Results and Winners: "From Bits to Bangers" Competition

Thanks to all the participants who submitted music to the competition - the recipients of "The Participant Award"! 

Click on the links of each entry to read all the reviews for that entry:

Entry A - "Blast Off!" by @Eickso
Entry B - "Caprice for Solo Violin No.1" by @luderart
Entry C by @MrMule96
Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur
Entry E - "Fantasy on a Theme from Castlevania 2" by @bkho
Entry F by @ComposaBoi
Entry G - "Revisiting Kirby" by @Setthavat
Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum
Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev

For winning the Themes/Melodies/Motives category with a score of 7.65, Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev receives the "Tune Smith" badge! 

For winning the Harmony/Chords/Textures category with a score of 7.73, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "Ingenious Harmonizer" badge! 

For winning the Form/Development/Structure category with a score of 7.37, Entry G - "Revisiting Kirby" by @Setthavat receives the "Musical Architect" badge! 

For winning the Originality/Creativity category with a score of 7.80, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "Musical Explorer" badge! 

For winning the Score Presentation category with a score of 7.72, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "Immaculate Engraver" badge! 

For winning the Instrumentation/Orchestration category with a score of 7.63, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "Outstanding Orchestrator" badge! 

For winning the Execution of Given Challenge category with a score of 7.50, Entry G - "Revisiting Kirby" by @Setthavat receives the "Theme Winner" badge! 

For winning the Taste category with a score of 7.65, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "Impeccable Taste" badge! 

For winning 1st Place in the popular voting polls, with 16 points, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "1st Place Popular Vote" badge! 

For winning 2nd Place in the popular voting polls, with 15 points, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "2nd Place Popular Vote" badge! 

For winning 3rd Place in the popular voting polls, with 12 points, Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev receives the "3rd Place Popular Vote" badge! 

For winning the Favorite "Dragon's Lair" Banger in the popular voting polls, Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev receives the "Favorite Dragon" badge! 

For winning the Favorite "Treasure Master" Banger in the popular voting polls, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "Favorite Treasure" badge! 

For winning the Favorite "Kirby's Adventure" Banger in the popular voting polls, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "Favorite Kirby" badge! 

For winning the Favorite "Castlevania" Banger, Entry E by @bkho receives the "Favorite Castlevania Banger" badge! 

And now ==< drumroll >== for the official winners of the "From Bits to Bangers" Instrumental Music Composition Competition:

For winning 1st Place with a score of 7.47, Entry H - "Adventure" by @Ferrum receives the "1st Place" badge  and the $100 USD prize!

For winning 2nd Place with a score of 7.29, Entry I - "Dungeon Variations" by @AlexeySavelyev receives the "2nd Place" badge  and bragging rights!

For winning 3rd Place with a score of 7.25, Entry D - "Grape Garden" by @telliur receives the "3rd Place" badge  and bragging rights!

Congratulations to all the winners!  And thank you to all the players @Tónskáld, @Thatguy v2.0, @PeterthePapercomPoser, @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, @Omicronrg9, @chopin for judging the competition!  They will be the recipients of the "Player Award" badge! 

A special thanks goes out to @Tónskáld and @PeterthePapercomPoser for organizing the competition!  They will receive the "Community Organizer" badge! 

And an extra special thanks goes out to @Tónskáld for financing the competition!  He will receive the "Patron Award" badge! 

Here are all the reviews by player:  Tónskáld, Thatguy v2.0, PeterthePapercomPoser, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, Omicronrg9, chopin.

To check out the scoreboards where each player kept track of their scores, go here:  Tónskáld, Thatguy v2.0, PeterthePapercomPoser, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu, Omicronrg9, chopin.

To check out the final results scoreboard where all the final scores were calculated, go here:  Final Results Scoreboard

We encourage all the participants to now submit their entries under their name for further feedback from the community!  Also - the winners' bangers will then be able to be moved into the "Competition Hall of Fame"!

To listen to all the submissions go here:

Please take our "From Bits to Bangers" Competition Satisfaction Survey:

For the competition announcement, where you can listen to all the original 8-bit tracks, go here:

Thank you for such a great competition! I had my own problems coming through with this, as I am a big fan of Kirby soundtrack and was originally going to do something for that track, but instead went for Dragon's Lair because I thought it would be more challenging. I am very glad to have participated in this and I marked for myself a few great composers, which their entry stunned me, ironically it's both Kirby entries which were my absolute favourite and I had a hard time choosing between them, who to give my vote for. 

