[Music] RMRK Composing Contest?

We should do this. I think Holk tried to get one going a long time ago, but that was... a long time ago.

*Each round lasts one month.
*In addition to bragging rights, the winner of a round chooses the specifics of the next round (minimum/maximum length, instrumentation, etc.).
*Voting will take place on the last day of the month, so be sure your submissions are in before then. A submission thread will be created later.
*Submissions should be in mp3 format. If you cannot do mp3 then send your midi to me and I will make one for you.

Since this is the first round and I'm starting the topic, I'll take the liberty of creating the first round, of course.

OCTOBER'S CONTEST

String Quintet
(Any combination of violin, viola, cello, double bass)
1:30 to 4:00

Format of finished piece = ?

Traditional quintet, or any five string instruments we choose?

Format of finished piece = ?

Oh yeah, lol. I think most everyone here can do mp3 so let's say that. If you can't make an mp3 send your MIDI to me and I'll take care of it.

Traditional quintet, or any five string instruments we choose?

Any five from the orchestral string family.

do they have to be straight notes, or can techniques such as pizzicato be used?

I'm in.

do they have to be straight notes, or can techniques such as pizzicato be used?

Sure, use any techniques you want.

I guess I can try..lol but i'll lose.

Anyways since i dont have synthfont loaded, i'll send Halo a midi =D

edit: like err, can it be 2 violins, 1 viola and etc etc

or do we need only 1 of everything.

I'm using 2 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello and 1 bass. It wouldn't be a quintet if you only used one of each

This is not going to be as easy as I thought it would be. Perhaps I should have chosen something else...

lol duh

I've never used these instruments before, i think. Damn you.

Not as easy as you thought? Mine is already a minute long...

I'm having a little trouble actually. Then again it's only been a day lol

Its not hard to write, but it's going to take a really long time to put the dynamics and artificial emotion in there. Single string instruments sound like shit in midi.

I'll stop having trouble as soon as I can get a start ;-;

The ideas I initially had didn't pan out very well so I scratched it and started over. I sketched out a few things that I'm going to work on tomorrow and I think it'll start flowing pretty well after that.

Its not hard to write, but it's going to take a really long time to put the dynamics and artificial emotion in there. Single string instruments sound like shit in midi.

Not if you use Finale 2009 and Garritan's Personal Orchestra!

I have like 4 bytes of ram.  :'(

I get by with 1 gig on my macbook. It gets a little clippy when I'm playing back a whole symphony of Garritan sounds, but a string quintet is no problem.


Upgrade! JUST FOR THIS COMPETITION! THIS IS SERIOUS!

It would take me a month to upgrade, get finale and garritan, and be as comfortable with them as I am with Cakewalk.

It's a steep learning curve, that's for sure.

When I was in High School, we used Finale for theory classes. This was like Finale 1.0, and I doubt it's the same. It's pretty similar to Cakewalk, but figuring out where everything is, and all that would take a while.

Finale 1.0 didn't have an undo function, lol.

Do echo/delay tracks count as instruments?

I'm gonna *try* to do this.

Anything is fair game as long as you limit yourself to those string instruments. This includes pizzicato for those of you using general MIDI and similar soundfonts.

I'm in on this.