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First of all, I have to say that I really enjoyed this competition! It was an intense two weeks—on the one hand, to finish my own composition/arrangement, and on the other hand, to listen to such a diverse range of great musical works. I think all the participants invested a lot of time, effort, and passion to achieve such a result! I must admit that – puh – reviewing seems to be harder than composing! We have seen a lot of atonality and non-traditional musical structure (to mention some, but not to be exhaustive all "Dima’s National Dance" by @Dima, "From Above, Now Below" by @Thatguy v2.0, "Diptych for Piano Quartet" by @Cosmia, "Aos Si" by @HoYin Cheung, "American Cryptids" by @Micah, "Fumage" by @Justin Gruber, "Clowns" by @sebastian Pafundo, "Woodwind Quintet" by @Maxthemusicenthusiast, "The Mist" by @Kvothe, "A Hollow Theme for Halloween" by @therealAJGS) and – on the other hand – more „beautiful“ and „well-behaved“ pieces (for example, "Ghost Town Requiem" by @UncleRed99, "Bagatelle No. 6" by @Omicronrg9 and "Dance from the skeleton ball" by @MK_Piano), which I very enjoyed, too. As „balanced“ between this two poles I would consider "Daunting Steps" by @ferrum.wav, "Trio Variations" by @TristanTheTristan and – lol - my own piece. Therefore, the decision was very hard and due to the subject of the competition, Halloween, the more outlandish pieces were in the better position. The dedications of the badges „spookiest/scariest piece“, „strangest/weirdest/most outlandish piece“ and „biggest thriller“ were – in my opinion – not so easy to distinguish, so that we have one glorious winner in nearly all categories, "From Above, Now Below" by @Thatguy v2.0, my best congratulations. Special thanks to @PeterthePapercomPoser for organizing that funny contest! What did you think of the official competition reviewing template? For me, the competition reviewing template was very useful, giving the focus what to review a clear structure. Even if I did not give a textual review according to the eight categories but only a general one, scoring according to the definitions (i.e. between 0 and 10 points) and calculating an average was useful and helped to determine the winner(s) for the different badges. I could also imagine that in future competitions, the template and the numbers will be used in an official sheet to determine the overall winner. In such a case, however, it would be necessary to formulate more precisely how we should award the points in order to achieve a fair result that can be used for such a calculation. I noticed that some of the reviewers often awarded 10 points to pieces/categories they liked, while I was a bit stingy with this top score (apologies to all participants). I would like to say that such differences in the use of scores between different reviewers, although consistent in their own assessment, could lead to a kind of injustice. What would you like to see in future competitions? I think, the most revenue of the competition is getting a lot of review in a short period of time. Therefore, I would like to keep the competition „just for fun“ without monetary awards. An interesting variant could be to keep the competitors and judges anonymous. Such a rule could be combined with the mandatory use of the template and its usage for the calculation of the winner, as mentioned above. In such a case it would be necessary to require that all participants review all the other entries to achieve comparability and fairness. However, such a strict set of rules could imply that some members would hesitate to participate, thus we could try out that for one competition, but should not apply it to all future ones.

This is just a reminder post for those wishing to receive an "Ardent Reviewer" badge that by Monday 11:59 pm PST you might still need to review some works! @Omicronrg9, @Wieland Handke, @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, @chopin, and myself @PeterthePapercomPoser have reviewed all the entries (minus their own) and will receive the "Ardent Reviewer" badge! @TristanTheTristan - you still need to review Thatguy's piece and the last five pieces in the list. You will receive the "Ardent Reviewer" badge! @HoYin Cheung - you've only reviewed two pieces. Do you still intend to review the rest? @UncleRed99 - you still need to review Omicronrg9's piece and the last six pieces in the list. @Kvothe - you still need to review Maxthemusicenthusiast's piece and UncleRed99's piece. You will receive the "Ardent Reviewer" badge! @MK_Piano - you still need to review sebastian Pafundo's, Maxthemusicenthusiast's, Kvothe's, Thatguy v2.0's, and the last five pieces. @Thatguy v2.0 - you still need to review Micah's and Dima's pieces. @therealAJGS - you still need to review Maxthemusicenthusiast's, TristanTheTristan's, and the last two pieces. You will receive the "Ardent Reviewer" badge! @Cosmia - you've only reviewed three pieces. Do you still intend to review the rest? Of course, we're all grateful for your time and your willingness to review however much you want to! Thank you for making this competition fun and instructional for everyone!

