Tune Contest - 20th Dec to 31st Dec - The Ghost Of Christmas Cliché

[m0ds]

A new contest! The deadline is short, hopefully pushing people into working on things in good time Sorry if you don't have enough time though, I can relate, but otherwise my theme is going to be useless.

I'd like you to make the jollyest mother trucking piece you can to celebrate the feelings of Christmas. I want to feel elated and in love with the festive period through your track. Quite how you convey it and in what styles (retro, modern sounding etc) will be part of the joy for me to vote for a favorite.

Ultimately for me everything has gone wrong, I had an example track from yesteryear but it's one of the few files in deletion land. I've been trying to write something myself as an example but just haven't found the time.

So it's up to you to bring out the ghost of christmas cliché this year! I want to feel like I'm in a winter wonderland, that I really should be jingling some bells or mind programmed to believe giving away a manger to Jimmy Saville is the right thing to do. The idea is to find the joy, love and togetherness of christmas and put it into music.

Don't make it depressing.

Some examples?

This guy is a month younger than me and he composes orchestras !!!! He's going to compose the hollywood ben jordan movie...
http://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/merry-christmas-everybody/

Us westerners can revel in the fact we have at least one decent modern Xmas song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5bo4VDEH-U

Or forget the lyrics just bring us a nice christmas tale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TVDGHTi53g

let it ******* snow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rtezCvY6mc

Or just tell us something nice, make us listeners feel good and "in the spirit"...it's a good time of year for it!
http://www.screen7.co.uk/junc/mornin.mp3

» It needn't be long at all! Just something with 'that christmas feel'

I look forward to your cliché christmas tunes, merry christmas and a happy new year! Good luck!

[janleht]

I think I captured successfully the true spirit of christmas

CHRISTMAS DAY

[tamatic]

Hehe, nice and hectic janleht.

This thread reminded me of a silly loop I made in november: FerryMassLoop01.ogg.
I don't think I'll find the time to expand on it now, never planned on doing that.
So yeah, not an entry to the challenge. But perhaps the christmasness can inspire some other songs, hehe.

Cheers.

[Diamond16]

Hey everyone,

I went for the more traditional Christmas cliché. Imagine after eating your chosen Christmas dinner and pudding to your heart's content, you then sit in your favourite comfy chair and relax in front of a roaring fire.

Christmas Comforts

[PeterT]

Hey all,

I wanted to do something a little different with this. I hope I honoured the "winter wonderland" brief, but not in the traditional jingly-bell way. I wanted it to feel reserved, poignant, and even schmaltzy, like the final scene in a Christmas movie, just before the credits roll. And with that in mind, I wrote: "A Christmas Ending"

Imagine a warm, crackling fireplace, a richly-decorated room, and a young boy fast asleep under the Christmas tree. The adventure is over, Christmas has been saved, and everyone will have their happy ending.
The camera slowly zooms out on the scene, until - at the 30 second mark - it flies out through the window, and we are now on the outside looking it. It is a frosty night, and the camera begins floating into the snow and stars and clouds, before finally fading to black.

Link: "A Christmas Ending"

(and good luck to everyone!)

[nihilyst]

PeterT, that’s one of the most amazing (and at the same time schmaltziest) entry ever been made in Tune Contests. I can literally see the credits rolling

[PeterT]

Thanks for the kind words, nihilyst

It's so great to see people interpret the same theme in different ways. Everyone should be really proud of themselves.

[amiganer]

I decided to make my own contribution for this contest too.

Christmas Morning

I hope you like it!

[Le Woltaire]

Here is my entry.
It's a piano cycle about the christmas carol by Charles Dickens and the different christmas ghosts.
Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his friend Marley and the well known three ghosts of Christmas...
He finally becomes a generous man.

