How, exactly, does OCR define a "medley?"

[Chimpazilla]

Hi everyone, I am trying to arrange a new remix of a few songs from one game, and I want to make sure I'm not creating a medley. I'm using snippets from each song and trying to weave them together. There are portions of my arrangement when just one theme plays, then there is a transition section where another theme is woven in, then just that second theme plays for awhile, then a few bars of a third thing, then back to the first one, etc. So, it's not like A-B-C, it's more like part of B, then all of A, then C then part of A, then a different part of B, all with tiny snippets of D and E showing up. Arg that is confusing, sorry. Could someone just please tell me what definitely NOT to do? Thanks!

[zircon]

Medleys in and of themselves are not automatic rejections, but they do tend to lead to lazier arrangements, which is why we usually discourage them. Most times when people try to use a bunch of source themes they end up just doing short 'covers' of each one, loosely blended together one after the other.

Basically if you're using multiple sources, you should have a musically interesting reason for doing so. Just throwing in two random sources isn't particularly interesting, but if you are weaving things in and out and personalizing the arrangement with variations and original material you should be OK.

[Chimpazilla]

So far it is sounding pretty groovy. My plan is to lay out the skeleton of the track, then do a bunch of soloing over the whole thing for a nice cohesive feel. It's a little strange right now, but kinda... sorta... working.

I'll get it a little further along and post a (very bare-bones) wip. Thanks!

[DarkeSword]

Basically what zircon said.

Also you have to keep in mind that OCR looks for single, cohesive pieces. Sometimes people want to pay tribute to a game so they try to pack as many themes from the game into their piece at a time. What ends up happening is that their piece ends up sounding like a string of quick remix sketches, rather than something that works as a single piece of music with a beginning, middle, and end.

One crit I've used a few times when judging medleys in the past has been, "I really like that 20 second bit where you covered that one theme; I wish that was a fleshed out remix." Often I feel like it's a wasted opportunity. As soon as I start getting into the idea being presented, the song switches gears to something completely different. It feels like a cop-out sometimes; the artist had an idea for how to interpret a song, but they didn't want to sit down and really develop that idea, so they just do a 20 second tease or something.

Medleys aren't bad or wrong, and I don't really like calling them lazy either, because they do take some work, but for OCR, you want your submission to be an idea, not a string of ideas.

I've done some mixes with multiple sources (usually only two though) and my approach is always to use the changing of source tunes as a way to provide a change of pace; the second source essentially becomes a B-section for the piece which will callback or lead itself back to the A-section (the first source). Regardless of the number of sources you use, callbacks are a great way to keep things cohesive.