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Music must serve a purpose. In this case, it is the output of a function. You have serialized some aspects of it (meter, tempo, pitch) and organized them by groups of 12, which is quite innovative. The result is 11 minutes of soundscape that is not altogether unpleasant, although it is not without its issues. The chords are nondiatonic: dissonant and exotic but, as is the case with strictly nondiatonic harmonies, the ear longs for cadential moments. A pause, a turn—anything to suggest we have a bit of resolution. This piece, while meditative and brooding, does little to provide us that. For 11 long minutes the harmonies drone on and on, rarely straying from the same oblique motion. That is one of my greatest critques of this work: please try to alter the harmonic motion from time to time or your music will sound stagnant and somewhat boring. A closely related issue is the lack of counterpoint. As I just mentioned, most of the harmonic motion is oblique, meaning that opportunities for counterpoint are diminished. There are some instances of counterpoint here, but not nearly enough to maintain interest, in my opinion. Finally, although it is not within my power to declare that "serialism is dead," I do think serialism should be approached carefully in our modern times. I believe that what you have done here is a good example of how serialism can be applied to contemporary compositions. For serialist music, this is actually rather enjoyable! Thank you for sharing, and I look forward to more of your works! Best, Jörfi

Thanks to all the participants who submitted music to the competition - the recipients of "The Participant Award"! Click on the links of each entry to read all the reviews for that entry: Entry A - "Blast Off!" by @Eickso Entry B - "Caprice for Solo Violin No.1" by @luderart Entry C by @MrMule96 Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur Entry E - "Fantasy on a Theme from Castlevania 2" by @bkho Entry F by @ComposaBoi Entry G - "Revisiting Kirby" by @Setthavat Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev For winning the Themes/Melodies/Motives category with a score of 7.65, Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev receives the "Tune Smith" badge! For winning the Harmony/Chords/Textures category with a score of 7.73, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "Ingenious Harmonizer" badge! For winning the Form/Development/Structure category with a score of 7.37, Entry G - "Revisiting Kirby" by @Setthavat receives the "Musical Architect" badge! For winning the Originality/Creativity category with a score of 7.80, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "Musical Explorer" badge! For winning the Score Presentation category with a score of 7.72, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "Immaculate Engraver" badge! For winning the Instrumentation/Orchestration category with a score of 7.63, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "Outstanding Orchestrator" badge! For winning the Execution of Given Challenge category with a score of 7.50, Entry G - "Revisiting Kirby" by @Setthavat receives the "Theme Winner" badge! For winning the Taste category with a score of 7.65, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "Impeccable Taste" badge! For winning 1st Place in the popular voting polls, with 16 points, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "1st Place Popular Vote" badge! For winning 2nd Place in the popular voting polls, with 15 points, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "2nd Place Popular Vote" badge! For winning 3rd Place in the popular voting polls, with 12 points, Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev receives the "3rd Place Popular Vote" badge! For winning the Favorite "Dragon's Lair" Banger in the popular voting polls, Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev receives the "Favorite Dragon" badge! For winning the Favorite "Treasure Master" Banger in the popular voting polls, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "Favorite Treasure" badge! For winning the Favorite "Kirby's Adventure" Banger in the popular voting polls, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "Favorite Kirby" badge! For winning the Favorite "Castlevania" Banger, Entry E by @bkho receives the "Favorite Castlevania Banger" badge! And now ==< drumroll >== for the official winners of the "From Bits to Bangers" Instrumental Music Composition Competition: For winning 1st Place with a score of 7.47, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "1st Place" badge and the $100 USD prize! For winning 2nd Place with a score of 7.29, Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev receives the "2nd Place" badge and bragging rights! For winning 3rd Place with a score of 7.25, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "3rd Place" badge and bragging rights! Congratulations to all the winners! And thank you to all the players @Tónskáld, @Thatguy v2.0, @PeterthePapercomPoser, @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, @Omicronrg9, @chopin for judging the competition! They will be the recipients of the "Player Award" badge! A special thanks goes out to @Tónskáld and @PeterthePapercomPoser for organizing the competition! They will receive the "Community Organizer" badge! And an extra special thanks goes out to @Tónskáld for financing the competition! He will receive the "Patron Award" badge! Here are all the reviews by player: Tónskáld, Thatguy v2.0, PeterthePapercomPoser, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, Omicronrg9, chopin. To check out the scoreboards where each player kept track of their scores, go here: Tónskáld, Thatguy v2.0, PeterthePapercomPoser, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, Omicronrg9, chopin. To check out the final results scoreboard where all the final scores were calculated, go here: Final Results Scoreboard We encourage all the participants to now submit their entries under their name for further feedback from the community! Also - the winners' bangers will then be able to be moved into the "Competition Hall of Fame"! To listen to all the submissions go here: Please take our "From Bits to Bangers" Competition Satisfaction Survey: For the competition announcement, where you can listen to all the original 8-bit tracks, go here:

You establish some promising themes in the opening measures, but these are unfortunately abandoned and never developed. As early as the 3rd measure, you begin to introduce new material that simply takes away from the rhythm and motion you're trying to establish. In measure 9, the tenors burst forth with an explosion of 16th notes seemingly out of nowhere, while the rest of the voices join in with unrelated rhythmic patterns. And then things just unravel from there. Perhaps you're just jotting down some musical ideas, but you need to refine things a little before posting them to the forum for feedback. The part-writing needs significant adjustment. Both S and T are scraping the top of their ranges (A) frequently. If this is intended for human voices—and I have to assume it is since you've titled it SATB—this is simply unsingable. There are multiple issues with voice leading and crossing of voices. And the alto's part at M31... no way that's ever going to happen. Writing for human voices is a very different exercise than writing for instruments. To improve, I recommend studying the works of good choral writers, such as JS Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and even modern composers like Eric Whitacre, Ola Gjeilo, or Morten Lauridsen. Happy composing! Best, Jörfi

I have to say, both Kirby entries are aboslutely phenomenal, both deserve a first place in every poll. Vey well done!

