And I didn't even see your post until now...schiing wrote: Fri Dec 16, 2022 8:32 am Essay time. My voting was unusual this round (read: few on the top, and a lot of low scores), and I didn't leave any comments on Soundcloud. I realize orchestral scoring is a sidestep for most of us, but it was hard for me to look past certain basic aspects of orchestration when I judged the entries, and it's perhaps not entirely fair – I don't know.
I made these notes for my own use, so my comments might seem a bit more pointed than they would normally be. But I thought there were some interesting aspects to this challenge, and I decided to share them in a slightly edited form - in case anyone is curious about my thought process.
I should also note that I'm a sneaky coward for posting this literally minutes (honestly, cutting it that close is a coincidence!) after the voting has ended, because I badly want to beat Taron's fantastic piece. I think/hope I might have a shot along with a few others – and I didn't want to risk anyone getting pissed off at me, punishing my score! (How's that for honesty?? I'm competitive!!) At least you can all have a good laugh at my presumptuousness when I end up somewhere outside the top 10! (I might never return again
I feel badly – you're all wonderful people, you obviously put a lot of work into this round, and you gave it your best shot. I don't like to hand out 1s and 2s, and I might ultimately, you know, be wrong, so apologies in advance. Anyway, here we go:Oh, and did I mention that Taron's piece rocks?
- Difficult round to score, had to use the full scale for the first time
- On the positive side, many lower-scoring compositions would've been eminently listenable with real ensembles or better programming. So I think people did better in the songwriting department than in the tweaking department this round
- Interesting ideas, but often poor presentation, lack of expression/intent
- Many fatally overlong pieces
- Many composers unable/unwilling to use orchestral dynamics
- Major sameness on many tracks - block chords, little movement/variation between instrument sections, little variation in instrumentation density, little use of doublings, etc. – use the textures! They've been tried and tested for hundreds of years, and there's a reason they're still around
- Hardly any phrasing - a lot of flatly presented themes and motifs
- Too little focus on variation in dynamics and tempo - unnatural and boring as a result. Orchestral music lives and breathes, back and forth, slow and fast, loud and soft
- But that's not always the case - and many fell for the temptation to go for minimalism + some for expressionist ideas. Now, it's incredibly hard to create interesting minimalist and expressionist music using an orchestra with no round robins, no exotic playing techniques, and a small dynamic range – and the attempts quickly become tedious, sadly
- There's a lot of unintentional mid-90s MIDI sound, and while I think it might be impossible to avoid this completely, many don't seem to fully grasp the importance of programming and automation in virtual orchestral music – you can't play an orchestra like a piano
- You can of course experiment and use an orchestra like a synth with lfo-like automation and stuff, but it doesn't yield too good results here. But Taron did program his slurs fantastically.
- This round raises interesting questions about external processing for me – it reveals that some will go a lot further with effects than I would consider within the scope of OSC
- Finally, the "experimental" tracks with heavy processing and sound manipulation don't seem to manage to take advantage of the production choice – it sounds artificial and simply don't bring out the best in the instrument – and even make its limitations more obvious than need be. There has to be a reason for experimentation beyond novelty, I think. Thus, very low scores there, to separate from everyone I felt tried to take advantage of the instrument's strengths
- All the other comments in this thread clearly indicate that most of you felt very differently about the quality of this round, so I'm definitely the odd man out. And while I've spent many hours trying to learn some things about orchestral music over the years, I would never go so far as to proclaim myself as an expert or authority in any sense. So take what you will from my words, and don't let them discourage you – a solid majority think you did a fine job!
) after the voting has ended, because I badly want to beat Taron's fantastic piece. I think/hope I might have a shot along with a few others – and I didn't want to risk anyone getting pissed off at me, punishing my score! (How's that for honesty?? I'm competitive!!) At least you can all have a good laugh at my presumptuousness when I end up somewhere outside the top 10! (I might never return again 
With our usual synth explorations we have this fantastic opportunity to create acoustic experiences, whether it's the carefully conceived emulation of real instruments and sounds or the totally wild synthetic inventions that may or may not grace a well composed musical composition. The permission to approach near infinite genres that way and/or totally ignore any need for such definition gives everyone a chance to simply have fun in their own way and enjoy manifesting anything, really.
This time, however, this very particular sound source created a sort of invisible cage for most, sending them into an adventure well outside their usual travel plans.
The results could reach pretty deeply into the awkward pocket, but there were also some wonderful surprises and one could hear a much more intense desire to compose and possibly some of us have even managed to surprise themselves.
In my judgement I tried to feel the level of confidence and/or joy that went into the creation process along with the amount of understanding and the proportion of one to the other.
...don't ask me later what I've meant by this. I'm still not quite sure? 
Anyway, regardless of the charts at the very end, I sincerely hope this was an inspiring round for most of us to explore this a bit more. It's about the nature of care this kind of composition has been asking for, which will benefit virtually any style or genre and it might have raised some important questions to some, regarding certain harmonic structures and the desire to project emotions in a musical way. Something that will always be worth exploring and will add to the musical vocabulary beautifully.
Anyway, Terje, thanks again for your kind hints and praises. It really gives me proper strength and we can't ever have too much of that.
...as we've been talking about before, outside of the unfortunate lack of round-robins, your piece was rock solid and a testimony to your musical powers both in sensitivity, clarity and wisdom, actually.
j/k
Merry Xmas all and have an amazing new year 
But I promise, I never, never acted on that impulse! If I ever felt it, that is. 
...I sure hope that's true. 