I want to say special thanks to every judge that took time to make a feedback and reasons for their scoring points. That was immense and impressive. Thank you for your passion towards all this. 

Regardless, I wanted to point out some points of judges here and explain a few things in my entry:

To Thatguy v2.0, chopin: The rip is due to rendering issue, which I noticed unfortunately only after I sent my work. It's not caused by db levels. I am extremely sorry to all listeners about it. I will mockup the piece later on and post it in a different thread so you can enjoy it with some libraries and without such noise 🙂 

To PeterthePapercomPoser: You've got right feelings about the ending, because originally the piece was 15 minutes long. Not only was it not allowed to have such a long piece, but I didn't have enough time to complete in full details, so I had to cut everything I felt not needed for story. Further problems developed as I had some issues irl and was about to miss the competition completely, but I got it in the last second and seriously blessed to have this entry in 2nd place.

To Henry Ng Tsz Kiu: About using transposing score. It really depends on the score and where you are based. I am from Russia and transposing scores here are definitely the most popular, but I felt like using concerto score just for the sake of everyone's understanding it without any issues, since I was sending it to the international competition. 

To Omicronrg9: Thank you for pointing out the piano mistake! No excuse for it. 

All in all, as for the score, I understood straight away, that I wouldn't recieve the highest remarks just because of the time constraints that I had on giving it more details and a thorough review as I sent my submission the last possible second. 

Very glad you enjoyed it. I definitely enjoyed researching the Dragon's Lair soundtrack and I am glad you felt that from the music. I also would like to again give my highest praises to Grape Garden and Revisiting Kirby as my total favourites. Both of you caught the sense of the initial soundtrack amazingly and delivered a total banger. 

Major thanks to all the other participants as well, I had a blast listening to your works! 

Really hope to participate in such events in the future! Very well done to organisers! Cannot thank you enough!

P.S. Notice how @Ferrum did not recieve bragging rights, haha 😄

Congratulations to all the entrants, they were outstanding and I learned a lot from all of you.  A hearty congratulations to all the winners and most of all, thank you to the judges who clearly took a great deal of time to listen and provide constructive feedback to each submission.

Oh guys, I feel really bad about writing this because all of your feedback and comments were so kind that it makes me sad haha. However, I think I have to make the point. As you may know, I asked in the chat if it was okay for the judges to vote in the poll and, to be honest, I felt a little uncomfortable seeing the judges pick their favorite pieces in the poll. As I said before, after all, they're showing their preferences with the ongoing competition, and even when users can vote for their own works (something did hahah, but which also shouldn't be allowed imo) the judges will be the ones who will score your work.

Now, please don't take this the wrong way (actually, it took me a while to think about it), but given the above including that my work also won the poll (including votes from the jury and myself) I think the best thing I can do is to withdraw my work from the contest. This seems to be a healthy community, however, if a user says that the poll gave a hint to know the winners, I couldn't argue with that because I was among the winners, and I'd really like to avoid that situation. Again, please don't take this badly, nothing against the judges or the rest of the contestants, I'm glad you chose my work but I feel a bit uncomfortable within that context. I entered the contest just for fun and that's how it was. I'll be happy to give all the honors to the next on the list, or maybe you can leave the place deserted, as you wish. I hope you can understand that, it's just a personal matter, nothing more :)

That said, thanks for the comments I received, I'm very glad you liked my work!

Before I forget, two things. First, I'd like to mention the entries A, B and E. Perhaps they weren't the most lush and complex entries, or perhaps some of them lacked harmonic fluency or put a double stop wrong or something like that. However, they were the pieces with fewest errors in writing and reading. In the same line, but with a little more work, the entries C, F and I. (I may regret it in the future haha, but at a quick glance they gave me that impression).