Thanks to all 16 participants who submitted music to the competition - the recipients of the "2025 Halloween Participant" Award: Fumage - Trio for Flute, Oboe, and Bassoon (Halloween Competition Submission) by @Justin Gruber CLOWNS - Fall 2025 Halloween Competition Submission by @sebastian Pafundo Woodwind Quintet No. 1 - Halloween Competition Submission by @Maxthemusicenthusiast Trio Variations in D minor: A Submission to the 2025 Halloween Composition Competition by @TristanTheTristan Aos Si - Piano Quintet for Halloween by @HoYin Cheung YCF Composition Competition - Halloween 2025 (Submission) by @UncleRed99 YC Halloween Contest Entry - The Mist by @Kvothe Bagatelle No.6 | Om. 101 by @Omicronrg9 2025 Halloween Competition - DANCE FROM THE SKELETON BALL (Submission) by @MK_Piano From Above, Now Below by @Thatguy v2.0 A Hollow Theme for Halloween (Fall 2025 Competition) by @therealAJGS Piano Quintet in G sharp minor - 2025 Halloween Competition Submission by @Wieland Handke American Cryptids - Fall 2025 Halloween Submission by @Micah Dima’s National Dance - 2025 Halloween Submission by @Dima Daunting Steps - Quintet for Piano, Flute, Contrabassoon, Violin and Cello - 2025 Halloween Submission by @ferrum.wav Diptych for Piano Quartet (Submission) by @Cosmia The members have voted! --<< Decisive Fanfare >>-- And the winners are: For winning the "2025 Halloween Spookiest Piece" award with 9 votes - "From Above, Now Below" by @Thatguy v2.0 will receive the following badge: For winning the "2025 Halloween Strangest Piece" award with 8 votes - "Aos Si" by @HoYin Cheung will receive the following badge: For winning the "2025 Halloween Biggest Thriller" award there is a tie with 5 votes each! - "From Above, Now Below" by @Thatguy v2.0 and "Diptych for Piano Quartet" by @Cosmia will receive the following badge: For winning the "2025 Halloween Theme Winner" award with 7 votes - "From Above, Now Below" by @Thatguy v2.0 will receive the following badge: Congratulations to all the winners! We will now move your pieces into the "Competition Hall of Fame" subforum! And thanks to all the following participants who also reviewed all the entries! The contest would not have been as much fun and as instructional as it was without you! The following members will receive the "Ardent Reviewer" badge () for their efforts in meticulously reviewing all the entries: @TristanTheTristan, @Kvothe, @Omicronrg9, @Thatguy v2.0, @therealAJGS, @Wieland Handke, @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, @chopin and myself @PeterthePapercomPoser And thanks to me @PeterthePapercomPoser for organizing and managing all the competition polls, announcements, submission thread, badges, results, satisfaction survey and advertising outreach! I will receive the "2025 Halloween Community Organizer" badge: To take the 2025 Halloween Satisfaction Survey go here: To listen to all the entries go to the submissions thread: To check out the popular voting polls go here: And for the competition announcement go here:

I'm glad most people are favoring the fun part of the competition rather than monetary rewards. I think it's best to keep it that way for now, and your divisions would be good to use as the badge rewards instead of what we did. However, since we wanted it to be a poll instead of actual judging this time (it was thrown together pretty quickly), I like the categories we used as easy fun ways to vote. In hindsight, as I voted, I noticed there wasn't any "most fun" category, which yours clearly would have won to me. @PeterthePapercomPoser pointed it out in our discord, and we should've had that category. These are easy ways to improve managed by experience and feedback. With actual judging, your way is the way to move forward imo. More afterthoughts: I like the poll as an alternative to judging, I think both are equally valid. I'm not a fan of seeing who you vote for, but I know I'm in the minority with that. The framework for assigning numbers kind of got out of hand imo, but I'm glad people seemed to have fun with it. It wasn't necessary, but I'm glad it was an aide for people in determining which pieces they liked best. Being up front about WHAT we would be voting for would maybe be better for future poll based competitions.

You're welcome! I enjoyed it! First, thank you for voicing your opinion! When we've done competitions with monetary awards and official judges in the past this was an issue that people have brought up. However, ultimately, when the different scores from the different judges were averaged together, as long as the judges tried to accurately reflect the differences between the various musical entries in their scores then once the scores were all averaged together, even if say, some of the judges scored the pieces in a different range of the scale than others, the scoring still worked to accurately reflect the differences in quality between the different entries. In the past when we had competitions with monetary awards, the entrants were kept anonymous by sending their entries by personal message to me. I would then add their entry to the submissions thread. I think in a free contest, this requirement might be too strict. And I personally don't like the idea of keeping the names of the judges anonymous because it discourages discussion and interaction between the judges and the members. Thanks for voicing your opinion!

Dear readers, This is my submission for the Halloween (Fall 2025) competition. I realize it’s quite a last-minute entry, but after discovering the event a few days ago, I decided to give it a try for fun. I’m genuinely excited that we can all share and experience each other’s music. It’s wonderful to meet you all and hear your work. About this submission: Diptych for piano quartet - I haven’t settled on a title yet, so it will remain Diptych for now - a two-part musical piece, hinged yet paired to form a unified whole. It leans toward the contemporary classical genre, shaped by elements of both expressionism and impressionism. If I had more time (and I hope there will be more competitions like this), I might have written something more whimsical or festival-inspired for the occasion. Still, to me, contemporary harmonies and expressions possess their own kind of "terrifying" beauty that is celebrated on Halloween. My inspirations for this piece include artworks such as Francis Bacon’s Painting 1946 and Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son. Kind regards, Cosmia

I know your pain, I think it's rained for a week straight. But Halloween is tonight for me, maybe the dreary cloudy vibe will help the snobbery of my vampire persona Thanks for commenting, glad you liked it! TFW you hear a Henryism for the first time 😄 Hahahahaha! Glad I can keep you on your toes. Thanks for the kind words Mike! Hey thanks for commenting, I'm glad you liked it! Regarding the ledger lines, I agree. How should it be written? I know string players don't always mind ledger lines because of hand positions, but I'm not sure.

