My Thoughts on the UnTwelve Competition

So I've finally listened through the winners, finalists, and a few of the non-placing entries, and I have to say I don't really agree with the results, either. I like the first and second place winners in that I think they were very successful in what they set out to do, but I really think Joseph Post's piece was the most interesting of the lot. I think he could have justifiably supplanted any of the winners.

I do think Chris's piece should have been a finalist, and I think Gene's and Michael's pieces were on par with the finalists as well. Over all, though, I think there were two major weaknesses in a majority of the pieces, and that's a lack of dynamics and a lack of strong melody. Weak production quality was also a big problem; I think the two first-place winners and Post's piece were the most polished-sounding, but many other pieces (not excluding my own) had a bit of cheeziness to them in terms of sounding like primitive synthesizer technology. I too would hesitate to recommend more than one or two pieces to my friends...and I would not even recommend my own. It's far from my best work and there is little to differentiate it from the other entries except for the metal section in the middle...and that section alone is probably the only thing that got me into the winner's circle. If there's another competition this year, I'm staying the f*** away from "slow, evolving, and subtle".

Since Michael has seen fit to give criticism of my piece and the other winners, it's only fair that I return it in kind. Michael, your piece would be great in a video game sound track, because it's great background music. It's very "one-color" to me, very much like an "underwater level" or something...reminds me a little bit of Sonic the Hedgehog, particularly Sonic CD. The problem is, this kind of music isn't great at holding the attention for 5 minutes when there's no video game to accompany it. The peaks and valleys are so subtle, and the tonal color so invariant that it's practically "ambient with a beat". It did not feel like it "went anywhere", there was no tension-and-release. It needed a break-down, an interlude, a break from the monotonous trot of the beat. With such heavy polyphony, also, few intervals are sustained long enough to establish their "tonal color", and for someone who puts so much importance on tonal color, I'm kind of surprised by this. I didn't feel like the tonal color ever changed, not once throughout the whole piece. I felt like I was hearing the whole scale all at once being arpeggiated every few bars. I think taking a "less is more" approach might be beneficial.

-Igs

Igs>"I do think Chris's piece should have been a finalist, and I think Gene's
and Michael's pieces were on par with the finalists as well."

Bizarre. I think Chris's was better than mine and Gene's just different...and
the Domina Catrina has us all beat (Igs, have you heard her song, not just the
intro, but the whole thing?).
At worst, I think we were all somewhere "top 10" in my book.

>"The peaks and valleys are so subtle, and the tonal color so invariant that it's
>practically "ambient with a beat"."

What qualifies as a "peak and valley"? It's true, the instruments in my
songs blend together a lot (minus the 1-2 leads) if that's what you are talking
about...but that was much the point IE it wasn't made to be some hard dance song
with cutting leads and flashy backwards.

>"It did not feel like it "went anywhere", there was no tension-and-release."
In terms of phrasing or chord tension? I'm pretty sure the phrasing and
velocity were fairly uniform...but can't see how the chord tension is. There
are, no lie, chords in there like 10:11:12 and those "sour" 22/15 triads in a
whole bunch of parts (especially with those sustained strings)...kind of stuns
me you, after making a major effort to say they are "clearly dissonant", turn
around and say there is no tension vs. the pure major/minor chords use.

>"Over all, though, I think there were two major weaknesses in a majority of the
>pieces, and that's a lack of dynamics and a lack of strong melody. "
So what on earth defines "strong melody"? My piece is loaded with leading
melodies, often 2 or more...unless your point is that having too many takes away
the sharpness of having a single lead... I'd say Chris's piece has VERY strong
melodies, as does Domina's (in fact, I think those two have the strongest
melodies in the competition)...if you think his piece also has the problem,
perhaps we just agree to disagree.

>"With such heavy polyphony, also, few intervals are sustained long enough to
>establish their "tonal color", and for someone who puts so much importance on
>tonal color, I'm kind of surprised by this."
The chords DO change quickly, but the strings are constantly droning as is
the bassline...so you have at least 4 notes full force loudness (not
fading/decay) at almost all times (IE I don't see why they can be "not held long
enough to avoid producing tonal color"). The only thing that goes staccato at
times...is the leads...and there is IMVHO a very fair argument that I didn't
hold the leads long enough to establish tonal color.

>"I think taking a "less is more" approach might be beneficial."
Meaning, make a song with a blatantly obvious leading melody instead of
cascading leads that blend together, for example? I can see that. The odd
thing is I was actually GOING for a floaty, coasting, trancy feel and trying to
escape from the usual hard dance feel.

>"reminds me a little bit of Sonic the Hedgehog, particularly Sonic CD"
Haha...well maybe I agree to disagree...I love the music for that game and
would gladly listen to it without the game. The one criticism I could
understand of it is that it's "fluffy-sounding" it kind of coasts along
effortlessly and never hits a hard/staccato feel or sudden breakdown (IE where
there's an obvious break in momentum and flow) to get your attention. The good
future song in Sonic CD's water level must be one of my favorite game songs of
all time...though the "present" song I don't like so much (not much momentum,
energy, or layering in that one). You could say the same of "liquid/'ambient'
drum and bass"...which isn't ambient, but has a similar consistant coasting
feel (no matter how many breakdowns are involved), such as BT's "Running Down
the Way Up" or Cold Storage's "Messij" from the video game "Wipeout" (call me
crazy, I love both songs).

>"It needed a break-down, an interlude, a break from the monotonous trot of the
>beat"
The other thing is, my song does have parts where the drums go partly or
completely out of instruments drop...actually about 6 of them (listen to the
entire song without skipping, you'll find them).
But purposefully, the song keeps enough going (IE adding melodies where the
beats drop or vice versa) so momentum is never dropped.

>"It did not feel like it "went anywhere", there was no tension-and-release."
I was trying to get tension and release between chords in quick succession
(IE quick high tension and soon after resolve...the keep the sense of flow),
rather than a slow progression of tension and sudden release...but are you
saying I should have done a slow building of tension and sudden release to keep
listener attention?

>"I felt like I was hearing the whole scale all at once being arpeggiated every
>few bars."
Considering I was using 6+ note chords in a 9-tone version of my scale and
changing them once every 1.5 seconds or so...technically that makes sense. Are
you hinting a slower chord progression would make things more dramatic and less
"arpeggiated" sounding?

>"It's far from my best work and there is little to differentiate it from the
>other entries except for the metal section in the middle"
One thing I said from the get go...that, admittedly, is the only part of that
song that really got my attention as being playful and fun. It rocks but...it's
only a tiny portion of the entire song.

>"Weak production quality was also a big problem; I think the two first-place
>winners and Post's piece were the most polished-sounding, but many other pieces
>(not excluding my own) had a bit of cheeziness to them in terms of sounding
>like primitive synthesizer technology."
Agreed. production quality has never been my strong suit either.

---- it....next time I'll try for something more building and aggressive...I
love trancey morphing huge chords and beats...but apparently, almost no one else
does.

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