1. Marley's Ghost. Appearance of a ghost that is tied with chains.
http://spectrum.agsarchives.com/music/marleys%20ghost.mp3

2. Ghost of christmas past. Appearance of a small white robed ghost of indeterminate age.
http://spectrum.agsarchives.com/music/ghost%20of%20christmas%20past.mp3

3. Ghost of christmas present. Appearance of a ghost with a green robe with dark brown curls.
http://spectrum.agsarchives.com/music/ghost%20of%20christmas%20present.mp3

4. Ghost of christmas yet to come. Appearance of a ghost entirely muffled in a black hooded robe.
http://spectrum.agsarchives.com/music/ghost%20of%20christmas%20yet%20to%20come.mp3

5. Scrooges ending as a generous man.
http://spectrum.agsarchives.com/music/scrooges%20ending.mp3

[Viking]

Le Woltaire, that is really splendid music!  I particularly liked Marley's Ghost and the Ghost of Christmas Present.  I'd love to hear an orchestrated version of the whole thing.

Well, I know I'm a day late, and I'm not sure if this even quite fits with the theme, but I often compose a Christmas carol medley for friends and family for the Christmas season.  (For some reason, I have a penchant for harmonizing Christmas carols in odd ways.)  Unfortunately, I didn't quite finish this year's composition by Christmas and so I didn't send it off.  But after seeing this contest I thought I'd go ahead and finish it anyway.  I guess my work next year will be rather diminished.

Anyway, this one is definitely "light" classical.  The title was an afterthought, I'm afraid.  I tried combining all the names of the Christmas carols that it used, and came up with God Jingling Away in Silent Joy at First, but somehow that lacked that certain ring to it (and also sounded like God had forgotten where he put his car keys).  So, I tried again and settled on Comfort and Joy.

Here's the composition: Comfort and Joy.  Hope you enjoy it!

[Diamond16]

Really like the reharmonisations Viking, awesome!

[m0ds]

Oh, egad, people DID actually enter Thank you!! Okay, I be voting tomorrow, promise!

I've had a listen and enjoyed all the entries so thanks a lot, I'll sleep on it and comment and announce the winner tomorrow afternoon.

Very confused as to why half my first post is missing, but perhaps I got drunk and deleted it by accident. But I did also find and re-upload my medley from last year which I mentioned previously and was going to use as the example but instead chose/"forced" to share mariah carrey. Consider both these items my gift to you.

Once again, great work ladies and gents - and hope you all had a merry composing christmas!

[m0ds]

Excellent stuff! I had lots of fun listening to all the tracks several times and needed to think hard about it. Here's a detailed Chrimbo-special breakdown Don't take it personally. All the tracks were great to listen to

LENGTH & FINISH: How long is it, does the length fit the tune, too long or short? Whats the sound quality of the recording like, does it have a nice ending?
CATCHY/MEMORABLE: Will I remember it or will it become positively familiar or annoyingly familiar?
INNSTRUMENTATION: Do the instruments suit the theme? How are the instruments used in the tracks?
FEEL GOOD FACTOR: Does it make me move, tap my feet, want to listen more, jump for joy or does it disturb and aggitate me?
CHRISTMAS CLICHE: Overall how well does it fit MY brief AND/OR the composers explanation, and how well does it deliver the cliche it was intended for?

janleht - Christmas Day

It's as if I'm getting a 404 error for Christmas, thanks!
It scares me but in a jolly way. I think it's perhaps just
missing a jingle bell sound. Like tamatic said, suitably hectic.
There's always a place for hecticity around Christmas and your
tune makes that word sound like a robot city where this kind of
music would fit perfectly at Christmas. As a Christmas cliché
though, I'm afraid it just doesn't quite byte...

LENGTH & FINISH: 6/10
CATCHY/MEMORABLE: 4/10
INNSTRUMENTATION: 6/10
FEEL GOOD FACTOR: 3/10
CHRISTMAS CLICHE: 5/10

Overall: 24/50

Tamatic - FerryMassLoop

Didn't enter but you get the same treatment! It's like
christmas in toy land. Exactly where I would want to be if I was
4 years old again. Definitely the ideal music for santa's grotto.
Too bad you didn't enter it, you had a pretty good top trumps card:

LENGTH & FINISH: 6/10
CATCHY/MEMORABLE: 7/10
INNSTRUMENTATION: 8/10
FEEL GOOD FACTOR: 8/10
CHRISTMAS CLICHE: 9/10

Overall: 38/50

Diamond16 - Christmas Comforts

I was at a shopping centre choosing some christmas decorations and
I definitely heard this playing there. It's great to know you wrote
it. Everything was sparkly and magical and shopping center-ey in
Christmas very much like this tune. It sounds festive! But it has
no real ending, so I am jolted out of the lovely experience back
into the decaying car park. The feel good factor takes a hit

LENGTH & FINISH: 5/10
CATCHY/MEMORABLE: 6/10
INNSTRUMENTATION: 8/10
FEEL GOOD FACTOR: 6/10
CHRISTMAS CLICHE: 8/10

Overal: 33/50

PeterT - A Christmas Ending

There's certainly magic in the air here and what more could you
ask for from a Christmas movie finalé perhaps with McCauley Culkin, near,
far, wherever you are - it sounds great and stirs the heart.
Very nice use of the tremelo strings. There's certainly warmth, friendship
and comfort at that home this/last Christmas. Strong contender!

LENGTH & FINISH: 8/10
CATCHY/MEMORABLE: 5/10
INNSTRUMENTATION: 10/10
FEEL GOOD FACTOR: 9/10
CHRISTMAS CLICHE: 10/10

Overall: 42/50

amiganer - Christmas Morning

IN 1984!!!!! YES!! I see families, turkies, decorations and a light sprinkling of snow,
all set in a completely instrumental montage from those great 80's christmas films. It
certainly is a Christmas power ballad that feels good and dictates an overall "good
time" around Chrimbo. Nice one!

LENGTH & FINISH: 7/10
CATCHY/MEMORABLE: 7/10
INNSTRUMENTATION: 8/10
FEEL GOOD FACTOR: 10/10
CHRISTMAS CLICHE: 8/10

Overall: 40/50

Le Woltaire - Le Woltaire's A Christmas Carol

Gripping stuff and I feel like I should have paid 30 pounds for my seat to listen to
you as a solo pianist - perhaps with a lone actor portraying the tale of Scrooge in mime. God,
I wouldn't want to be there too long. It has an edge, gives it that spooky authentic aged-tale touch,
so for a 30 pound seat to watch you tell the classic tale - I am glad to be here, sitting in Row L
far left next to a fat man. I'm sure Charles Dickens would be proud. Ross Kemp should be too.

LENGTH & FINISH: 6/10
CATCHY/MEMORABLE: 6/10
INNSTRUMENTATION: 9/10
FEEL GOOD FACTOR: 5/10
CHRISTMAS CLICHE: 10/10

Overall: 36/50

Viking - Comfort And Joy

It's time to open the presents and w00t I definitely got some Ronseal this year
with "Comfort And Joy" because IT does exactly what it says on the tin! Haw haw.
Basically, this is a very joyous medley of Christmas favorites that is hard not
to enjoy. And as mentioned and now formed bias the harmonization is wonderful.
Someone said they heard this tune in Winter Wonderland in London because it's a
temporary Christmas theme park or something where their Christmas tunes don't just
repeat a little they boast a full 7 minute festive loop. I am going to punch that
choir-aahh choir pretty soon though

LENGTH & FINISH: 8/10
CATCHY/MEMORABLE: 9/10
INNSTRUMENTATION: 7/10
FEEL GOOD FACTOR: 9/10
CHRISTMAS CLICHE: 10/10

Overall: 43/50

It was a very close call but well done Viking! You just snatched it on this one I think, a medley of familiar tunes presented in new ways always gets me. But all the entries were of such high quality. Thank you to all who took part, the time you spent to do it and I hope you all had a nice Christmas and a good year of composing in 2013!

[tamatic]

Congrats to the winners! And a great new year to all.

[Viking]

Woohoo, thanks! Yeah, sorry about the horrible choir. In the full score I've written out the lyrics, but alas, I don't own a choir synth library like EWQLSC yet, so choir aahs is all I can manage. I don't even have separate sounds for men, women, and soloists (the first part of Away in a Manger is supposed to be a solo treble or, if need be, soprano).

I really enjoyed listening to all the entries -- there were some really great ones this time around. I'll post a new contest as soon as I think of something!