Hi Ferrum. When I open the PDF window to check it turns out I just cannot. Something's wrong, but not sure if it's in your side or it's the forums, or... Either way I am very curious about the score, duh. This seems to me like a small medley (well maybe not small actually) that contains a wide range of stuff going on but that seems to be permeated by this motif that you don't cease to state and use to transition to all sorts of places. It's like a spring, moving slightly upward and returning, giving birth to new passages endlessly. I must say though that the general feeling this piece gave me was not as concrete as other clear front-runners as you (front-runners to me, obv.). It was enjoyable, anyways! Maybe my shortest review today, but I cannot really find anything to point out about the piece that be worthy of a line or two more, plus I cannot access the score 😞. In summary, I did like some sections more than others, and I didn't feel it very light to be honest! Maybe when put in comparison, you're right. Many thanks for your submission, Ferrum! Kind regards, Daniel–Ø.

The instrumentation choice, the mixed quintet, was very clever given you the chance of having so many different combinations and colors with the instruments, so that the excessive occurence of the themes never gets boring or repetitive. I must admit that I have discovered the existence of two clear defined (melodic) subjects only upon second listening (and after reading your form description). Maybe I've listened too many atonal music the last few days. With this in mind I would consider it as a polyphonic piece – not a classical fugue – but a combination of counterpuntual theme development, variations and free or homophonic intermezzos which creates a rich and interesting texture that lets the long (more than 7 min) piece pass flowlessly. One of my top favorites. Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9 9 9 9 9 9 7 8 Average Score: 8.625

Entry: Daunting Steps - Quintet for Piano, Flute, Contrabassoon, Violin and Cello - 2025 Halloween Submission by @ferrum.wav Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 Average Score: 10.00 Review: You’re right - your description of this piece being much more lighthearted is an accurate one. It is a playful kind of spooky fun! And the piece coheres well and has very recognizable themes that are well developed and repeated to create a very lucid listening experience. It is sort of dance like too - very much akin to a Siciliana with its dotted 8th note, 16th note, 8th note rhythms. It also seems like a kind of variations fantasy which you’re very well known for composing. There is a great balance of both unity and variety because of this and the piece cements its themes very well into this listeners mind. The ending is quite succinct but effective! It’s actually kind of capricious! Very cute. Another entry that I simply enjoyed listening to over and over. The score is well engraved although I would have displayed some things a bit differently to, in my opinion, “beautify” it. Such as for example some places where you use 16th notes followed by 16th note rests - I would have simply used an 8th note with staccato. But I won’t count you down for such a tiny nitpick. As already mentioned it also fits the Halloween theme quite well. It is perhaps similar in style to Saint-Seans’ “Danse Macabre”. You also used the instrumentation to your full advantage making great use of the contrabassoon. Really can’t say enough good things about this piece! Congratulations!

Please fill out the survey to help us organize better competitions in the future! The survey is anonymous so we won't be able to see who voted for what. The poll closes on Monday, November 10th, 2025 at 11:59 pm PST. Thanks for voicing your opinion!

Hello Everybody, I know it's been a while since I was last active here, but I wanted to share a new prelude I've composed. This is a rather short work I plan on sending off to a piano composition competition, since I think the recording will do it justice. Another thanks to my piano teacher who made the effort to record my work. Here is a description of the piece: “A Prelude written during a time of uncertainty, and it reflects the idea of anxiety + release. However, the trio section is especially beautiful. I recommend listening to it while eating vanilla ice cream; it will enhance your experience.” 🍨🍯🎹 Let me know your thoughts in terms of harmony, melody and form. Score Thank you truly

Hello dear people. I have composed a new compostion and i would appreciate it very much if I could get some critique on the composition, anything you notice is vaild and some points I would like critique on it this: The cohesiveness of the piece, how well the piece creates tension for example, if it feels like the piece have "bumps" where it feel like it goes off. How well I exsecute the harmonic progressions and cinematic feel. The composition is influenced by Thomas Bergersen whom I listen to a lot these days. Like pretty much on a daily basis. Thanks so much in advance

Hi @Bjarke! I like this Perpetuum mobile texture which really gives motion to the piece, as well as the imitations between the hands. The modulations are effective especially for a cinematic music. Of course, dynamic details would be crucial to propel the flow and drama of the music. Thx for sharing. Henry

sorry, forgot to press submit!

sup The notes are readable, but it's like if I told you "baseball me like" instead of "I like baseball". You're using a DAW, so things like string section 1-4, single piano whole notes, 2 voices in the flutes when you probably didn't mean it, are pretty obvious things that jump out that shouldn't be there. I get what you're trying to do, but that midi seems pretty simple; it might be worth it to type in by hand the notes in musescore or something to better practice. This seemed like incidental music, like film music, and I didn't really hear much for melodies except the repeated motif like 2 minutes in. I think as it's written it'd work best to depict a scene rather than a stand alone orchestra piece. Maybe that's what you're going for? Improvements? Thicker textures, your chords are pretty bare. Maybe study up on melody (Mozart and Chopin are some of my favorites for that) to help in that department. Honestly, if you REALLY want to get better, keep writing for piano and small ensembles, the orchestra can wait. Work on simple things, like 2 note counterpoint. You'll learn a lot about harmony, and the more interesting you can make simple music, the better your works of grand scale will be. Also, not sure on that ending. Just seemed out of place. But, great work nonetheless, and thanks for sharing! Some people like to keep updating the same thread as they work on something, but other times we may hear back from you a few months down the line with the final version of this. Either is fine, just keep up the writing 😄

this is a submission for the 2025 halloween competition. i was just really going for a spooky halloweeny vibe but not like "terror and dread and killer" vibes. it's definitely lighter than the other submitted pieces. also, contrabassoon! very spooky sounding instrument, and i've tried my best to harness that specific quality of it. enjoy! update: -updated score from @Kvothe's feedback

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9 8 8 10 7 10 9 9 8.75

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 10 9 8 9.9999 8 7 9 10 8.8749875

Hi, I just caught up. I just reviewed Max and Uncle reed.

entry: Ghost Town Requiem Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 10 8 10. 10 10 10 10 10 Average Score:9.8 very good Review: Execution: The entry meet the core requirements and established correct mood for the competition. Score: The score was delivered to reviewers in a timely manner. No notation errors and engraving errors to be found. Textures: The piano has faster chordal, homophonic part in the middle of piece where as the winds carry the melody( Reh. c) At the begining it feels like more like conversation between the parts, independent parts. Form: There is a clear sense of form throughout this piece. I have no remarks on the other categories.

