Noah Brode

Wow, I am floored! Thanks to the judges for their hard work in reviewing all of the pieces in such detail — that's no easy feat — and congratulations to the other winners and all of the other entrants for their works. This is one of the most successful competitions I've seen on this site (and I've been on-and-off here for like 9 years or something 😅). This prompt really inspired me, and now I'm hoping to engage a local woodwind quintet to have my piece performed live. Who knows, maybe I'll adapt a few more fables along the way. Thanks again and congratulations to all!

Thanks for the comments @PeterthePapercomPoser! I was definitely going for something bright and cheery with this as opposed to something more artistically inclined, so I'm glad that came through. I totally get where you're coming from though, the whole thing is a bit "much" in the first, second, and fourth movements. I think it's partly due to the writing and partly because of the poor-quality rendering from MuseScore as well, making everything sound a bit shrill. I was kind of picturing this as something fun to play for a high school or college level group – I'll post the recording if it ever gets played live 🙂 Thanks again!

Looks like I came back to the site at the right time 😁 I’d like to sign up, please. Thanks to the judges for organizing this event; I appreciate it!

Hello – It's been a long time since I posted here, but I'm trying to get back into composing after a hiatus. I wrote this Suite for Brass Quintet with some new material and some recycled material from old pieces of mine. Any comments and criticism are welcome. Thanks for listening 🙂 The format is as follows: I. March, II. Mazurka, III. Chorale, IV. Waltz

The issue of judging has been a pretty constant problem on the site for a long time. Basically, everyone wants to enter and nobody wants to judge. I get it, and I feel the same way most of the time. We're composers, not critics. That's why I think it is smart to include the judging portion as part of the responsibilities of each entrant. Quinn's point about limiting the length of each entry to not make it a burden on the competitors is valid. Perhaps we could limit the length of the entries based on the number of people participating. Fewer entries = longer time limit; More entries = lower time limit. I am a fan of each entrant ranking the works of every other entrant (excluding themselves) and providing a small comment (3 sentences or so) on each work. No grading or rubrics. This would help ensure that each entrant is truly listening to all of their competitors' works and judging/ranking them fairly. As far as the "blind" voting goes, I do not think it is necessary and it requires an impartial outsider to do a lot of busy-work. I don't think many (or any?) of us know each other in person, so the notion of bias, to me, doesn't factor in much. Perhaps the votes themselves could be private, but the submissions and comments could be public. This way would obviously still result in an increased burden on the entrants to some extent, but it is necessary since nobody seems to want to volunteer to be judge. The burdens of judging would essentially be spread out among the entrants. We saw in the Summer 2020 competition that member voting can yield similar results to traditional judging (the same work won both prizes), so I think this route is a feasible way of handling the apparent lack of judges on YC.

Hey @SSC, I'm glad I found this. This is exactly the kind of music I would've been into in my high school days. It's solid rock with a good deal of intelligence and skill behind the writing. You've got some chops on the guitar and your voice sounds good. Everything about the recording sounds solid as far as I can tell. If anything, I might boost the voice track up a bit, but it's probably fine. I'm particularly interested in the pre-programmed drum track, which sounds great to my ear. Honestly I probably wouldn't have been able to tell it was synthesized if you hadn't mentioned it. How did you accomplish this? And can you explain a bit about your home recording process in general? I'm hoping to do something similar someday soon.

Good points. This definitely comes into play when choosing a key. But to me, this is more of an issue of voicing / orchestration than it is of having particular keys reflect specific moods. Like there wouldn't necessarily be a noticeable mood difference between a piece in F major and the same piece transposed up a half-step to F# major, and they'd have similar frequency issues if the chord voicing was too muddy at too deep of a pitch.

Hello everyone, and a belated Merry Christmas. Thank you to everyone who was involved in putting together this competition, particularly @Tónskáld, who managed the member voting survey, and @Monarcheon, who selected the list of themes that members voted on as the subject for this competition. Thanks also to all of the entrants for their fine submissions and all who voted. I hope that everyone is pleased with their finished works, regardless of whether they won or not. After all, that is the purpose of these competitions – to spark creativity with a bit of friendly competition. Please feel free now to post your own works to the appropriate forums and comment on each other's works. And now, the final results of the Young Composers Fall 2020 Competition: 1st Place — Entry C : Variations on a Waltz by Yoshimatsu, by @Joshua Ng 2nd Place — Entry B : String Quartet in the City – Scherzo, by @zhenkang 3rd Place — Entry E : Crown of Thorns, by @Left Unexplained Thank you again to everyone involved, and congratulations to Joshua Ng! @PaperComposer @luderart @caters

Please use the following Survey Monkey link to place your votes for the competition. Remember that you are not permitted to vote for your own submission. Many thanks to @Tónskáld for setting this up! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DTFXXZD

Entry F:

Comments from the composer: "Here's my entry for the Fall Competition, a short prelude for string quartet that involves canonic imitations, diatonic inversion, and call and response between the high and low instruments."

Entry E:

Comments from the composer: "My piece, Crown of Thorns, is about beauty under attack."

Entry D :

Comments from the composer: "This is my Soliloquy for Piano No. 14. It is my entry to the YC Fall 2020 Competition "Metamorphosis" and based on the theme of Takashi Yoshimatsu's, "Waltz of Rainbow Colored Roses", the second of his three waltzes. I have used the theme as a starting point and accompanied it and continued it in my personal style and original way."