Summer 2020 Competition Poll

I personally don't mind either way. I think it would be nice to have both at once if possible, but it does seem kind of complicated to know what degree to weight it to, at least without more feedback from the competitors themselves. It might make everything easier if we removed the tiered weighting system based on a person's profile rank and just do an overall tally. So like...

Judges' Scores: 60% of entrant's total score  (combined and averaged)

• x / 60 

Voting Scores: 40% of entrant's total score

• 1st place: 40 / 40
• 2nd place: 35 / 40
• 3rd place: 30 / 40
• 4th place: 25 / 40
• 5th place and below: 20 / 40

So if an Entrant A scored 36 / 60, but won the popular vote and earned 40 / 40, they'd end up with 76 / 100. If Entrant B earned 50 / 60 in the judges' scoring but only got 4th place in the popular vote, they would end up with 75 / 100 (and lose). 

Just a thought! Again, I'm happy to do whatever the group decides. 

The popular vote will only work if there is enough people participating.

Take the Eurovision Contest as model: All countries used televoting and/or SMS-voting (50%) and five-member juries (50%), apart from San Marino which is 100% jury due to country size. This is so called jury–televote 50/50. 

6 hours ago, Tónskáld said:

Ah, a clash of values. I don't think we can reasonably reconcile these with this competition. Perhaps we do this competition the old-fashioned way (scored by a judge), and we do another "peoples' choice" competition later. Or vice versa—do the PC competition this time and the judged one next time.

 

Sounds good to me. The split/weighted idea seems complicated to a simple person like me. But I wondered if it could be bettered by multiplying each score by 1/√(2πωC) then divide it by ∛0 so everyone's a winner! 

Oh dear. Musical people aren't supposed to have a sense of humour. Sorry. Maybe I'd better leave the stage! 😄

I'm thinking of just making the audience participation thing a fine tuning measure as opposed to a 1:1 ratio of effectiveness. Would still encourage community and could possibly be the determiner between similar scores but nothing that would massively influence it. In that way, the small percentage would help mitigate the necessity for a large amount of people. A middle ground, perhaps, of the things we've been discussing.

10 minutes ago, Monarcheon said:

I'm thinking of just making the audience participation thing a fine tuning measure as opposed to a 1:1 ratio of effectiveness. Would still encourage community and could possibly be the determiner between similar scores but nothing that would massively influence it. In that way, the small percentage would help mitigate the necessity for a large amount of people. A middle ground, perhaps, of the things we've been discussing.

I appreciate the attempt to compromise, but I think the original reasoning behind having the audience vote was to vastly minimize (or altogether do away with) the weight of the judging. Some of us don't feel our music fares well in a "judging" environment, not because the judging isn't fair or the judges not understanding, but because it forces us to create something falsely, more "academic" perhaps, rather than what comes naturally. If I knew there was going to be an audience that played a significant part in the scoring, my composition would sound much different. (At least I tell myself that.)

I may be speaking just for myself here, lol. But as an original proponent of this system, my two cents is to either do away with the audience or the individual judging. I don't think you can have both and still satisfy the underlying intent.

I like the idea of the popular vote and I'm willing to curate it (and not compete). How about this: every competitor submits their work by the agreed-upon deadline. Then, they have two weeks from that date to message me their choices for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place -- NOT including their own submissions. Three points will be awarded for each 1st-place vote, two points for each 2nd-place vote, and one point for each 3rd-place vote. At the end of the two-week period, I will tally up the results of the vote and declare a winner and a full listing of the results. Does that sound good to everyone?

We could also add a clause that would require all contestants to submit a few sentences of feedback for every other competitor in order to qualify to win the competition. That way, we don't lose the feedback aspect of the competition. 

@Monarcheon

@Tónskáld

@Quinn

3 minutes ago, Noah Brode said:

I like the idea of the popular vote and I'm willing to curate it (and not compete). How about this: every competitor submits their work by the agreed-upon deadline. Then, they have two weeks from that date to message me their choices for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place -- NOT including their own submissions. Three points will be awarded for each 1st-place vote, two points for each 2nd-place vote, and one point for each 3rd-place vote. At the end of the two-week period, I will tally up the results of the vote and declare a winner and a full listing of the results. Does that sound good to everyone?

We could also add a clause that would require all contestants to submit a few sentences of feedback for every other competitor in order to qualify to win the competition. That way, we don't lose the feedback aspect of the competition. 

@Monarcheon

@Tónskáld

@Quinn

 

Sounds okay to me.

4 minutes ago, Noah Brode said:

I like the idea of the popular vote and I'm willing to curate it (and not compete). How about this: every competitor submits their work by the agreed-upon deadline. Then, they have two weeks from that date to message me their choices for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place -- NOT including their own submissions. Three points will be awarded for each 1st-place vote, two points for each 2nd-place vote, and one point for each 3rd-place vote. At the end of the two-week period, I will tally up the results of the vote and declare a winner and a full listing of the results. Does that sound good to everyone?

We could also add a clause that would require all contestants to submit a few sentences of feedback for every other competitor in order to qualify to win the competition. That way, we don't lose the feedback aspect of the competition. 

@Monarcheon

@Tónskáld

@Quinn

 

I'm game.  (Great suggestion, @Noah Brode!)