I LOVE variations. Webern isn't necessarily my favorite composer musically, but philosophically, the ability to say a lot with a little is definitely my style. I think you've done the same thing here. That being said, I'd actually suggest you make the Theme a little longer. Even Paganini's 24th Caprice theme has a clear A and a B section despite being so short and I think it really helps to balance the rest of the piece. Whether or not you incorporate it a lot into the other variations is up to you, obviously, but starting with something a little fuller might be nice. Who knows, you appear to be proficient enough to maybe even try to see if you can notice any commonalities in your variations and derive a B-section theme from that; that would be super cool if you could. Generally speaking, this is super wonderful to listen to, you should be very happy with it! I'm always a sucker for good counterpoint, so I think I like Variation 1 the best, but Variation 2 had so much beautiful stuff (see below). One of the hardest things composers struggle with (myself included!) is balancing moving lines and harmony and you have an excellent command of it! Other stupid taste things that my ears caught when listening: Theme, mm. 5–6: The contrapuntal lines of both V1 and V2 in m. 5 feel like they should convene and the jump in V2 feels a little sudden. A small figure to support that upwards movement could help. Var 1, m. 26: It could just be the soundfont, but is there any way you can throw a G in there? The <F, Bb, C> progression feels oddly quartal amidst the rest of the tonality. Var 1, m. 51: The parallel minor ninths between V2 and Cello that "resolve" to the octave feel a little odd to me, maybe because the supported harmony isn't particularly clear either (not that that's a bad thing). Like, the cello seems to want to support ii˚6, but the upper voices are on v. Var 2, mm. 1–2: In contrast, I love the parallel major sevenths between the cello and viola at the beginning of this variation. Such a strong and confident opening gambit. Var 2, mm. 5, 15: Maybe you're looking for "portamento" in the cello? If I saw glissando, I would think the entire dotted quarter's length would be spent sliding. Var 2, mm. 8–9: Love the little V1 figure! Could be pizz. for a little extra definition? Var 2, mm. 21–end: This is so wonderful. My body got chills and the contrast is so well set-up that the big change felt effortless. Well done! For the cello, if might be worth specifying if you want a rolled pizz. or not, because they'll see that and ask. Var 3: Someone listened to Ravel's quartet, eh? I think, here, the contrast between the tremolo and the rest of it works well, but could be better supported for contrast. The fifth movement of the Ravel, for example, keeps a little tremolo (or basically tremolo) figure throughout to keep that energy up. Even if you don't do that, a line that moves some more would help set the contrast a little better, in my ears—maybe not even the first time, but the second time? Like, the second movement of Symphonie fantastique does that implicitly with a second melody that is inherently faster, with 16th notes.

And... I am done! Thank you and good job to everyone who has joined the competition! I am looking forward for the Christmas Competition!

Do you want to take some maths lessons from me? PLEASE............................................................ Anyways, to my scorings: Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 7 7 8 7 10 9 7 8 Average: 7.875 Average

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 10 9 6.5 9.5 7.5 7.5 8 7.5 Nice! Very good. Average: 8.1875 Above Average

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 7.5 6.5 8 8.5 10 (nice!) 6.5 7 8 Average: 7.75 Average

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 6.5 10 10 10 10 9 9 10 Ah, this piece is right up my alley. I could tell this is perhaps Ravel inspired, and this is a style I really enjoy. Id say that the melody is weak, or just missing, however, you do a great job at still keeping things very interesting, purely with your structure and harmony. Speaking of harmony, amazing and well done! The mood of the piece brings on a sense of high tension and release. Technically, this is hard to play, but given my experience with piano and this type of style, its very doable, especially at this slower tempo. Does it remind me Halloween though? This is definitely more "art style" music, however, it offers chilling sections, with some released tension. After all, in horror situations, no one's being chased for the whole movie, right? There always is a sense of reprieve! Melody: While there are some instances of motifs, I found this to be more of a mood piece. But you are able to keep it interesting. This is due to your structure, and harmony. Harmony & Structure: This is where you shine, your harmony is what drives this piece, but the structure is what keeps everything legible and easy to follow. Originality and Score Presentation: Score is beautiful, nice use of cross staves to keep the music easier to read, and tuplets help group your rhythms. Playability: Very difficult to perform, but clearly laid out and with a lot of practice, there should be no problems here. The second movement could be trickier because you have more key changes. Execution of challenge: Eerie atmosphere, tension buildup and release. Great elements to get into the Halloween spirit! Taste: I absolutely love this style, I started getting into Ravel which influenced some of my later compositions. I feel like you do an excellent job at capturing this style.

