 minutes.
(For example the terraining contest#13: fictional world wonder at the moment.)

I agree to WWTW, limiting to a genre limits the range of creativity.

 

[deepstrasz]

Limiting a song to only 2 minutes because of no reason stupifies creativity.

 

[Bugz]

Two minutes with 5 entry's are better then five minutes with 2 -.-'

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

In the end the contest is for the participants, not the voters - a 2 minute limit would just be dumbing the contest down for the people who aren't actually participating in the contest.

Pairing the music contest worth another contest could be an interesting idea, but limiting to 2 minutes is not happening.

 

[Jazztastic]

In my opinion we should consider that this kind of contest is new to the hive.
Only a fraction of voters were involved in the last music poll as compared with the last terraining contest (music contest 26 voters / terraining contest 123 voters).
Reasons for this could be that not much people could indentify with the theme and that the duration of the songs were too long.
It could be a promotion for further music contest if the next music contest fits to another non-music contest which runs at the same time and that the songs could be limited to 2 minutes.
(For example the terraining contest#13: fictional world wonder at the moment.)

I agree to WWTW, limiting to a genre limits the range of creativity.

So a genre would limit creativity but a time limit wouldn't? Besides, look at the default wc3 music. They're long peices.

The problem with genres is that people don't truely understand how big they are, or how compatible they are for other genres. We could pick techno and end up with modernized classical, rave, and dubstep. There exist so many sub-genres inside other genres, it's quite hard to believe actually. Jazz, my favorite style of music, has tons and tons of sub-genres, cool jazz, hard bop, bebop, ragtime, new orleans, swing, jazz fusion, there are tons of variations inside this one genre alone.

I don't really have a problem limiting to a single genre. If others do, that's cool too. It would probably be best if we picked a theme that could be interpreted into different genres though.

I'd suggest the theme Enviromental. Enviromental would be music inspired from nature, which could easily lend itself to multiple genres or styles.

 

[JetFangInferno]

The thing is we already had an "environmental" theme before -- it was desert. If we want to do a joint theme, we could consider "Animalistic Nature" (Hero Contest #4) or "Fictional World Wonder" (Terrain Contest #13), as suggested by bhusta, both of which are broad enough to span multiple genres.

 

[Jazztastic]

I didn't know that. I wasnt here at the last music contest

We should definitely not carry over the animalistic nature theme.

 

[JetFangInferno]

Hmm, we at least still have "Fictional World Wonder" which reminds me of the Utopia/Dystopia theme that some people wanted to do in place of Schizophrenia.

 

[Devine]

Let's get a poll up?

 

[JetFangInferno]

We need to find the judges first and since I already did so for MC3, I would like to participate instead for MC4.

 

[deepstrasz]

I don't mind doing either of em. But still I shall compose no matter which side I'm on.

 

[Jazztastic]

I believe I can judge appropriately for Music Contest #4. Here's why

-I am highly interested in music as a whole, in a variety of genres and styles
-I've recorded inside a studio before
-I haven't recently judged (ever, to be exact) a contest, and I believe I am not *too* new to THW
-The contest will likely receive at most 5 entries, perfect for a new judge.
-I can follow the thread and provide suggestions/hints to help newbies succeed.
-I have a good ear for audio quality.
-While I am primarily a drummer, I also fall under the category of "percussionist". I know my 12 basic scales, and took 3 years of piano. I am not going to judge on musicality and level of the musician (as in how basic or advanced the musical concepts expressed are), but I can easily spot wrong notes, carrying over phrases incorrectly, bad tone, and overall lack of a good sound.
-I am a regular user on THW, and I log on more than once a day (assuming I don't have a day trip, or internet freaks out)

I would like to judge this contest, seeing as I don't have any recording equipment, I cannot participate. The judging would be done superbly, and most importantly, on time.

EDIT: If I am going to judge, I would like to know a few things about the Music Contests.

1) What form are submissions submitted in? I would prefer a youtube submission, because it is fast and easy, along with a downloadable version.
2) Is sheet music a required or even suggested to accompany entires?
3) I need to know the theme. But then again everyone does I think
4) I also need to know the scoring

SECOND EDIT: I talked to my friend -Derp-, and he suggested the following themes:

Creepy
Sad
Requiem

I know that it the last Music Contest was schizophrenia, but this is what he suggested.

 

[JetFangInferno]

*Removed*

I have decided the theme: Comedy.

 

[Bugz]

Not really, i think you can put it up

 

[JetFangInferno]

I'll let it sit for a day or two before putting it up so people can respond.

 

[Skycraft]

The theme Comedy sounds fun.
I'd vote for that one.

 

[deepstrasz]

You know what. What's the point in voting a theme anyways ? I mean this is the idea of music. You have a theme to work for. A theme that maybe you don't know how to reach but you'll learn to by practice. Now why wouldn't all the music contests have a different preordained theme every time eh ?

 

[JetFangInferno]

Good point, deepstrasz. Since I plan on hosting this, I will pick Comedy as the theme because:

1) Most people don't compose comedic music often so we'll be forced to break out of our comfort zones.

2) It's abstract and you can approach it in any genre with any kind of instrumentation.

3) It's a nice contrast to the heavier theme of Schizphrenia from the previous contest.

With the theme settled, now I need to know what is the best time to start the contest.

 

[Bugz]

Alright, ready to go :O

 

[Jazztastic]

Start it now

School is about to begin for most people, so the longer you wait, the bigger workload is going to pile up for everyone

 

[JetFangInferno]

Contest has been submitted and is pending approval.

Please post here if you wish to participate (excluding judges): Music Contest #4 Submission

 

[Silverfish423]

Do you think itd be possible if a music contest related to rapping could be made?

It could go like this:
3-5 instrumentals would be provided and lyrics had to be provided.
It could be judged based upon rhyming, wordplay, flow, literary devices, etc

Watcha all think?

 

[Jazztastic]

Lyric contests could be cool.

 

[JetFangInferno]

For a future contest that could be really fun but that be for a different discussion.

 

[Silverfish423]

When do you think it would be considered for official submission?