Conceptual Music Competition 5: Sunrise [Results]

[Abadoss]

CMC: Conceptual Music Competition

This competition is based on the rules of the classic TOMC (Thematic Original Music Competition).

The CMC (Conceptual Music Competition) is designed so that each participant enters a piece of music based on a set theme. The participants take the theme and interpret it as they will to come up with something that fits. Any style can work, as long as it portrays a sense of what the theme is.

Feel free to be imaginative!

Each successive theme will be chosen by the winner of the previous competition. For example, say the theme of the last competition, CMC 10, was "Earthquake" and the winner, Brendan, submitted a piece that knocked the socks off of everyone, so he won. Brendan then gets to decide the theme for CMC 11.

This competition is open to registered members of the forums of

OverClocked ReMix, VGMix, Ormgas, and VGMusic.

CMC 5: Sunrise

"After the dark of night, the new day can be seen on the horizon..." -The Prophet of Mephisto

Results!:

• Text results and critiques
  
• Audio results

There are 7 entries for this round...

Sir_NutS - "Bloody Sunrise"

• "After the dark of night, a young soldier stands watching the sunrise, as the enemy approaches, the calm of early morning is broken by the warcries. After the heated battle, the blood-stained field recovers it's peaceful state."

stringfield - "Sunfield"

• "This piece represents the way I want to be as I wake up when the sun rises in the morning, the annoyingly optimistic, bright, happy person who just springs out of bed at the crack of dawn ready for the day ahead. Of course I'm too lazy to be like that and usually a bit tired looking but we can all dream. Every sunrise that is want I want to be."

Chief - "A New Day on the Horizon"

• "This piece begins at the end of the night, while light is first appearing on the horizon. It continues to build while the sun rises, never declining until the end, when the sun has risen high into the sky."

Chavous - "Voices of the Angels"

• "Out on a cliff overlooking the ocean, an old man lies deceased. His life was pure and his deeds good, so he is granted a spiritual burial. The mages gather around as day beings to break. The movements and speels all coordinate with the rising sun, and the magic must be completed exactly at sunrise.
  :00-:38; The sky starts to become brighter.
  1:22-2:05; the first suns rays arise.
  2:05-2:46; the air of magic starts rising... the air gets steadily hotter, the sky turns brighter.
  2:46-3:22; each mage inputs his or her own special magic, and the air grows hotter and tenser.
  3:22-3:32; the sun is now fully risen, there is a flash of pure white light and...
  3:32-the end; the old man is gone, the magic is disappated, the birds are singing and the sun is risen."

Extacide - "Dawn Upon Wings of Hope"

• "Amidst the plains, two armies of bitter enemies fight vigorously through the night. Defending their home land, the heroes have little hope as they are overwhelmed by the massive onslaught set out upon them from the hordes of darkness. From hours of bloodshed, light slowly waxes in the sky, the sun is slowly emerging, revealing the scarred faces through the helmets of the warriors. For one moment, peace is spread through out the plains. The fighting ceases, as everyone looks into the sky and sees sun emerging, the dawn of a new day. Hero and enemy alike halt their sword for the one moment they notice the sun rising. Warmth of the new day brings not only light, but hope to the heroes, that they may see the light of another day, a day when they are free from the grasp of the shadows that threaten to destroy them. For this one moment... the light of dawn carries the wings of hope into the sky..."

Simon Frisch - "Helios"

• "I know atonality isn't for everyone but bear with me here. For the sake of your listening experience, just put thoughts of melody and harmony completely out of your head and listen to mood. The piece is extremely soft (sorry!), best to turn up your speakers.
  Helios was the Greek God of the sun, who rode his chariot every day across the sky.
  The beginning is entirely textual, dark and restless. There is no logic, only an engulfing sense of feeling lost. Gradually, the clouds clear and there is a sudden expectant calm. Then, one by one, shafts of light beginning appearing, more and more quickly until at last the sun is rising in all splendor. It is risen, and then thus the world is satisfied once more (cello solo; completes the melody that seemed to start but was interrupted before).
  There remain, however, suggestions of something darker to return..."