Yeah, I've settled on making it readable for me, and it could always be spelled differently for certain instruments and spots if the need ever arose. The diminshed scale stuff was fun though, I have decent experience with the whole-half dim. scale but not so much with the half-whole. Very different colors harmonically 🙂 Nice, I'll check it out! I don't remember, it's been so long since I've seen those movies haha. I only remember Marty playing guitar 😄 Thanks Peter! Some of the technique stuff I wanted to do my samples wouldn't allow, but I liked the way the glissandos turned out. This piece made me realize I need to keep practicing string writing, I was afraid of double stops and playability at such a fast tempo. With more time and study, I would have been more fearless with it, but I still like the way it turned out. I'm glad it evoked such scary imagery for you!

it is a mix and it's all free: flute, contrabassoon: Symphonic Sounds (Flute SSO, Contrabassoon SSO) violin: VSCO-2-CE-1.1.0 (Versillian Community Chamber Orchestra) cello: Virtual Playing Orchestra 3 (for the tremolo i used the orchestral one cus i couldnt find one for solo cello) piano: Yamaha C5 Grand-v2.4 do keep in mind that i also manually edit the velocity of every single note and add reverb but yoursss is my favoriteee, i actually got a bit creeped out listening to it. but yeah your description of my style is pretty accurate, no matter how many times i've tried to tone down the wildness, the wildness creeps back thanks for the comments !!!

Wow, it seems like this competition really attracted top tier talent. I didn't realize such beauty could come from such a dissonant language! The performers were incredible too, any shout outs to them? You absolutely captured the spirit of our competition, even though written for another purpose. As others have said, I felt calm in a sea of unpredictability and horror, sort of like watching the world burn through a lens. Thanks for participating in our fun event, your music is wonderful!

Wow, what a wild ride this gave! Can't get over how great it is, I listened a few times, with and without the score. I think it's better to just listen to this one at first, the score is so detailed and busy that it's hard to keep up for me haha. Really? Out of everyone, I think yours is the one that has it all. Maybe not the most killer, or the most spooky, etc., but your piece captures all the halloweens to me. Your sound samples are phenomenal btw, what do you use? I'm assuming a mix? I've probably asked you before, sorry lol. I'm curious what's out there nowadays (for ease, I stick with Noteperformer/Sibelius just because they're so integrated with each other, but I use a DAW for guitar stuff). I really liked some of the string techniques, the tremolos were hott. I think your themes were stated really well, and your harmonic intent seemed clear. Your style is wild, like you tell a story with your writing but the book is Kafkaesque or like Fear and Loathing... you take us on a ride and we're just supposed to buckle up lol. I love it, yours is my favorite! It was really cool to see the different directions everyone took, I'm curious to see what people favor in the votes.

Worked like a charm, thanks!

Hey there Wieland Cool music, it definitely fits the theme of the competition! You're a very solid composer, as your music seems deeply rooted in a heavy contrapuntal style. That style usually isn't for me personally, but I had no problem staying engaged throughout your whole piece. I'm not offering too much in terms of critique for these halloween pieces, moreso just admiration and appreciation. Thanks for sharing this, and I hope it was fun and worthwhile learning how to orchestrate one of your own works. 🙂 Cast your votes in the polls too!

I finish reviewing all of them! I have to say, this is by far my favourite competition on YC. It's so hypered and lots of members of participating in it, not just submitting works but also commenting each other! That's what a forum is for right? I wish this popular vote format will contiue in future competitions! Henry

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 6 9 8 10 10 8 5.5 8 This is a rather technical, and complex piece. After listening to this a few times, the motifs, structure and flow made a lot of sense. It's interesting, because each time I gave this a listen, the music became less dissonant to my ears! Melody: While you do have a clear motive, due to how short it is, I would have liked to hear possibly another theme. But you do vary the motive quite often, so you are able to keep things interesting that way! Harmony: Definitely more on the complex side. Complex in that you wrote a dissonant fugue. But the harmonies mesh well together, especially after listening to this multiple times. Form and creativity: Clear form, and highly original work. Score presentation: Beautiful score, clear notation layout. Playability: This probably would be quite technical to perform, but seems quite playable to me. Execution of challenge and taste: I realize this is highly subjective, but this piece just doesn't remind me of Halloween, despite the dissonance. But I still enjoyed the piece very much, especially since I am a big fan of fugues.

Hi @Cosmia! Welcome to the forum and thx for joining the competition! I am the same, especially at the ending of it. It just dies away. I agree with @Omicronrg9 and @PeterthePapercomPoser. This one plays more on timbre and mood so it doesn't necessary use melodies or motives to push the music forward. The use of quintal and quartal harmonies are very apparent in this case. I would say this piece, even though it captures the horror side of Halloween, is less fitting to the competition, since it's a bit contemplative and serious to the festival in my opinion. The writing is however first rate, with great use of extended techniques like glissandos, harmonics, knock on instrument etc with great effect. Thx very much for submitting this high quality work to the competition! I really like them! Henry