I'm also okay with the old-fashioned way of doing it, in which case I'm happy to serve as a judge. Either way, as long as we don't combine the two methods for scoring purposes.

2 hours ago, Tónskáld said:

I appreciate the attempt to compromise, but I think the original reasoning behind having the audience vote was to vastly minimize (or altogether do away with) the weight of the judging. Some of us don't feel our music fares well in a "judging" environment, not because the judging isn't fair or the judges not understanding, but because it forces us to create something falsely, more "academic" perhaps, rather than what comes naturally. If I knew there was going to be an audience that played a significant part in the scoring, my composition would sound much different. (At least I tell myself that.)

I may be speaking just for myself here, lol. But as an original proponent of this system, my two cents is to either do away with the audience or the individual judging. I don't think you can have both and still satisfy the underlying intent.

 

Besides, if it entails judgemental feedback, I'd need to be sure of the bona fides of the judges, their own competence in composition and orchestration - preferably they should have had some experience of preparing an orchestra/ensemble to perform their work - or a solid basis in sound organisation. One at least would lean toward the classical, another to modern, perhaps another to electroinic/concrète. Otherwise feedback would be irrelevant (to me, anyway).  I doubt there are more than three or four here who'd fit that bill.

But it could still be judged, just that any feedback may not be qualified.

My tuppence worth.

.

Do we have a deadline for the voting yet?

Maybe we should set up a rough timeline when we'd like to have each step of this completed?

All great ideas from you all, I'm glad this is starting to roll forward

2 hours ago, Quinn said:

Besides, if it entails judgemental feedback, I'd need to be sure of the bona fides of the judges, their own competence in composition and orchestration - preferably they should have had some experience of preparing an orchestra/ensemble to perform their work - or a solid basis in sound organisation.

This is a good point and part of what has made me hesitant to judge in the past. I don't have a degree in music, and I only have one orchestral performance experience under my belt. I consider myself to be, essentially, a somewhat competent amateur -- which makes it difficult for me to pass judgment on those who are more experienced or educated in the field than I am. 

That's why I'd like to be the "organizer" for this competition!

1 hour ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Maybe we should set up a rough timeline when we'd like to have each step of this completed?

Yes, that would be great. What about a deadline of 11:59 PM Pacific Time on Saturday, July 18? That would give the entrants roughly a month and a half of composition time, and we could have the results announced by Aug. 1. That is, if enough people agree to the terms of the voting system.

@Quinn Judging hasn't been a problem in the past with "amateurs"; it's the response to the music that matters most as opposed to the technical. I would imagine we're old enough to know how to at least numerically rate our feelings if not something esoteric like pitch class sets. 
I'm inclined to lean it towards traditional judging, but with no one else weighing in, it's hard to determine. 
I can give full reign to you, @Noah Brode if you'd like, after we figure out what we're doing with judges, and I'll post an official thing in the competitions section. 

33 minutes ago, Monarcheon said:

@Quinn Judging hasn't been a problem in the past with "amateurs"; it's the response to the music that matters most as opposed to the technical. I would imagine we're old enough to know how to at least numerically rate our feelings if not something esoteric like pitch class sets. 
I'm inclined to lean it towards traditional judging, but with no one else weighing in, it's hard to determine. 
I can give full reign to you, @Noah Brode if you'd like, after we figure out what we're doing with judges, and I'll post an official thing in the competitions section. 

 

Oh, ok. I seem to remember you saying if I may quote, "As an analyst I make no quality judgments..." on 20th Jan or thereabouts? By which I understood youd be judging on the technical. Fine with good amateurs, a word I take literally, not 'beginners', people doing something for the love of it - of which I'm one. Anyway, we have yet to see the rules/constraints etc.

: )

When the poll is over, should we do one for instrumentation?

I know we probably all have good ideas, but my vote goes for the simplest. Solo piano or some kind of duet? I feel like we'll get the most response and people. Plus for younger composers they'll get a chance to see how more advanced composers tackle the same themes and limitations they themselves are working with. 

Honestly, I don't mind how we do this, I just want to see this site populated as it once did. This place really helped me when I was younger studying on my own.

16 minutes ago, Quinn said:

Oh, ok. I seem to remember you saying if I may quote, "As an analyst I make no quality judgments..." on 20th Jan or thereabouts?

Sure, that's fair. This doesn't mean I'm incapable of making them, though. In particular, if I personally can't describe what's wrong with technical language, then I'm not going to make judgment on it because then I don't feel qualified to make that claim. I definitely still can enjoy music as is! I just prefer for criticisms to be substantiated, as I'm sure you wouldn't object to.  

2 minutes ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Honestly, I don't mind how we do this, I just want to see this site populated as it once did. This place really helped me when I was younger studying on my own.

For open ended ones like this, and for more participation, we normally just leave instrumentation open.
@Noah Brode, do you feel strongly about only participants making calls or do you think staying traditional might offer good insight. At this point, I'll just leave the call to you. 🙂

You are making this way too complicated for a friendly competition which is really for personal satisfaction and with no tangible prize.  How about just having separate awards for judges, members, and entrants separately, similar to how competitions have an audience prize.  Make the judges award the "official" result but still allowing for others to have their input.