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Absolutely beautiful! Congratulations, you deserve it! There's nothing much to say, YC judges' criteria are correct! Personally, I like a lot b15 - 21 🙂, maybe the only '''''problem''''' are the transitions between themes, some themes don't even have a transition, is this intended?

@Gwendolyn Przyjazna @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu @Ivan1791 I just want to say, thank you all so much for your kindness, I really wasn't expecting this. Sorry I don't comment on here much these days, I ought to review some music here again. I'll probably have something original to post here soon as well. Ivan and Gwen, I'm really happy to see you two getting acquainted! It's wonderful for me to see friends of mine to become friends with one another.

Hey, this was so unexpected! I imagine it took you quite some time to gather all the pieces and share these posts with us. The effort is very appreciated! 😄 This also reminds me I should start planning to compose an orchestral piece, I hope I will do so between now and 2024. Also I agree with Gwen, Theodore deserves a place in the chamber music and solo piano spots, he's one of the best composers we have in the forum. But still these 3 posts are so great to get to know pieces and composers I had personally not noticed. Thank you!

Hi I am Henry. This is the first year I have joined YC. What a fruitful year this is! I am very grateful to have accidentally joined YC and have the chance to see many great composers and works here, which are in different styles, and through reviewing and communicating I think I have made some progress too. Also I get a chance to share my own works here. It’s hard to have fellow musicians to give you advice if it’s not performed in real life. Deepest gratitude to our boss Mike @chopin, since without his persistence (and paying the fee LoL) YC won’t become the oldest forum still existing now. I have basically reviewed most of the pieces in the forum during this year. I have recently cut down some of the reviewing numbers but hopefully will keep on doing this. What I want to do here is to feature some of the pieces that are the most memorable for me. I will do the orchestral music list first and later the chamber and solo keyboard ones. I will only select 1 work from each composer in each category to feature more members with different styles. I am more inclined to longer works since I tend to love longer works more (and I myself compose longer works if not overly long LoL). The pieces included here are those I have reviewed before, so they are not necessarily posted within this year. Pieces that are included here of course do not mean that they are not great pieces, since the pieces here are more to my personal taste. And of course there will be many past great pieces that I have missed here. I will only write down some brief sentences on each of them, as I have already provided my reviews on their respective posts and you may check their wonderful music via the link!! The order is ranked not in terms of how good the pieces are, but what is more memorable to me since they are included chronologically to my brain’s memory to the works. Orchestral 1. @PeterthePapercomPoser's Suite for Strings This one is simply my favourite piece on YC this year, and is undoubtedly my personal no.1 piece. Just listen to the Postlude and I cry every time to it. Sublime in a simple and direct way and you see a beautiful and honest soul here. 2. @gmm's Symphony no.1 mov.1 I am fighting between this one and his suites. If I don’t limit myself to choose only one work from each composer, all of his works will be included here with his masterful orchestration. I choose this one since it’s longer, structurally more complex and chronologically more recent. Hope you will post more frequently! 3. @Thatguy v2.0 's What the Ocean Knows A great depiction of the ocean here with great quartal and unstable harmony, while at the same time shows how powerful the ocean is. Don't blame me for digging your old posts out LoL bro. 4. @Camfrtt's Piano Concerto in C minor I include only the movement three here, since the posts have all 3 movements attached in it. This one is simply a sublime Rachmaninoffian romantic piece which displays great piano virtuosic skills, melodic writing and harmonic progression. Also featured in Mike's video on melodic writing. You are so young and hope you compose more! 5. @Left Unexplained's Odyessey Such an accomplished piece. Again, all of his orchestral pieces deserve spot here, but only limited by my requirement. His pieces are always full of imaginative orchestral colour. Hope you will post more frequently too! 6. @Quinn's Music for Orchestra 14 - (Approx 5 1/2 minutes) Great orchestral colour with klangfarbenmelodie technique used. I choose this one over the Sun one simply because this work is more recent. 7. @Krisp's Lucid REM and Reached Alert It’s hard to choose between this one and the Nightfall Fugitive or the Gravedigger one. They are all in unique dark style with very colourful orchestration and harmonies. I choose this one simply because two pieces are included here so you may enjoy one more piece! 8. @WowBroThatWasReallyEdgy’s The Tortoise and the Hare This is the winning piece of the Tortoise and the Hare competition and you know why. Great descriptive piece to depict the two protagonists. 9.. @Ferrum's Adventure This is the winning piece of the Bits to Bangers Competition. @Ferrum just transforms the 8 bit melody out of nowhere, from banality to sublimity, from ore to score (yup this is one of the name I think that will fit for the competition but banned LoL). All the color change are creative and the materials are all from that 8 bit melody. 10. @Schorninator's Symphony no.8, 4th movement This one is just a beautiful tone poem, even though the form may be less noticeable. I will continue with the selection of the chamber pieces and solo keyboard pieces later. I force myself to 10 pieces here, otherwise I may include much more than this! P.S. Don’t forget to watch Mike’s video for the announcement of the Dreamscapes result!!:

It was a thrilling experience to have taken part in Dreamscapes! I am grateful to the people working behind the scenes to makes all of this possible! Don't be shy to give me some constructive feedbacks on this. I really appreciate them 🙂

Hello everyone, This is my "Dreamscapes" competition submission that I'm now making known to all. I would love to hear feedback from the forum as a whole. Thank you!(: https://youtu.be/P7cD8s_QRgA?si=AlAw8_qzrOCpsDjy

Please fill out the survey to help the staff organize better competitions in the future! The survey is anonymous so we can't see who chose which responses.

Personally, I'm not much of "competition composer" so my opinions on this don't matter, but I was just thinking about question number 5. There are a couple of things that come to mind for me. To take disallowing live recordings further, I would say that there should be a minimum audio/mockup quality threshold that must be met. As I learned back in my OCR days, a disparity in samples or live performances put things on unequal ground, psychologically and often due to novelty. You can have a composer who has a fantastic piece, but can't afford high-end samples or live musicians, so they essentially get punished for being poor even though they were allowed in. So I think it could be worth it to establish, on a competition to competition basis, a baseline that should not be dramatically exceeded or failed to reach Second thing, and for me, this is the big one and has held me back from entering before: I would like to see the sheet music requirement eliminated. I get that a lot of people here use notation, I understand that the judges would probably argue it provides them with a "closer look" or something to that effect at the composition, and it does add a great visual aspect to Mike's video BUT — it is honestly just not relevant to judging a recorded piece of music, yet it is also included in the scoring for or against pieces. It also means potentially more work for both the composer and the judges having to consider the sheet music, the recording, and the piece itself. You guys know me, I spent a shameful amount of money on samples over 20 years, I take pride in the mockups, and it's much faster to just compose it all straight in with a MIDI controller. However, there is not a great solution for turning that into detailed, aesthetic sheet music in a timely manner; even going back and Quantizing the MIDI 100%, adjusting things by hand, etc. it was a soul-crushing experience trying to make it presentable in musescore. Much worse if it would've been more than 2 instruments. Working in the reverse way, importing the MIDI from Musescore, creates a lot more work for the mockup. Which is why, I will admit, the piece I submitted was merely a piano patch sketch of what I was inspired to come up with for this competition; I'm still not finished the real piece's mockup and orchestration. So, where I'm going with this is: I want to give it 100%, but the time investment (even with the generous deadlines) to create 3+ minute piece required away from other music projects that have a larger audience, sometimes paid gigs or creating new store assets, as well as just life in general, is generally not worth it. My 2cents anyway. I enjoyed the video and the pieces.

Congratulations on this piece and for winning first place. The opening theme is romantic and memorable. I was suspecting that the instruments were real but your post above confirmed that it was actually soundfonts! They are pretty good. In any case, the piece deserves to get an actual performance!

I love this piece, especially the strong opening theme. It has a beautiful, evocative "British drama" quality. I wanted to hear it again at the end, but you chose to reprise it in minor. Having read your statement, I understand why you did so, and I feel it is successful in conveying the shifting dream states, particularly as it trails off in a nebulous, uncertain diminished. So it also addressed the challenge well. Overall, well done. Could you talk about how you produced the recording?

Thank you so much for the kind words! I knew that the sudden recurrence of the first theme after the stormy middle part and in the very end of the piece (in minor key) might sound a bit strange to most listeners. Those abrupt recurrence of the theme is actually done to signify the sudden escape from the often stormy real world to a soothing, more mellow dream world. But as seen in the end in the piece, the dream world can soothe no more and the escapist is left with an uncertain ending. To either suffer in silence in his dream or to wake up. So the abrupt changes in themes signify the constant switching between reality and dream as the escapist switches from one to the other. But it's understandable why it would sound strange for most listeners. In fact it did sound strange to me too. I guess I could have done somethings differently to smooth out these issues. Anyways! Thanks again for leaving such a kind feedback! ^^

Another option for converting scanned scores to musicXML is Audiveris: https://github.com/Audiveris/audiveris

Make participants use their real name?

Dudeeee, I didn't expect this. I don't know what to say other than to thank you for the feedback, criticisms, and simply enjoying my piece! I feel so honored to be mentioned here amongst many other great pieces even though I don't comment much. This forum has been essential for me as a self-taught composer and it really motivates me to do better. I cannot express how glad I am to join this forum two years ago, such a wonderful community! Again, thank you all so much!!!