Hey @SisselOnline, Though I have said so in Discord Channel, I really hope you can provide at least the pdf score input in a notation software! It's fine with handwritten copies if it's clear, but the image is really blurred here and I really cannot review this! Also the handwritten is not very clean. It's of course not as messy as mine or Beethoven's but it is hard to review this without a clearer copy! Henry

some of the following echoes the above, i think. but... perhaps passages where less than four voices appear would be effective. interludes such as this would give you the opportunity to explore the various themes of the work in more detail and extend it with variety and contrast. the passage with three voices moving in fourths seems a bit iffy. 46-48 from 48 on, the subject is presented verbatim a number of times. maybe modulating to related keys or using fugal answers for each entry would work better? except for the last one where the Picardy third might sound even more effective than it does right now. this would make for a very dramatic end to the work. still, as it stands now, it is very well constructed.

Yooooooooooo what's up my dude Glad to see you're back with some more music! Wait a minute...before I even listen...I'm reading the chatbox... Are you sure you're so fragile that you can't comprehend what a teenager has to offer? Do you know everything? Are you Beethoven? Dude, I'm probably older than you. I'm in my thirties. So what if someone younger than you has critical advice to offer. They could of said nothing, but instead they chose to say something about your music. Do you have to adhere to every word? Of course not, but don't neglect the fact that anyone who is interested in music that CARES ENOUGH to give you some words has something to say. Dude, I teach music for a living. I play stuff I've wrote to students of all ages... my ego is never hurt by honest opinions. Be man enough to recognize constructive criticism... no one is perfect. I've been doing this stuff for years, and I STILL post to this forum because I love hearing the feedback. I don't care if you're 10 or 70 years old, I'm here for advice to grow as a composer. Do I listen to all of it? Of course not, but I'm so happy that anyone who takes the time to not only listen, but to offer some words of advice/criticism/critique/slander are available to me from anywhere and everywhere in the world. That's part of the beauty of this place, and why I've been here for so many years. But if you're just going to get overly defensive on any critical comment you may receive, then it's your loss. You mentioned you're getting recorded my some hot shot producer (I actually don't remember exactly where I heard this, remind me). That's great. If you're that good, you have so much to offer here, instead of infecting the forums with toxic garbage reminiscent of a twelve year old. I hope that you'll come around, I have faith in anyone that calls themselves a composer, but the way you're handling yourself is immature and bullshit. Poke around on the forums more. You'll find that people don't often post multiple pieces in one post. What's your goal? If feedback is a priority, then make multiple posts in the future. Just ask Syrel, he loves popping up every once in a blue moon to post 17 songs/pieces he's written. So... after all that, I did listen to one of the pieces you posted. The Ballade in D minor. As Expert expertly commented, this didn't conVINCE me at all. There were some notable discrepancies. - For one, don't listen to the people that commented on Youtube. If you're REALLY interested in getting better, I have a lot to say - If you're going to notate both hands on one clef, it's best to arrange the note lines to align with which hand is playing. You seem like a guy that would offer money to people interested in playing the piece, so I'd write the best you can as far as playability - just write the tied eighths as a quarter, we know where the beat is - random double bar lines just for a change in material? Nah bruh, wait for some drastic change - there are countless times I could mention playability. Yes, this looks like it COULD be playable...but how would it sound? It seems impractibly difficult regardless. - come on dude... I watched you play Rach... does he do this? - this all seems kind of jumbled... what are you going for here? - again, maybe you could help me understand. It just seems all cacophonic, like there's no logic to it I could sit here and link a bunch more examples, but I'm just not understanding what you're going for here. Every aspect of music seems neglected, and I don't mean to be rude, but perhaps I'm just not skilled enough to understand fully what you're going for. I hear no sense of harmonic progression, the melody seems all over the place, and the rhythms are jaunty and dysfunctional. Like I said, I don't mean to be obtuse and abrasive, but what you've displayed here is inadequate as far as a composition goes. But just know, we're all here to help you. And when you stop being destructive in your feedback of criticism, all of us here would love to help decipher what it is you call music. Until then, I'm eager to hear your criticism of my criticism, and would love a conversation and not teen angst. I applaud @expert21for giving you honest feedback; his advice will only make you better as a composer. You must love to hear that. Vince

G'day @SoloYH, I listened to your Quartet and I must say that I wasn't really convinced by it at all. I feel that it was way too repetitive melodically and the Piano RH did nothing which didn't really exploit the full potential of the instrument. You could have just given that Piano LH to a Second Violin or Cello to play. With that being said, you have potential, you just need to refine you compositional technique. I do hope my crticism is of some value and is not too harsh. Kind regards, Arjuna

ok, here is one of my standard lines: i have no control over how a given combination of tones will effect you. if you like mine then please feel free to shower me with all the praise in the world. if you do not then you have no one to blame but yourself. please excuse me now while i go work on another one of my...brilliances.

i'll listen to it soon so i can remember what was played, i dont have much recollection of it now. did i play it? maybe if it sucked i could not be blamed? otherwise i deserve high praise? nocturnes tomorrow (sigh).