Leaderboard

I will compose something orchestral eventually, I promise haha. Although I must admit lately I have been wanting to compose a short classical symphony 1st movement. But no idea if I will realize it into a score. Looking forward to your new compositions, it's okay to be inactive for a while, I'm going back to participating more again around here. And yes! We met last month and have been talking quite lot, we share a bunch of interests. It's a pity usually the coolest people are the furthest away from me. 😬

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 🙂

Yes, MuseScore has really come a long way. The version 4 included soundfonts sound quite good, and you used them to good advantage.

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!

Today i present here my latest arrangement. For me it's one of the best ways of improving the orchestrating skill for my own works. Few month ago I listened this piece in piano version and immediatly noticed the potential for an orchestral version and in a matter of a few days I finished this work. It's arranged for a symphonic orchestra. (2,2,2,2)(4,3,3,1)(-)(16,14,12,10,8) Benediction_de_Dieu_dans_la_solitude.pdf

I joined this forum about 2 years ago back when I had just started composing and was just learning the basics. I can certainly say for a fact that the feedbacks I got from so many kind, talented and passionate composers like yourself Henry, are what really kept me going each time I felt I was not good enough. It is for wonderful personalities like yourself that I could gather the courage to not only express myself but to improve each time I got a feedback. All I can say is that I am very happy and I am very very thankful to everyone in this forum for making this a kind, accepting and an enthusiastic community 🙂