And second, I hope I'm not taking the words too literally, but I didn't understand one judge's point in pasting some sort of complaint all over the entries about how disappointed he was because the contest turned out to be "From Bits to Ballades". If you want a specific style or mood, you should include that in the rules. Since the contest was pretty free (at least I didn't notice any special requirements), I think we all did what we felt was right, without following a specific requirement. So don't be disappointed expecting something that wasn't required 👍

9 hours ago, telliur said:

Oh guys, I feel really bad about writing this because all of your feedback and comments were so kind that it makes me sad haha. However, I think I have to make the point. As you may know, I asked in the chat if it was okay for the judges to vote in the poll and, to be honest, I felt a little uncomfortable seeing the judges pick their favorite pieces in the poll. As I said before, after all, they're showing their preferences with the ongoing competition, and even when users can vote for their own works (something did hahah, but which also shouldn't be allowed imo) the judges will be the ones who will score your work.

Hi Telliur. I understand your point and agree with it, but it is also true that the popular voting didn't get much exposition. In any case, I voted hours before the poll closed just to prevent my votes influencing anyone (though I don't think that would have happened anyway, it is not like we really have a prominent voice in other composers' opinions). 
 

9 hours ago, telliur said:

This seems to be a healthy community, however, if a user says that the poll gave a hint to know the winners, I couldn't argue with that because I was among the winners, and I'd really like to avoid that situation.

Perhaps a good way to prevent this would be making polls anonymous, what do you think?
 

9 hours ago, telliur said:

And second, I hope I'm not taking the words too literally, but I didn't understand one judge's point in pasting some sort of complaint all over the entries about how disappointed he was because the contest turned out to be "From Bits to Ballades". If you want a specific style or mood, you should include that in the rules. Since the contest was pretty free (at least I didn't notice any special requirements), I think we all did what we felt was right, without following a specific requirement. So don't be disappointed expecting something that wasn't required 👍

I agree, what you mentioned was not in the requirements, but we judges did also make our decisions according to what we felt it was right. In other words, what I saw as an excellent, solid and precisely engraved re-interpretation of the theme you took, and in particular THE THEME YOU TOOK in regards of the way you remade it, others just saw it differently and tried to give one explanation or another. 

We had different views on it based on various factors (I believe) such as how we perceive the 8-bit genre, what we consider as good melody/harmony —simple and catchy vs. complicated and fanciful; plain vs. elaborated, correspondingly—, and a large etc. which includes, for the better or worse, subjective treatment and predisposition to certain styles.

A personal example: I do think my judgement would change if everyone but one person submitted their pieces in plain midi format (with that not being a requirement nor production value being a thing to score), since as much as I would like to separate the music with the "playback sound", I am kind of sure that would be impossible to do 100%.

I would try to refrain myself of altering everything but the taste score, yeah, but that's just how I work and my judgement can be as flawed from others' perception as other judges' overall. In summary, we tried to do our best in the way each one of us considered the propermost. 🙁

Sorry if I was too dense, and in any case, thank you for participating and creating such a wonderful piece because of it. I look forward to check more of your pieces posted here. There's no issue with withdrawing, though it's a great loss in my opinion.

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.



 

Well guys, I'm making this reply because I have received some very kind comments that deserve a response. I have to say that I wrote the above because I thought it was the right thing to do (which I still believe), however, as I said, I have received some legitimate comments from some users that I understand, and it's not my intention to create what I think would be a bit of a weird atmosphere, so it's ok to leave things as they are, I won't withdraw the entry. However, I'd really appreciate it if you'd consider the issue of judges voting in the polls (and to a lesser extent users voting on their own works haha). Maybe you can take this as a little advice to improve certain things and have a better organization in future contests : )

2 hours ago, Omicronrg9 said:

Sorry if I was too dense, and in any case, thank you for participating and creating such a wonderful piece because of it. I look forward to check more of your pieces posted here. There's no issue with withdrawing, though it's a great loss in my opinion.

It's fine, don't worry. Thanks for your reply!

21 hours ago, telliur said:

And second, I hope I'm not taking the words too literally, but I didn't understand one judge's point in pasting some sort of complaint all over the entries about how disappointed he was because the contest turned out to be "From Bits to Ballades". If you want a specific style or mood, you should include that in the rules. Since the contest was pretty free (at least I didn't notice any special requirements), I think we all did what we felt was right, without following a specific requirement. So don't be disappointed expecting something that wasn't required 👍

Your comment contains the answer. 

My response to you is since the contest was pretty free (at least I didn't notice any special requirements), I think we all did what we felt was right, without following a specific requirement. So don't be disappointed expecting something that wasn't required 👍

I gave out like one 8, and that was to Eickso because did you see his sheet music? It's immaculate! Most scores were out of seven anyway, so it all evened out on my end.