Kris Davis - "A Million New Ways to Lose Yourself"

• "At the current point in my life, the symbolic nature of a sunrise means various different, and equally important things to me.
  'After the dark of night, the new day can be seen on the horizon...' - The Prophet of Mephisto
  This is one interpretation, a fairly easy one to get people thinking about how this applies to their own life. Everyone goes through a rough patch now and then, and the whole 'Light at the end of the tunnel' idea is what keeps us going. Well, I'm just approaching the end of one such tunnel, and hopefully won't enter another one for at least...well I'll give it another few months anyway... For the last few weeks, the sunrise has meant the end of my day as such, time to go to bed, not the usual interpretation, but for us usually-nocturnal folk, that's the way it is, late night jobs are a pain
  Like I said though, those days are soon to be behind me again, and I'm looking to start something new, let the past be the past and move on. I also love to travel..something that led to the last debacle..so...I've travelled south, I think I'm already in a Western enough world as it is without heading across the atlantic, north lies iceland and fuck all else. So east it is.
  The Indian themes running through the song were inspired by someone I met not too long ago, and re-kindled my interest in her native Indian culture and musicians like Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar, Nasrat Fateh Ali Khan, nitin Sawhney et all.
  So, while an obvious choice, but a very appropriate and relevant one to me, my interpretation of Sunrise leads me down a road of discovering new and interesting ways to get lost in the world, make the most of life and keep looking towards the future, this time to an eastern horizon."

Voting Rules!:

• Voters will be allowed to pick a first place (3 points) and any number of honorary mentions (1 point). Only one set of votes from any one voter will be accepted and a person cannot vote for any one piece more than once. Corrections to votes, from the original voter only, will be accepted, but corrections will void the previous votes. Basically, a voter can vote and correct the vote, but only the final form of that vote will be counted. Send all votes to

Abadoss by PM. Please include any and all constructive critiques (not to be confused with bashing) about them with your votes as well, so that there's always a sense of growth in the artform. If you wish to remain anonymous, just state so in your PM. Thanks.

• The voting period will last from the moment the entries are posted in the thread to the Saturday of the following week. The voting period for this round ends on March 31, so be sure to spend some time really listening to the pieces.

• Any participant in the competition can vote, but not for their own pieces. However, in an effort to encourage voting among participants, any participant who votes will have 2 points added to their voting score.

Official Rules!:

1. Each piece must be originally composed for this competition. Arrangements and remixes will not be accepted. (Pieces composed by the participant prior to the competition will not be accepted.)
   
2. Each piece must be 2:00 or longer and match the competition theme.
   
3. Only one entry per person. Collaborations will be allowed, but each collaborator may not submit any other pieces. (This also means that a person cannot collaborate on two or more different pieces at the same time.)
   
4. A link to the entry piece must be PMed to Abadoss prior to the deadline set for each competition. DO NOT POST THE LINK IN THE THREAD! However, feel free to post in the WIP:Other forum.
   
5. Important: Each file must be labelled accordingly: Composer_Name_-_Composition_Title_CMC#.mp3
   (For example, if Franco Valdez submits a piece called "Fixated on Gushers" to CMC 12, then his filename would be: Franco_Valdez_-_Fixated_on_Gushers_CMC12.mp3)
   
6. MP3 file format is required. Know that even OGG will need to be converted into MP3. (If someone is unable to do so themselves, Abadoss would be willing and able to do it for them.)
   
7. Entries should be accompanied by a description and/or story to help listeners understand what the piece is about. (Not required, though.)
   
8. All entries must be submitted by Saturday, March 17, 2007 at 11:59 PM - PST, GMT-8.

You can find the competition threads for each forum listed below:

• OverClocked ReMix: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=8043
  
• VGMix: http://www.vgmix.com/vg25/viewtopic.php?id=5315
  
• Ormgas: http://oc.ormgas.com/forum_viewtopic.php?2.18403
  
• VGMusic: http://www.vgmusic.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=7562

Good luck and have fun!

Previous CMCs: http://www.warnerpacific.edu/personal/kkeyn/CMC.htm

[Abadoss]

I need to reserve this reply for information later on...

[Sir_NutS]

this deserves a big and resounding... maybe.

Interesting idea.

[Paladin]

I'd like to think I can enter, but it will depend on how much time I'll have to work on it before the deadline.

