Alright, so I have a couple of ideas for the next contest. I'll update this post as more ideas are suggested/any consensus is reached.
Spoilers added because oops this turned out really long (to nobody's surprise but my own)
So, this one's kind of a natural progression from a couple of our previous contests, namely the bossification and the...spookification (?) ones. We've focused a lot on making pieces less peaceful and less joyful, so why not try the reverse? The criteria for this would simply be to take a melancholy, scary, and/or intense piece and make it "happier". Think Ordon Village or Green Greens. Obviously, pieces like the ones I mentioned would be off the table for originals to base this on. It would likely be judged similarly to the "spookification" contest in that considerable departures from the mood within the piece would result in a lower criteria score, even if the majority of the piece were still cheerful.
The drawbacks of this one are that it limits the pool of pieces one can choose from a bit more than usual, and has a somewhat vague goal (I'd have gone with "hometown theme" or something like that, but that just seems too specific, imo). On the other hand, though this means that despite the lower amount of freedom in piece choice, arrangers might end up with a greater amount of freedom as to what they do with the original.
Most contests, we have a pretty similar thing happen: A theme is suggested, and while people are pretty successful in portraying it, they do it with such drastically different instrument setups that it's pretty difficult to rate them against one another. I'd never try to qualitatively compare a Basie chart to a Mahler symphony, or, a more thematically appropriate comparison, a NES soundtrack to a nextgen soundtrack. So, what if the theme for a contest were instead very broad, and the focus were on how you deal with a prescribed orchestration?
My initial idea for this is to limit everyone to a quartet of monophonic instruments (i.e. no keyboard instruments, and likely no guitar). It'd be kinda like the solo contest we had a while back, just with a lot more freedom for typical writing styles. On the one hand, I'd thought of making it more limited to, say, a string quartet, but that gives unfair advantage to people more experienced in that area. On the other hand, I'd also love to open it up to combo arrangements with guitar and piano and such, but polyphonic instruments really stretch the definition of 4-part writing.
This is obviously limited in that it doesn't warrant that much of a change from the original piece, especially if it already contained a similar amount of voices. That could partially be resolved by arbitrary rules such as "no instruments that were in the original piece" or "write for a different emotion than that present in the original" (the level of difference then being valued in the creativity scoring), but still, eh. This idea truly is more of a brainstorm, as I'm really just intrigued by the idea of how everyone's pieces would compare if limited in this way.
Also, I have a couple of thoughts on some of the judging criteria:
Obviously, none of this is set in stone (including me being the host, for that matter), so please let me know what your thoughts are on any of this.
Spoilers added because oops this turned out really long (to nobody's surprise but my own)
Idea 1 - Take A Sad Song And Make It Better
So, this one's kind of a natural progression from a couple of our previous contests, namely the bossification and the...spookification (?) ones. We've focused a lot on making pieces less peaceful and less joyful, so why not try the reverse? The criteria for this would simply be to take a melancholy, scary, and/or intense piece and make it "happier". Think Ordon Village or Green Greens. Obviously, pieces like the ones I mentioned would be off the table for originals to base this on. It would likely be judged similarly to the "spookification" contest in that considerable departures from the mood within the piece would result in a lower criteria score, even if the majority of the piece were still cheerful.
The drawbacks of this one are that it limits the pool of pieces one can choose from a bit more than usual, and has a somewhat vague goal (I'd have gone with "hometown theme" or something like that, but that just seems too specific, imo). On the other hand, though this means that despite the lower amount of freedom in piece choice, arrangers might end up with a greater amount of freedom as to what they do with the original.
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Idea 2 - Limited Orchestration
Most contests, we have a pretty similar thing happen: A theme is suggested, and while people are pretty successful in portraying it, they do it with such drastically different instrument setups that it's pretty difficult to rate them against one another. I'd never try to qualitatively compare a Basie chart to a Mahler symphony, or, a more thematically appropriate comparison, a NES soundtrack to a nextgen soundtrack. So, what if the theme for a contest were instead very broad, and the focus were on how you deal with a prescribed orchestration?
My initial idea for this is to limit everyone to a quartet of monophonic instruments (i.e. no keyboard instruments, and likely no guitar). It'd be kinda like the solo contest we had a while back, just with a lot more freedom for typical writing styles. On the one hand, I'd thought of making it more limited to, say, a string quartet, but that gives unfair advantage to people more experienced in that area. On the other hand, I'd also love to open it up to combo arrangements with guitar and piano and such, but polyphonic instruments really stretch the definition of 4-part writing.
