Heavensward Music Contest (NA) - Discussion Thread

[dutyyaknow]

It was stated somewhere that acapella is accepted.

[Camate]

Greetings!

In case you haven't seen the announcement on the Lodestone, we recently added the sheet music for "Night in the Brume," and in consideration of this we've also extended the contest deadline.

Contest entry period:
Wednesday, February 24, 2016 at 12:00 a.m. (Pacific Time) to Wednesday, April 11, 2016 at 1:00 a.m. (Pacific Time)

To accommodate this change, the winner announcement date will also be shifted.
We will be showcasing the finalists and selecting the winners during Nico Nico Chokaigi 2016 on April 29 & 30, and we will make the full winner announcement on the forums on May 2.

[SenpaiSakurai]

A: There is no requirement that it must be performed using real instruments. That said, the audio source which you use for the digital music must be original and created by you (you may not use outside music as a base or other samples to build from). With that said, for the video, you could consider recording yourself creating or playing back the digital piece.

So does that mean we can't use sound effects from a website? ;n;

[Kikoten]

So I found out just barely a week ago that my video is not 720p as I thought it would be when I transferred it from my phone to my computer. If I were to try and convert it, would that be considered breaking the rules?

[LollyM]

The first thing I want to say is - thank you for this contest, this opportunity and this composition!
This piece is incredible to me because of it's structure - it's a multi-movement work condensed into one track.

The tag line of this competition is "perform your own rendition of the song". The song is over 5 minutes long - so why impose a 2:30 time limit?

I don't think we're going to see much more than the opening theme varied with such a short time limit. Perhaps the limit was put in place for fear of judging duration - but you've got less than 10 entries... For a nearly 2 month long deadline for submission - it seems a bit ridiculous to limit the submission duration to 2:30 - especially so given that the base piece we're to be re-working is over 5 minutes itself..

[LollyM]

To the community team, I implore you to consider removing the time limit altogether or if a limit MUST be set to set it to something like 10 minutes so that we can truly be creative, and be given the ability to show the composer what we can really do with his piece.

You can't be overly creative in 2:30 since the main theme is nearly half of that time to begin with. There are more than 5 distinct movements/sections in this work - if you want to see anyone work them, you've got to allow us composers/arrangers the time to do so!

Hope so see response to this.. it's going to be a long month of 2:30 sound bites of the same opening theme otherwise.. Thank you!

[Strifean]

Is Night in the Brume just a part of that sample video? or is it the entire track?
Reason I'm asking is I see a lot of contestants remixing mainly the first minute of the song, and not so much the parts that come after.

Thank you

[vcmusik]

I am also curious as to how rigid of a rule the 2:30 time limit is. I've been composing my arrangement to fit it but it would be nice to have more time develop the theme. I'm sure that's part of the challenge of the contest, if anything. It's probably put in place to save Soken's time as he has to judge every single entry from all regions this is being held in.

On a side note, I'd like to ask for clarification regarding some of the fine print: It says "
Square Enix shall not accept and may delete submissions that: (a) deviate from the established theme;"

Does this mean we're not allowed to also incorporate other Heavensward themes/melodies in the arrangement, or was it a more broad rule referring to non-FF themes?

[CHOKKOmimi]

I see the due date is Wednesday, April 11, 2016.
However the 11th is on a Monday, so I'm confused as to when submissions are due.
Could somebody please clarify this? Thank you.

[vcmusik]

I see the due date is Wednesday, April 11, 2016.
However the 11th is on a Monday, so I'm confused as to when submissions are due.
Could somebody please clarify this? Thank you.

Heh, I'm surprised no one else noticed sooner. This is just my guess but I'm more inclined to believe that the date is correct and the Wednesday is the typo. They released the sheet music on the 11th, and that's when they amended the date, so it would make sense that that give a month from that point.