You won the popular vote, why be upset? Out of the entireity of the participating members, they (we) chose you. Congrats! You didn't place in the judging portion, so our votes barely mattered in that poll. AND I waited until the very end to submit so no one could be influenced.

I'm all for discussion on ways to improve what we're trying to do here; I'd love to hear the feedback to make these as great and widespread as possible. But man, the pettiness and whining around here lately is hurting my brain. 

It kinda detracts from us talking about how great the submissions were, it was really hard to choose. 

21 hours ago, telliur said:

And second, I hope I'm not taking the words too literally, but I didn't understand one judge's point in pasting some sort of complaint all over the entries about how disappointed he was because the contest turned out to be "From Bits to Ballades". If you want a specific style or mood, you should include that in the rules. Since the contest was pretty free (at least I didn't notice any special requirements), I think we all did what we felt was right, without following a specific requirement. So don't be disappointed expecting something that wasn't required 👍

@Thatguy v2.0 was actually the one who came up with the slogan "From Bits to Bangers" and @Tónskáld and the rest of the staff agreed that it was the best option for themeing the competition.  While reviewing the entries, @Thatguy v2.0 expressed disappointment that most competitors didn't really produce "bangers" so I, jokingly, quipped that maybe the competition should have been branded "From Bits to Ballades".  LoL  @Thatguy v2.0 decided to incorporate this into his reviews, which he is free to do.  I in particular took the word "bangers" to just be synonymous with "awesome music" but @Thatguy v2.0 chose a more literal interpretation of the theme of the competition, which he was free to do in his reviewing.  But that's why having a variety of judges allows the contestants to get a more diverse set of opinions and views and insights into their compositions, which I think only benefits the integrity and organization of the competition.

On 4/14/2023 at 9:04 AM, telliur said:

And second, I hope I'm not taking the words too literally, but I didn't understand one judge's point in pasting some sort of complaint all over the entries about how disappointed he was because the contest turned out to be "From Bits to Ballades". If you want a specific style or mood, you should include that in the rules. Since the contest was pretty free (at least I didn't notice any special requirements), I think we all did what we felt was right, without following a specific requirement. So don't be disappointed expecting something that wasn't required 👍

I also had a trouble with that. If you expect participants to write in certain style - make it a rule. For me a banger is a piece which you would consistently re-listen. If you have personal biases that should not be a reason to deduct points because that is not in rules of competition and that's not a category. 

Also shoutout to Omicron for indicating how little winning entry had to do with the actual track... That was exactly my thought and I was really amazed at how much attention it got as I didn't understand how it got so much points for "Execution of Given Challenge" . It certainly is a great original track, but...

Nevermind, just personal thoughts.

---

Also as a feedback I'd like to leave a thought of not promoting the event of 200$ prize for 3 places recieving the money and then later cutting it to only 1st place recieving 100$. I understand that it was a point in original post (which I sadly missed), that if you didn't recieve 10 entries, you would cut the award, but the way it was done was like indicating you are going for amount of entries, rather than their quality. And in my opinion you could've made an exception since competition was missing only 1 entry.

Anyway, congrats again with organisation. 

2 hours ago, AlexeySavelyev said:

Also shoutout to Omicron for indicating how little winning entry had to do with the actual track... That was exactly my thought and I was really amazed at how much attention it got as I didn't understand how it got so much points for "Execution of Given Challenge" . It certainly is a great original track, but...

Well yeah, but at the end of the day I suppose it's a matter of opinions. I truly didn't see it as strong in that regard as other entries after several listenings.
 

2 hours ago, AlexeySavelyev said:

And in my opinion you could've made an exception since competition was missing only 1 entry.

I agree on the fact that dividing the money between several participants would be better than giving everything to one, specially in these cases where many good works have been submitted. I'm sure we'll better consider it next time. 👍

Thank you and the rest of the participants for all the feedback.

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.

3 hours ago, AlexeySavelyev said:

I understand that it was a point in original post (which I sadly missed), that if you didn't recieve 10 entries, you would cut the award, but the way it was done was like indicating you are going for amount of entries, rather than their quality. And in my opinion you could've made an exception since competition was missing only 1 entry.