This is obviously limited in that it doesn't warrant that much of a change from the original piece, especially if it already contained a similar amount of voices. That could partially be resolved by arbitrary rules such as "no instruments that were in the original piece" or "write for a different emotion than that present in the original" (the level of difference then being valued in the creativity scoring), but still, eh. This idea truly is more of a brainstorm, as I'm really just intrigued by the idea of how everyone's pieces would compare if limited in this way.
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Also, I have a couple of thoughts on some of the judging criteria:
Orchestration
- I love this one conceptually, but historically it's kinda just turned out to be a pretty universal "I love your choice of instruments!" with an occasional "...but this isn't that realistic of a part for [some instrument]." Arguably, this could be because everyone who submits has a pretty good grasp overall on how to write for the instruments they chose, but it could just as easily be an attempt to remain fair and objective on a very subjective scoring criteria. And, as evident in the scoring of them's last time, for example, there's quite often a disconnect between what works best for the instruments in real life, and what might be ideal in the digital interface in which we ultimately experience them. And while this has the potential to be a great experience for people to learn about the inner workings of instruments, it could also be a time to learn about what additional liberties we can take when we're not just limited to what real-life players can accomplish, as well as when and how realistic portrayals of instruments can still be beneficial in that new space. Part of this thinking came from me doing more work with purely electronic sources that don't even have a basis in real-world instruments, such as 8-bit chip sounds and synths, which would be both interesting to see in this context and a bit blurring of the current lines we have set on this criteria. Just some food for thought; is everyone okay sticking to a strictly acoustic approach to this, or would anyone like to see some more digitally-minded judging? And if we were to keep the same "attemptedly objective" approach that we have been, would anyone be interested in seeing its weight lowered?
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Criteria
- I feel like for this one, my only concern is that it's historically been the least transparent of the judging criteria, even though it's the main focus of the contest, and should therefore have the most codified set of rules you have to follow. So, as we're discussing these ideas, if y'all have any thoughts on what considerations should be included in the scoring for this, let me know. I'm talking ideas like
QuoteIt would likely be judged similarly to the "spookification" contest in that considerable departures from the mood within the piece would result in a lower criteria score, even if the majority of the piece were still cheerful.only I'd try to make that clear from the very beginning.
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Formatting
- Not just saying this because I've historically done poorly on it, but more because most people have historically done much more poorly on it than the "This should result in easy points." description would suggest. My thoughts are that we should lower the weight of this criteria, say, to 5 points. It isn't, and shouldn't be, the focus of these contests, especially considering the medium we're working with; maybe if most games had the funds or style required to work with live musicians, it'd make sense, but they don't, so it seems silly to work as if we do. The majority of us are never going to have these pieces read, and so long as the score presented allows the judges to adequately understand what's going on in the piece without a need for aural skills, I don't see why it should play such a huge part in somebody's overall score. Hell, if we change it, you can even change it back to normal weighting for any future contest that I participate in; as a judge, I just really don't want to have to say "Your piece was great! You did exactly what was asked of you! Except the imaginary players you won't be working with might find the score a bit unseemly. 10 points from Slytherin."
(As a learning experience, we could still point out what changes would need to be made if working with real players, it just wouldn't have nearly as much impact on the overall score.)
(As a learning experience, we could still point out what changes would need to be made if working with real players, it just wouldn't have nearly as much impact on the overall score.)
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Preservation
- I think this criteria is fine preserved the way it is. (get it? GET IT???)
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Creativity
- Arguably the most important of the criteria we have, as well as the most undervalued. This really should be what we're most encouraging; this shouldn't be training to be a better arranger by the NSM definition (which is really more of a transcriber + engraver), but more in the vein of Percy Grainger (ideally with less anti-semitism). So, my thoughts are that we could weight this category higher and/or divide it into multiple categories, like so:
Creativity - Like the current definition; how much change is made from the original?
Variety - Within the piece, what kinds of techniques are used? Is much headway made throughout the piece to maintain interest, or does it remain static, and to what extent do these qualities suit the arranger's apparent goal?
Creativity - Like the current definition; how much change is made from the original?
Variety - Within the piece, what kinds of techniques are used? Is much headway made throughout the piece to maintain interest, or does it remain static, and to what extent do these qualities suit the arranger's apparent goal?
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Obviously, none of this is set in stone (including me being the host, for that matter), so please let me know what your thoughts are on any of this.
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