This was one of my favorite entries! The melody is so sweet and otherworldly! The oboe and harp combo is really fantastic 🙂 Congratulations! Hope to hear more from you 😉

Hello there, The drone bass in the start bass of the movement echoes one of Beethoveen's Sonata. Drone basses, usually, a written for transitional sectionals between primary and secondary themes. Beethoven used it when he wanted to modulate to a tonality that was not related to home key. (i.e. through a common note). The pedal point in the bass (the drone bass) estabish the tonality rather well: and, with the simplicity of the exposition, it has an excellent affect. The thematic material is stated well and devopled nicely. I can't wait to hear more of this.

Hey Ivan! That's pretty much everyone's expectation 😄! Just don't force yourself too much if you don't feel like this is the time though. Maybe the reason why I don't include Theodore is that I haven't reviewed his pieces at all, and his inactivity on YC comes before my joining of YC! His pieces are of course great. That's the best thing we have on YC, as we get to know different styles and approaches of composing! Another gratitude to you for guiding me to YC haha 😁! Henry

Hello! 😄 I didn't know, glad to hear so, I can give you some context on the piece in our Discord conversation.

Thank you again. 🫠 Theodore's Ballade in E flat minor was just the piece I had in mind too, actually! I'm glad to be back on Young Composers -- I really should be more active. I love this community. 😄

Your piece definitely deserves to be on the list! Indeed, had I reviewed his pieces before I should have included his pieces here, especially his Ballade in E flat minor! Definitely Ivan's pieces should be included. And you too Gwendolyn... Finally you reply something after months off!!!! Henry

Hello Henry, Thank you so much for making this post, and for mentioning a piece of mine! I'm so flattered by your thought and kind words. 🙂 Might you consider giving a work by @Theodore Servin a mention here? I've seen you leave very kind and enthusiastic comments on his pieces before, and I believe he deserves the honor of being on one of these lists. A deep, sensitive, and talented music maker, in his performance as well as his composition. 😊 And @Ivan1791, it's great to see you here as well -- deservedly! By the way, Una Noche de Primavera has become one of my favorites of yours, if I didn't say it already.

Next I will have the chamber pieces here: 1. @Thatguy v2.0's Verdant Dawn This piece is so vivid at depicting the dawn, and it serves as the main inspiration of my own Wind Quintet. The quartal harmony also inspires my own String Sextet. 2. @Jean Szulc's String Octet This piece is just a powerful display of rhythmic power. The quartal harmony and idiomatic strings writing are amazing too! Another inspiration for my own String Sextet. 3. @Sean Brown's Romance in D major for violin and piano This is such a virtuosic showpiece. I don't see any piece as vituosic as this one and Sean plays the violin part himself!!! 4. @Krisp's "Nocturne", for Harp, solo strings, choir, clarinet and voice. I choose this one over his late Crépuscule d'automne since this one features even more timbre here, but both are excellent and unique, especially with Jean's own rich and mellow singing! 5. @Gwendolyn Przyjazna's Violet for Saxophone Quartet This one is such a magical piece full of film noir mood. Such a delicious piece for the ear. 6. @Ivan1791's Una noche de primavera (A Spring Night) Such an emotional deep piece with Ivan's spectacular benighted style! Of course Ivan plays the piano part. 7. @Eickso's Toy Box Suite Such an impressive piece featuring the percussion instruments and Evan's aleatoric style well fit with the timbre here! 8. @PeterthePapercomPoser's Variations for Wind Trio in Bb minor There'a no way the king of variations in this site is not featured here with one of his variations. I choose this one over his London Bridge one or the Wind Trio in Gb major one, simply because I love this one more LoL... (wait I forget that the London Bridge is a piano work rather a chamber piece...) 9. @jawoodruff's String Quartet This one can be hard to get into in the first place, but as Jason has said it IS indeed very serious, and here you will see mature chamber writing! 10. @dhslamas's Variações Seresteiras(Woodwind quintet) This one is unforgettable even though I remember it in the last place... Great wind colour, mature writing and fascinating harmony and rhythm... Do you want more??? (11. My Own String Sextet LoL... But that will be unfair!!!) P.S. Remember to watch Mike's premiere on the result announcement for the Dreamscape Competition! Henry

Yes there are a few different options available for pdf to midi (or musicXML) conversion. Here's one of them: https://www.myriad-online.com/en/products/pdftomusicpro.htm

Since you are asking us to "reply in the thread and voice your opinion!", here's mine: I did not participate in the competition because I am not really for the ranking of compositions/composers. Each composer/composition is unique and it is only a subjective judgement that would assume to place one above or below the other. Also, the impact of my piece being ranked by far the lowest of all the participants' in the previous competition was too much for me to take. So, I didn't participate in order to protect myself from a potentially similar outcome and impact.

Congratulations to all the winners as well as all the non-winning contestants for their submissions! There is much enjoyable music in your submissions. I wonder which ones of the pieces at least from the three winning pieces are played by real instruments and performers. If I am not mistaken the 1st and 2nd placed pieces are by real instruments/performers. However, why not mention this fact as well as give credit to the performers.