We discussed splitting up the monetary awards differently with @Tónskáld - the patron of this contest without whom the contest would not be possible, while the music was being submitted.  We decided against that since it was in the original competition announcement that a 2nd place prize of $60 and 3rd place prize of $40 would be given only if there were more than 10 entries, so we did what we said what we were going to do.  It is important in a competition like this to follow through with our commitments and be consistent with our decisions, so although we had conversations about the prize money since the number of submissions was so close to 10, we decided against splitting up the money differently because it would be inconsistent and go against our original commitment.  It's very likely that the 1st place winner would feel cheated out of the prize they were expecting if the prize money was split differently.  Also, offering more prize money is up to @Tónskáld's discretion, since he is the sole patron of the competition and the competition wouldn't be possible without him in the first place.

3 hours ago, AlexeySavelyev said:

I also had a trouble with that. If you expect participants to write in certain style - make it a rule. For me a banger is a piece which you would consistently re-listen. If you have personal biases that should not be a reason to deduct points because that is not in rules of competition and that's not a category. 

It's not a personal bias, it's a definition of a word. A banger is an upbeat rockin tune, like, you know, all of the 8 bit tracks to choose from. I chose to judge in the best way I saw fit. 

3 hours ago, AlexeySavelyev said:

but the way it was done was like indicating you are going for amount of entries, rather than their quality.

Um, yeah. If we met the goal of 10 entries, the prizes given would be increased as was mentioned in the OP. Pretty simple stuff. 

This patron has been rather disappointed in the community response to this particular competition. Young Composers Forum (YCF) is intended to be a place where budding composers from all walks of life can grow in their craft alongside their peers. We have always welcomed those who are willing to listen to the feedback of their peers, and we have always encouraged those who post for the sake of adulation and admiration to find other outlets for their arrogance.

The competitions we host are no exception to the vision of YCF.

They are not intended to be "professional grade" competitions, although we do strive to make them as robust as possible. No, their primary goal is to provide a space for the YCF community to be able to grow, exercise what they've learned, and have the pleasure of sharing their music with others. We, the staff, decided to offer prize money as a way to give back to the YCF community, to thank them for their contributions and hopefully to draw in more and likeminded composers. We unequivocally welcome such people into the YCF family.

This competition, unfortunately, has not produced that effect. There has been a pervasive sense of entitlement that is, quite frankly, not very becoming of our community. We, the judges and staff of YCF, are not getting a single cent of compensation for our time in judging this competition, nor for any of the other services provided for this community. I have been extremely discouraged by the behaviors and comments of some of the entrants, who have challenged the culture here at YCF and threatened it with elitist, materialistic ideals. I do not wish to see the beautiful thing we have fostered together here wither away under such ideals.

(That said, we welcome feedback on how to improve these things, but please bear in mind that such feedback is better received if it comes from someone who has also invested in the YCF community, such as an active YCF member.)

In closing, I would like to remind you that a competition is to be enjoyed by both judge and entrant. I have not enjoyed the competition this time around, and earnestly hope that future competitions will once again reflect the culture at YCF.

Respectfully,
Jörfi

9 hours ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

It's not a personal bias, it's a definition of a word. A banger is an upbeat rockin tune, like, you know, all of the 8 bit tracks to choose from. I chose to judge in the best way I saw fit. 

Banger is a slang and definitions differ from different societies you are in. Again, if that's what you'd like to hear - you should include it in the rules. In any way even if that was the case "Dragon's Lair" Dungeon track is not meeting this definition in the first place and certainly is very biased towards Ballade to start with.

8 hours ago, Tónskáld said:

There has been a pervasive sense of entitlement that is, quite frankly, not very becoming of our community. We, the judges and staff of YCF, are not getting a single cent of compensation for our time in judging this competition, nor for any of the other services provided for this community. I have been extremely discouraged by the behaviors and comments of some of the entrants, who have challenged the culture here at YCF and threatened it with elitist, materialistic ideals.

That's very harsh. Me and @telliur just offered some feedback and I am very sorry if you feel like that showed some entitlement, elitist, materialistic ideals. Because none of that was the point. I really want to participate in the future and that's why I am offering this to organisers. If I didn't enjoy the competition and wasn't glad you took your chunk of time to analyse the pieces so thoroughly I would not be writing a single thing, because I wouldn't be affected by it and didn't feel anything for it. But I do. Be mindful that there is also a language barrier and we all may understand things differently from our point of view because English is not my native language (and maybe yours as well).