[CopiousX]

I'm in! This sounds doable and I finally have some time Happies

[Chickenwarlord]

Already have something started. Whether I can make my inspiration meet 2:00 minutes and maintain some good sound is another matter.

[The Instrumental Light]

id like to, but im not sure if time will permit. i like to take my time on songs, and if this is something has to be done quickly in a race against time, i dont think i could. maybe, im not certain though, so dont post me as doing it, cause im not sure. if not this one, maybe the next one or the one after that one. if i can do it, i will notify you on this thread.

[Chavous]

...This is going to be an amazing competition. I love the theme, it's perfect for my style...actually I have about 3:30 done already...it might end somewhere between 4 and 5 minutes.

[Abadoss]

Wow... I guess that means Chavous is in...

[Chavous]

Haha yea...but it's a little under what I planned. Turns out it sounds better with the ending I put on it at 3:30, so that's the length of it...I just need to flesh it out quite a bit.

[Sir_NutS]

I already submitted my entry a couple of days ago XD

[-RK-]

This sounds really cool. If I find time I'll definately give this a go.

[prophetik music]

shit, i totally didn't even know that this was started yet. my fault.

i'm in, and i'm working on a piece currently. don't know if it'll turn out as i've got it envisioned currently, but we'll see.

there's no limit on time, is there? because this has the potential to become a very long project, if i get my groove on and manage to reconstitute my whole soundfont library.

anyone want to give me, say, all their good soundfonts? please?

[Abadoss]

shit, i totally didn't even know that this was started yet. my fault.

i'm in, and i'm working on a piece currently. don't know if it'll turn out as i've got it envisioned currently, but we'll see.

there's no limit on time, is there? because this has the potential to become a very long project, if i get my groove on and manage to reconstitute my whole soundfont library.

anyone want to give me, say, all their good soundfonts? please?

Uh... I think that you can imagine a situation where too long of a piece would detract from the listening experience (I know so, having written some). So, while it's technically okay to make it incredibly long, I'd advise against it...

This pretty much boils down to a concept that keeps coming up in my composition classes: the length-content ratio. It basically goes like this: If you have enough content for a two minute piece, don't try to stretch it for five or cram it all into thirty seconds. The length of a piece should reflect the amount of content.

[prophetik music]

i wasn't saying i'm going to write a symphony, i meant i might write a piece that was eight minutes long, to fully capture what i need to capture.

of course, i probably won't, but the possibility's there.

[Abadoss]

Tell you what. You have an hour tops.

[Chavous]

/Submitted yesterday.

[Paladin]

Well, I had started a piece. However, at the moment it's just an ambient accompanyment with no melody as such. Therefore, I won't be submitting anything this round.

I'll vote though. Good luck all.

[prophetik music]

Well, I had started a piece. However, at the moment it's just an ambient accompanyment with no melody as such. Therefore, I won't be submitting anything this round.

I'll vote though. Good luck all.

you still have a week - keep it up!

[Paladin]

A week left? Really?!

Wow, in that case I'll pick up where I left off. Thanks Prophet!

[_Raijin_]

nice to see there's actually some life in this project somewhere. scanning the other forums there seems to be little to no interest elsewhere. You should really pimp this competition a bit more and maybe at least set up one central forum rather than having 4+ threads all on different websites. I'm finalizing a piece i started two nights ago, will more than likely enter it.

[prophetik music]

i'm still planning on submitting, but it's going to be a rush job. i'm in the process of hanging and focussing lights right now for our college production, and because of the shitty equipment we're using i'm not going to have time until thursday morning to start writing this, i think.

[Abadoss]

nice to see there's actually some life in this project somewhere. scanning the other forums there seems to be little to no interest elsewhere. You should really pimp this competition a bit more and maybe at least set up one central forum rather than having 4+ threads all on different websites. I'm finalizing a piece i started two nights ago, will more than likely enter it.

I actually have a central website set up for the current round.

http://www.warnerpacific.edu/personal/kkeyn/CMC-Current.htm

[_Raijin_]

I actually have a central website set up for the current round.

http://www.warnerpacific.edu/personal/kkeyn/CMC-Current.htm

yes, but still no forum its just an idea, thats all, could help creating more of a central community rather than having people from all over the place.

[_Raijin_]

how many entries so far by the way?