Welcome to our first arrangement contest!

[Cobraroll]

Hi folks! We know it has taken a while, but it wouldn't stay true to the NSM spirit if we got this done overnight, would it? After a lot of back and forth, public suggestions and some periods of hiatus, we got this ready.

The theme of this round is:
Inverse the mood!
A lot of video game songs are grim, dark themes played to illustrate absolute despair or just plain scaryness. The main villain's lair, deserted ruins full of monsters, zombie crypts, the examples are countless.
A lot of other video game songs underline a go-happy atmosphere, where smiling characters frolic under the blue sky and everyone is friends, all is all right and expressing worries would give a guy jail time. Sunshine and happiness is an absolute must, and magical mushrooms aren't uncommon.

But what if it was the other way round? How would it sound like if the undead roamed the happy fields, or the crypts were cleaned, lit and given a new paint job? How would Bowser's Castle sound if Baby Peach inhabited it? What would Route 2 sound like if all the Gastly in Kanto decided to move there? If a game like Left 4 Dead was reworked to be a mood booster for depressed preschoolers, how would that affect the music?
You decide! Your task is to take any video game song, and invert its mood. Make a skippy-beat song dark and gloomy, take a scary theme and turn it into a feel-good song, or anything in between. You may choose whichever instruments you like, but don't go overboard with them - unless you have a really good reason to do so. Also remember, you are to fix, add to and tweak existing songs - not make new ones. If you're a "definition type of guy" you might call this a remixing contest, but that word is hush-hush on here and tends to scare away potential participants.

Your score will be given on the following basis. Each category gives up to 5 points:

Concept and Execution (What does this music say and how do I say it?) Creativity is a key factor here. You don't have to be very good at writing music to get points, as this category rewards good ideas as much as musical talent. If you have a good concept, and manage to pull the idea of without gaping over too much, you will haul in the points on this one. Likewise, a perfectly formatted, fully playable piece with a sensible selection of instruments will suffer if it's plain boring.

Balance and Colour (How does the music overall blend together tonally?) Did you manage to make that jolly song as depressing as a November day without Internet connection? Is the feel of the music right? Have you created an atmosphere the listener would recognise? And does the song still resemble the original enough?

Instrumentation and Tonality (How effectively was my instrument choice?) And do every player contribute enough to the main "picture"? Sure, that bagpipe solo might sound awesome for those fifteen seconds, but then the bagpipe also has to play a part in the rest of the piece. Likewise, if all you hear for 90% of the piece is the piano, and then the 10 other percent are full of other instruments, you get a low score.

Playability and Technique (How hard is this piece? Is it playable?) Have you paid attention to the range of the instruments? Is the score equally challenging to play for all the instruments? If you for instance insist on adding flute arpeggios to a song like Dire Dire Docks, you better give the rest of the ensemble something to work with as well. If you have to hire a world-class professional musician to play the trumpet part, while the other instruments can be covered by a school band, you've done something wrong.

Score presentation (Is the score easy to read? Did I write the music correctly?) If you follow the NSM formatting guidelines, these will be five simple points to get.


You sign up for the round by handing in a finished product. No need to state in the forum that you enter/abstain, as it won't have anything to say if you don't hand in anyway.

After the judges have had their say, we'll make a poll so YOU can vote as well.

The winner of the judge's voting will get to choose a prize: Either a copy of Minecraft or a (one) chosen Steam game costing less than â,¬15 (£13, $20). We'll also see if we can make a small signature banner documenting the achievment of the winners for everyone to see for all eternity.

The accepted format is .mus. There are entire topics on this forum dedicated to the people who can't make a .mus file on their own. If you're one of them, check them out.
 
You submit by uploading the piece to an external site and posting the link here. If you've submitted arrangements to the site before, this shouldn't be new to you. If you haven't, head over to the Submission sub-forum to see how others do it. The judges will follow this thread closely, and a list of submissions will be edited to this post. Also, we kindly ask participants to post a link to the original piece along with their submission. Failure to do so (within the time limit, that is) will affect your score, be warned.

Submissions will be accepted from now on until midnight on October 31, 2011 (yes, Halloween itself). The judges will also be able to participate, but won't have anything to say on the scoring of their own piece (or was that score, seeing as "scoring" could refer to the sheet itself? Anyway, the jurors may be in play, but won't judge themselves).

Feel free to ask questions.

Now, have fun!

Submissions:
Dahans' piece, based off Pokémon R/B/Y - Lavender Town

SlowPokemon's piece, based off Pokémon B/W - Route 4

Olimar123's "Dissonance in the Lost Woods", based off The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Lost Woods

[Dudeman]

Yay, it's finally up! NOW MAKE SOME SUBMISSIONS SO THAT I CAN JUDGE!!!

[Olimar12345]

Awesome, I'll start tonight!

[pumpy_heart]

Is there a length minimum or maximum? And can we take a neutral piece (say Prelude from Final Fantasy for example) and take it either direction?

[Cobraroll]

^No minimum, but I think a total of three minutes would be a sufficient maximum, not counting eventual "eternal" loops (for example, a song can have a ten second intro, a 2:40 long part that can be repeated infinitely, and a ten second ending). If several people find this too hard to go within, we might stretch it. Feedback, guys, feedback!

Also, yes. Dragging a neutral piece in either (or both, if you so please!) directions falls within the "or anything in between" category (I should have clarified that a little better). By the way, making a neutral piece more neutral would too, by definition, but that would require some extraordinary creativity to get a good rating.

[pumpy_heart]

Cool dealz. And finally, are we judged by the color the midi produces or the color the piece would produce?

[SlowPokemon]

If we want to have, say, a flute section, but want multiple tones for the flute, do we need to include two/three flute parts to make it realistic, or can we just write out the full chord on one staff? The midi accepts that and it's much simpler.

[MaestroUGC]

Hmm, for this I say yes, put them all in one line, but you need to be consistent. If a majority of the piece uses two flutes at max, then two measures have three, then you will lose some points for instrumentation. If it is unison for most of the piece, and splits occasionally, then indicate to split with a divisi marking.

This is my personal preference, but indicate the number of players for each part in the part name: Flutes 1-2; Oboe; Clarinets in B-flat 1-2, etc.
If you cannot do this, then provide a scoring list when you submit your arrangement following the same format.

[SlowPokemon]

I think I'll just include multiple of the instrument, it's probably better that way.

Also... it would appear I only am using four instruments (excluding those multiple parts)... is this bad...?

[MaestroUGC]

If it works for what you are trying to do, it shouldn't matter how many instruments you use.

[Clanker37]

That is awesome. Also can we arrange stuff that's not from video games? Like stuff from movies/TV Shows etc.?

[Cobraroll]

^The answer to that is bolded in the firs post. I guess you could, though, but that would yield zero points as it falls outside the specifications of the contest.

[Olimar12345]

Also remember, you are to fix, add to and tweak existing songs - not make new ones. If you're a "definition type of guy" you might call this a remixing contest, but that word is hush-hush on here and tends to scare away potential participants.

Oh shit I just read this-Is it okay if I just use the motive of a song?

[SlowPokemon]

I didn't make mine note-for-note identical with only a small amount of change. For one thing, I'm not having it repeat endlessly, I wrote my own ending. I don't really care if I get marked down for that... I'm not having it be identical.

[Olimar12345]

I literally just took the melody. thats it. is that kewl?