Hi Cosmia. Bear with me a bit, I promise to be short. I have been listening to dissonance after dissonance in the textural, rhythmic, harmonic, melodic, metaphysical and who knows what else tonight. And now I have reached your piece. In all honesty, when I looked at your score first, I knew, or I supposed at least that this was gonna be hard to swallow. But no, you let me breathe. Despite this piece being built on tension, I found calm on it, even peace. Your atmosphere does not choke me, it doesn't overwhelm me with "pandirectionalism", effects because yes, and breaking of every rule because it's breakable. In my humble and honest opinion you very well managed to create a piece that demonstrates that: • You know your craft when it comes to manage elements that are purposefully clashing with each other. • You seem to know when to stop and when to go again, in other words: you don't hesitate to leave the music suspended, you don't abuse of textural overlap but use it wisely. • Dissonant spaces are very interesting to listen to when they are finely crafted. • There's no need to convince me of what you try to convey when the music, in this case your music, is pretty much able to speak for itself. I would agree with Peter, there's little to no "melody". I don't think that's the approach anyway, and I'm not rating that. Your approach, whatever it was, created an atmosphere that I can not only withstand but enjoy. I am thankful. Regarding the score, it has some room for improvement I guess but it's more a matter of tastes than anything else; things like • Alignment between pizz. and arco because why not. • Tempo equivalences in a frame or bigger/better alligned with the barline. • Instruments should be indicated at the beginning of the piece most likely. Stuff like that, very minor for most. Overall the score is readable, you can read it along the music, and the interpretation is really neat. The score states that's not gonna follow any tonality from the very beginning (no key signature). You have made in summary a very convincing piece with a really uncanny atmosphere. Congratulations, and good luck. Best regards, Daniel–Ø.

Dear @ferrum.wav, Heads off to this piece you wrote. Full command of motives, varieties in terms of style, mature chamber writing all are present in your work here! I love the beginning and how you introduce the chromatic motive, as it's accompanied by the tone cluster of piano, as well as the 2nd motive of the dancing motive in b.5. And very nice use of that tremolo too, if adding a sul ponticello would be even better! I simply love how you go from the more atonal beginning to a firming G minor dominant preparation in b.45 with chordal texture, nice combinatio of both tonality and texture for an intro! Nice imitations throughout the main section, and the glissandos throughout are great. I love you bring the opening in b.92 with a quicker tempo. The modulation to D minor in b.122 is very fluent and I like the 2 against 3 rhythmic figure introduce there too. The climax in b.151 is very prepared with consistent imitations, as well as the cool down. I really love J sections with that augurs of dancing motive by Flute, and that nice disturbance with the recurring tremolo in b.206! And the figure in b.212 is naughty! The brillante in b.238 is really brilliant, I would it would be longer! I just go straight to the end. CLearly the end to a Bb minor closure is very CLever. Beware of the tremolo markings though, the 32th note tremolo should be just written with double stroke if it's already a quaver itself. Clearly this one and Vince's piece are both in the very top level. If I'm to judge this whole competition, I will put Vince's piece slightly over yours. In terms of technique you too are great, but Vince's is more heavy in tone which I always like, given how I write heavier music lol! Once again, congrats for writing such a piece! Henry

Hi Wieland. Nice video to begin with. The sounds are also very nice. Now, the score itself has even smaller margins than my own, so I'd be careful depending on the format whenever it comes to printing. You also suffer from classic overlaps caused by the notation software default configs such as: That aside, some pianists would argue that they prefer their own fingerings so they may ask you an un-fingered part. Some other will be grateful though 😀. Now, regarding the piece itself, while I do catch some G# minor sections, I would argue that most of it seems detached from that key. I noticed lots of G naturals but few F double sharps, and I would say I heard more E minor and B-flat minor passages than G# minor throughout the piece. Maybe I’m mistaken, but as Henry said, this isn’t really a problem. I can also see how the piece weaves together fragments introduced mostly at the beginning, and in theory it does what you describe in your technical explanation. However, while I appreciate their inherent potential to create a structure, I don’t really think they fully succeed in building one. After a couple of listens, I still don’t perceive it as something “complete” or well-structured, despite the explanation you provided and the fact that the elements you mention are indeed present. To my ear, it feels like patches of cement and bricks placed in the middle of an amalgam of sometimes more, sometimes less convincing waves of music... The motives are definitely there, but I don’t find them more prominent than other material happening simultaneously—such as, for example, in the recapitulation, but imo it happens on the piece overall and if you didn't point them out some of them as different, I think I would have had a harder time distinguishing one another when intertwined with other material. In my opinion, there’s a lack of prioritization among the fragments, and that combined with how dissonant they are on their own creates an “uncanny” atmosphere that permeates large portions of the piece restlessly. While that can be effective, it becomes tiring to me, and I don’t feel this is resolved towards the end. Thus, the final passage is a no-no for me. After a piece plagued with dissonances & chromatisms clashing and not letting you breathe much, a final G#m conclusion comes all in a sudden despite the morendo. Don't get me wrong— It's not a very bad final passage, not at all, but I don't see it, once again, well connected with the piece overall. On the other hand, I would say this piece feels more Halloween-like than others I’ve listened to recently, which also make use of dissonances not only on the melodic plane, but also on the rhythmic and textural planes. All in all, a piece I honestly did not enjoy but that I did not dislike either. Many thanks for submitting your piece to this competition and good luck! Kind regards, Daniel–Ø.

