It's a bit tumbleweed this month competition wise.

Which is interesting given the competition is essentially, write an interesting melody.

Liking the entries I've managed to listen to so far. Two appear to not play (offthewall, beanpole) directly, so I'll download them later.

Some thoughts.

EmeraldTablet mono
Interesting melody. Like the way you vary the decay of the notes. Pushing your luck a little maybe from the middle onwards

JJBiener Enchantable
Almost an extension of ETs tune. Smoother, but not quite so pleasant (to me). I think it's the vocoder sound that's putting me off.

InboxZero NaAlmaDeTodosCoisas
Ah, I was wondering who would be first with an orchestral piece. Very cleverly done.

evo2slo SingleStringTheory
Mmmm. Rock on baby! Not often the lead guitarist gets the whole stage to himself

nikp2000 time_split
Wow! Multiple interleaved tunes. Very original. I like it.

offthewall BigBryansLament
Been a long time since we've heard that whistle. Very traditional with no tricks. It works well as a solo instrument at the start.

Patrick9 Japonica
Rather curious ethnic mix. Nicely done, but a bit thin on melody to these very western-trained ears.

MyEarBleedsWine OdeToEsmarelda
The bells! The bells! Well, that quite an introduction. Campanology will never be the same

DocJon Contemplation
Delicious bit of picking. Very smoth introuction of the flute, and was that a glockenspiel I heard in the background?

beanpole Monophobe
Started out sounding like 'My First Keyboard', but actually grows on you as it develops. Very short.

rockstarnot mono
Some clever work with filters and modulation there. Automated or done by hand? Works well anyway. Think you might be nudging against the boundaries with those echos

Ahh so Grasshopper - Listen! There! Between the notes.

Delay Lama was my first thought when I saw the description. It is hard to find an instance where it fits, but this seemed perfect.

I used Delay Lama for that vocal sound. I know it is a bit odd, but given the constraints of the contest I was looking for something that would really make the track stand out. I generally use unusual harmonies to make things interesting, but that wasn't available this time.

First of all, thanks for all the effort you put in to listening and commenting, and finally all of the color coding in your comments - that's commendable.

I recorded the modulation live as I played it. I didn't quantize, since I made up this line on the fly I thought I would just let it kind of go on it's own like a japanese watercolor of sorts.

Then, I came back and added Camelphat and recorded mouse-move fiddling with the filter. Then I exported it and called it a day. I realize I probably bent the rules with the delays.

Thank you for the very kind comment.

Phew! Finally got my song uploaded! You guys got some good songs there, nice!

I am curious. It would seem that I am coming close to my download limit on Soundcloud for this month's entry. What do others generally do when this kind of thing occurs?

Thanks,

JJ

I'd remove the older tracks, or the less important ones... or move to a premium account, or create another account for the contests only, or... or...

I think you should be able to do it by uploading another copy of your track, then changing the permalink of the current version (which is nearly at the limit) to something else, and then setting the permalink of the new upload to the value you used for the original.

That way the link you published here will now point to the newly uploaded copy. But best to check first with Mr Miltz that it's ok and within the rules of the contest.

If it all works and is acceptable then you should be able to delete the original version to save your soundcloud storage allocation - unless there are comments on the track that you want to keep, of course.

Alternatively, become a member of soundcloud and get more storage and downloads!

Thanks for the tips. I am going to have to think through how I want to handle this.

Here are some considerations about my submission, as it could seem that's not strictly a monodic track.

The track is organized in 4 articulations:

- Intro [0:00 - 0.57]
More than a drone, I consider it a moving texture fixed around a steady note (an E4) then enforced by an E3 and so on, down to E1, with different instruments (a texture from ACE, a synth from Zebra, a pipe organ).
There are some overlappings during the change in C4 at 0.38, due to the reverb / delay (yes, I used both extensively!) and to my imperfection on performing; the entire track is unquantized.

- I part [0:57 - 1:45]
Two different sounds layered: en Electric piano / bell, characterized by a short sustain and a delay, and a pad with relatively strong harmonics. They are played on unison, but the difference between the two sounds in term of envelope, the delays and the harmonics - every sound HAS harmonics - could lead to think: hey, that's not monody! In particular, around 1:15 there's the "illusion" of a chord... Again, I've decided to go near the limit between monody / polifony.

- II part [1:45 - 2:38]
Made with an awesome (IMHO) bagpipe-ish preset from fr4ancesco muz3um+ (z3ta+2), it's layered with a choir, and doubled with itself, an octave down. At 2.06 there's also a tuned drum (timpani), which plays the same notes as the bagpipe, some octaves down. Again the pipe organ makes its appereance.

- Outro [2.38 - 2:59]
It reprises the intro, more or less.


I perfectly agree with Doc Jon when he says that monophony is in the ear of the beholder. Ah, and looking at the MIDI notes, my track is perfectly monophonic, as well. Let's see...

And more...

LagunaRising 1TakeOnly
Well that was different again! Lots of interleaved sounds, must have been quite hard to sequence. I'm not entirely sure I'd class it as music, but it's certainly worth a listen.

forw Monomoon
Love the music box. Thinking about it, these are often monophonic too. Very nice work.

softegg little creature
Fun little tune, but very short.

kryptonaut DomineAbomine
A sort of intricate semi-synthesised Gregorian chant. Lots of octave work in there. Nice organ sound. Coda caught me by surprise

nahkaorava Chuseok
Firstly, welcome to the cafe
Very oriental sound, and it occurs to me that this, too, is often at least trending towards monophonic. Like the call-response nature of the main body of the track.

DHMilt TheOldPlace
Lovely clean lazy guitar. A real chill-out. As they say, less is more.

bzur Monolith
What? Is it 2001 already? Very nice but I think you are really pushing the note tails to the limit (your additional comments noted).

GMoneh PansLament
Another very nice pan-flute based track. Very distinct sharp-edged notes, blend in nicely with the slower attack synth.

I'm glad you find it original. Music or not.
Thanks for your reviews

Cheers