The instrumentation choice is perfect! I like the bassoon and the base clarinet introducing their own dark personalities. In contrast to so many other atonal submissions, this piece has clear melodies and harmonies and the Halloweenish timbre is almost accomplished entirely through the expressiveness of the bass instruments, without overstressing dissonances. The dance starting in section C (especially with the triplets from bar 36 on) introduces a feeling of awkwardness, raising the image of mysterious creatures wiggling around. All in all a piece I liked very much, but I must admit that it in the sense of the contest and in the context of the other submissions, it is – for my taste – a little too well-behaved and the blending of all instruments together seems too „perfect“, in order to get the award of the „most scary and spooky“ one. By the way, the title „Ghost Town Requiem“ is – in my opinion – a bit too bold, but what matters. Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9 8.5 7 9 9 9 6 7.5 Average Score: 8.125

As in your title - „Diptych“ - and your explanation, that you’ve being inspired by paintings of Bacon and Goya, the piece is creating impressions – not necessarily as martially and threatening as the two respective ones – but really fitting the mood of Halloween. For this purpose, the atonality and the lack of a distinct traditional musical form is intentional and well chosen. The articulation and even the advanced string techniques are clearly presented and annotated in the score, convincing that it is not only „experimental music“, but really playable. I very enjoyed this probably last - but not least - piece of the contest. Thank you for sharing. Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8 8 7.5 9 9 8.5 8 6.5 Average Score: 8.063

Yes, that’s a really Halloween piece. The opening repetitive piano motif reminds me on a big clockwork, the scary strings could be giant insects coming down and threaten me? Run for your life in the Presto section, starting at mm. 41? All in all makes the piece the impression on me to be best fitted as a soundtrack of a spooky movie. Concerning the score - if to be performed - I’m not sure whether the viola player is enjoyed or able to read 8 ledger lines (mm. 116). Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8.5 8 6.5 8.5 7 6 9 6.5 Average Score: 7.5

Using the key of G sharp minor for a Halloween theme is, in my opinion, a perfect choice, since for me that key has an inherent mystical and gloomy character. The overall character reminds me of a carousel at a fairground or a piece played on a historical mechanical music box. With this in mind, I can really good imagine a Halloween like spectacle. Concerning instrumentation, form development and structure, your submission is a little out of the ordinary. All other participants used the „traditional“ approach – either in tonal or atonal pieces – to use notation software that produces the score (and finally the audio/video). Your usage of „online sequencer“ is perfectly fine to produce the music you like, however implies some difficulties for the comparison: I am not able to judge whether you have met the competition requirements to use a maximum of five different instruments, your choice using different bells and percussion instruments does not let me count them and you have not specified your intent what instruments you present as the five ones, neither in your score nor in an explanation of the submission. The question of score presentation (or even the requirement to have a score at all) has been discussed in the thread already, but without an ordinary score, for example, the playability is hard to evaluate. Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 7 8 6 7.5 1 5 7 6 Average Score: 5.938

Very beautiful, dreamy music. I love the tension between the clean and consonant passages and the dissonant ones, whereas those dissonances are never scary or threatening, they only darken the calm and peaceful character a little. However, since being a beautiful piece of music, it reminds me more of a starry summer night with gold dust falling from the sky and elves playing around than on a misty, windy October evening with sinister creatures. Will say, therefore it does not so perfectly match the objective of the contest to find the "Spookiest/Scariest piece". Nevertheless, the instrumentation with the pizzicato and pearl-like thirds runs on the piano as well as with the pedalling and the reverb perfectly produce the desired mood. One of my absolute favorites! Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 9 9 9 9 9 9 6 8 Average Score: 8.5

Taken into account how much work you invested to achieve such a piece (including the thorough examination of the backgrounds and myths of Aos Si - as you explain in your introduction), you should earn a 10. However, I must agree with the comments by @MK_Piano and @Omicronrg9 in that way, that it’s not easy to remember the piece pushing me to listen to it again and again. „Post-tonal“ works are not worse than more traditional ones, but due to the lack of tonality, the texture and the overall structure of the piece are crucial in allowing the audience to follow the piece and imagine a picture or story in their minds. Maybe your story – while perfectly matching the subject of the Halloween competition – is too diffuse or too complicated to create clear synapses with unambiguous „landmarks“ of the piece (the only „landmark“ I remember was the Bach-quotation). Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 8 6.5 4 10 8.5 7 6.5 6.5 Average Score: 7.125

Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 5.5 8 8 9.5 10 7 5 7.25 What an adventurous trio! And your key changing is really fun, especially around the 3:25 and 3:40 mark. I had mixed feelings about whether this felt like a Halloween piece though. But there are certainly sections that represent structured chaos and friction. As for your time signatures, very abnormal (when was the last time I saw 3/16?) but hey, you made it work! Melodies & Form: I think you had some fun motifs, especially in the Bassoon. I do think this piece is pretty structured, but the melody / themes are sometimes is hard to piece together. Harmony: This modern sounding trio creates some gorgeous harmonies, especially towards the end! Creativity & Score Presentation: Beautiful score presentation, and original! Playability: Not sure, but the note density seems pretty high for a woodwind trio. Also, there are a lot of time signature changes that could be hard to follow. Execution: As I stated in my summary, it doesn't quite sound like a Halloween piece to me. But if you were to put this in a cartoon, I think that's where the piece would shine! Taste: I listened to this a few times to make out the structure so I could give a somewhat coherent review. I have to say, the style grew on me. Originally I gave this a 6.5 from my first listen, but I could bump that up to an 8. So I just averaged them out, and that's why I put a 7.25 in case your wondering!

Listening to your piece with your intention in mind - to reflect the surreal impressions of candle smoke on paper -, that objective has been perfectly matched. And that mood also fits the atmosphere on a foggy Halloween evening. However, that „pro“ is also its „con“, since the intentional randomness of the motives, it is hard for the listener to follow the piece, since its texture is diffuse, vague and fluid. The pick of the woodwind trio is a good choice (if I would imagine a string trio instead, it would be – in my opinion – boring). The melodies – even if not intended to build functional harmonies – blend well together, sometimes creating a taste of atonality. Even it is a long piece, and therefore it is hard to pay attention on it all if you here it for the first time, it is real worth listening more than once - and I must admit, the more I have listened to it, the more I like it. Thanks for sharing! Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 7.5 6.5 6.5 8.5 9 7 6 7 Average Score: 7.25

Entry: 2025 Halloween Competition - DANCE FROM THE SKELETON BALL (Submission) by @MK_Piano Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 6 8 6 6 10 10 10 7.5 Average Score: 7.94 Review: The main melodic material in this piece, to me, sounds like an accompaniment or bass line (which is I guess appropriate since the theme is first introduced in the Cello). You also seem to use elision to cut the length of this phrase to three bars, which to me makes it sound incomplete and confuses the phrase structure of the melody (although now that I count the measures, you still manage to get the whole phrase to be 8 measures long from bar 13 to 21). The main vibe or feel that I guess you’re going for here is achieved by the oom-pah’s in the Piano and Violin and Viola (at least at first) - that’s what makes it sound like a dance to me. But melodically, the piece, to me, seems dominated by accompanimental material and scales in the Piano that’s suitable as background music but doesn’t carry a long leading melodic line that is so necessary in classical concert pieces. To me it sounds like an orchestrated chord progression (on further reflection there’s definitely melodies here but I’ll keep this original comment here to give you an idea of my first impression of the piece). That doesn’t mean that it’s not effective at setting a certain mood/vibe though. Or getting the listener to imagine a skeleton ball dance which is the whole point of the composition which is why I scored the Execution of Given Challenge category at 10. But that is why I scored the Melodies/Themes/Motives category the way I did. And despite the fact that you have a contrasting section that harks back to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, that section doesn’t really introduce any new and memorable melodic material either and the most salient feature of that section is the triplet accompaniment figure in the Piano. So even though there’s hints of a memorable melody here and there, the piece as a whole seems comprised mostly of accompanimental figures repeated as a vamp (to me). But the introduction is good and really sets the stage for a great piece of music! It just doesn’t really deliver on its promises imo. But I do appreciate the recurring of the main motif in bar 43 in a different tempo and context! I should mention that I also see some similarities between this submission and @UncleRed’s “Ghost Town Requiem”. I use the same reasoning in the scoring of this work as I did with that one. Thanks for your participation and good luck to you!

Entry: Bagatelle No.6 | Om. 101 by @Omicronrg9 Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 Average Score: 10.00 Review: This piece is more contemplative, perhaps a bit reminding me of Erik Satie. The overall major tonality is encroached upon by out-of-key notes that give the piece a happy-go-lucky but creepy quality much like the way clowns are happy but creepy to many people. It’s very atmospheric and free until the main theme comes in in bar 32 which is unsettling in its lack of clear melodic direction and resolution. But this lack of direction and resolution is intentional and definitely achieves a certain deliberate effect. When listening to the main theme of this piece I imagine a creepy clown dancing and bobbing his head left and right LoL. The piece ends like an unfinished puzzle better left that way or maybe like a question better left unanswered. I could also imagine this being played in a movie such as “The Talented Mr. Ripley”. The rendition also uses crystal clear piano and flute which are a big advantage to this listeners impression of the piece. This piece also borders on being both atmospheric and a storytelling piece. It has both melodic development and cinematic repetition of its themes. Very excited to see how people will vote in this competition. Thanks for your participation and good luck to you!

Entry: YCF Composition Competition - Halloween 2025 (Submission) by @UncleRed99 Melodies Themes Motives Harmony Chords Textures Form Development Structure Time Originality Creativity Score Presentation Instrumentation Orchestration Playability Execution of Given Challenge Taste 4 7 7 7 9 9 10 7.5 Average Score: 7.56 Review: You’ve set a very atmospheric mood that would be very appropriate as background for perhaps a Ghost Town hidden object game or a short film or documentary about a Ghost Town! As a concert piece however it falls short of the melodic and harmonic development prescriptive norms of classical music. The most salient features of your piece that leave a lasting impression after the piece has concluded are the moods created by your chord progressions and oom-pah accompaniment figures which give a certain impression of a grotesque dance perhaps akin to @MK_Piano’s submission DANCE FROM THE SKELETON BALL submission. I can’t hum, whistle or sing any of the melodies that you present in this piece after the piece has concluded. I mention this because I think you probably do consider that this piece has melodies, but to me it doesn’t. The melodies are too complex and not self-similar enough to stay in this listener's musical memory and create a lucid listening experience. I know this isn’t the first time you’ve heard me say this, so let me just try to elaborate on the point in a way I haven’t before. The reason why Beethoven’s 5th Symphony 1st movement is so popular and such a lucid listening experience is because he managed to generate all the melodic material and unify it through a single motif, sometimes using it as just a rhythmic motif, sometimes as both rhythm and pitch, and other times as just pitch. There is great economy in the melody. There isn’t a single note that is missing nor superfluous. I am not saying that you should aim for perfection in your music, I’m just trying to point out how Beethoven used the motif as a dynamo to generate and develop all the rest of his melodic material and create a lucid listening experience. Many composers have done this and you don’t have to be a genius to use the idea to your advantage. I hope that makes clear what I mean when I keep talking about these things. But you did create a piece which as I said, is very appropriate for the Halloween theme. Another advantage is the crystal clear rendition of your music - the piano sounds like glistening ice in its high register. Another way I’d describe the melody in Polish is “tuzinkowe” which translates to “random” or “ordinary” (a term I learned after my grandma used it to describe some of my music LoL). There is a certain grotesquery to the melody too, because it's dark and it has a sort of march-like character. But, those are my thoughts. Thanks for your participation!