# Ryan Leach October 2022 Scoring Competition



## The Retroblueman (Sep 28, 2022)

Hey all - looks like Ryan is at it again - but with a sting in the tail this time - you have to submit a pdf score and a musicxml file that he is going to play back in Dorico to judge (no produced mockups) and it has to be for a clearly defined 30 piece band (see the YT description). But that is because the winner gets their score recorded by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra - which is pretty phenomenal!



Am assuming we can still put produced mockups on YT (etc)- if so, looking forward to hearing them below (I need to check whether my very dusty copy of Sibelius 7 still works and can do the requisite).

Best of luck

R


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## Woodie1972 (Sep 29, 2022)

Interesting!


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## blaggins (Oct 5, 2022)

I don't know who needs to hear this, but Thomann has NotePerformer for $98 (at least for me browsing from the USA). It doesn't appear to be a sale, but it's still $31 cheaper than anywhere else... Pretty decent deal.


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## The Retroblueman (Oct 12, 2022)

Thought I'd get the ball rolling on entries - here's mine - I don't have noteperformer and it is nowhere near the top of my GAS list so for the YT video I ran the midi notes from Sibelius 7 through SCS and BBCSO Pro's wind & brass soloists in a DAW (tried to approximate the 30 piece band we are writing for). So, no idea what the musicxml file will sound like at Ryan's end, but I think that may be part of the fun! 

Once in the DAW, I did quite a lot of work on note velocities, expression and dynamics and put a tiny bit of splosh on the strings bus to blend them better with BBCSO but that was the extent of any "production", so this is pretty much just the bare library sounds. Score also attached for anyone interested.



I just spent about 10 minutes carefully scanning the icons at the top of the "post thread" box to try and work out which one is for attaching pdfs... then I looked underneath the box🙄

Best of luck all! Hope to hear your entries soon!

R


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## sundrowned (Oct 12, 2022)

The Retroblueman said:


> Thought I'd get the ball rolling on entries - here's mine - I don't have noteperformer and it is nowhere near the top of my GAS list so for the YT video I ran the midi notes from Sibelius 7 through SCS and BBCSO Pro's wind & brass soloists in a DAW (tried to approximate the 30 piece band we are writing for). So, no idea what the musicxml file will sound like at Ryan's end, but I think that may be part of the fun!
> 
> Once in the DAW, I did quite a lot of work on note velocities, expression and dynamics and put a tiny bit of splosh on the strings bus to blend them better with BBCSO but that was the extent of any "production", so this is pretty much just the bare library sounds. Score also attached for anyone interested.
> 
> ...



Nice. 

I can run it through noteperforner if you want.


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## The Retroblueman (Oct 12, 2022)

sundrowned said:


> Nice.
> 
> I can run it through noteperforner if you want.


Thanks very much for the offer (not to mention for listening!) - but I fear it may lead to madness if I were to listen back and hear about 200 details that I wanted to tweak - hopefully Ryan is going to be listening with sympathy at his end!


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## musicbox (Oct 14, 2022)

Sounds great


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## PhaseLock (Oct 14, 2022)

The Retroblueman said:


> Thought I'd get the ball rolling on entries - here's mine - I don't have noteperformer and it is nowhere near the top of my GAS list so for the YT video I ran the midi notes from Sibelius 7 through SCS and BBCSO Pro's wind & brass soloists in a DAW (tried to approximate the 30 piece band we are writing for). So, no idea what the musicxml file will sound like at Ryan's end, but I think that may be part of the fun!
> 
> Once in the DAW, I did quite a lot of work on note velocities, expression and dynamics and put a tiny bit of splosh on the strings bus to blend them better with BBCSO but that was the extent of any "production", so this is pretty much just the bare library sounds. Score also attached for anyone interested.
> 
> ...



Just glanced through your score. One big piece of feedback: I saw your comment to Ryan about a roll on the crash cymbal. However, in an orchestra context, crash cymbals are when you hold a cymbal in each hand and bang them together, it's not really something you can do a roll with. I am pretty sure what you are looking for is a _suspended cymbal_, which is also on the list of available percussion equipment.

Also, this is minor and won't affect playback, but with brass and winds, divisi is not used. See this video for details: 


Cool piece!


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## The Retroblueman (Oct 14, 2022)

PhaseLock said:


> Just glanced through your score. One big piece of feedback: I saw your comment to Ryan about a roll on the crash cymbal. However, in an orchestra context, crash cymbals are when you hold a cymbal in each hand and bang them together, it's not really something you can do a roll with. I am pretty sure what you are looking for is a _suspended cymbal_, which is also on the list of available percussion equipment.
> 
> Also, this is minor and won't affect playback, but with brass and winds, divisi is not used. See this video for details:
> 
> ...



Thanks so much for the feedback - percussion is a strange and wonderful mystery to me. I am reasonably new to the composing game - this year has been about being very focussed on strings writing, next year is brass, and, before I chipped half my front tooth off, most woodwinds were generally a thing I could actually play, so they don't intimidate me. But percussion - may as well be Ancient Greek!

Am pretty sure the thing I used from BBCSO was just called "Cymbal" so I took a punt on crash over suspended (I thought piatti were the two hands banging together ones)- hopefully Ryan will give me a bye if he likes the rest😀 Anyway - really kind of you to have pointed out the mistake, and point noted on the div - was being "economical" with the spacing (which basically translates as "lazy")!

Lastly, glad you liked the piece, I got really worried I had ripped off the first (possibly second) movement of Beethoven 9 but two full listens through have satisfied me that I haven't actually copied anything!

I hope you are putting one in - will listen when it's here!


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## Kalaberas (Oct 16, 2022)

Hi, I'm a newbie in this forum and this is the first time I send a piece to this contest. I hope you like it.


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## weeeeve (Oct 25, 2022)

Here is my entry, entitled "Boo! Did I scare you?", in honor of my neice, who spent many hours as a little girl sitting next to me saying that very thing. :^)
The piece is composed on staffpad, and the audio is the default staffpad orchestral sounds.

Thanks for listening!

Steven


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## lastburai (Oct 27, 2022)

This is my entry for this competition.

There is a story to this piece of music also

To the north there is a land called Nocturn covered in mist and at the centre of Nocturn there is a lake and near the lake is a village with a windmill and beyond the windmill is a mysterious castle, no one has ventured into it and come out alive and no one knows why it was built and so begins the story of good verses evil under the moonlit vale...... And no man can say who shall emerge victorious


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## weeeeve (Oct 27, 2022)

Lastburai- Wow! Outstanding!


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## The Retroblueman (Oct 28, 2022)

Hi @lastburai - very exciting piece - one thing I thought I really should say is that Ryan took the 90 second time limit fairly loosely for his first competition (April this year) but for the second (July) he said he was going to be very strict on it. Don't know how he will be about it on this one but would hate for you to hurt your chances for the sake of 10 seconds of cuts...


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## Germain B (Oct 30, 2022)

Great entries here ! This is humbling.
Here's mine :


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## lastburai (Oct 30, 2022)

weeeeve said:


> Lastburai- Wow! Outstanding!


Cheers I appreciate it, it means a lot if you liked it. Your entry was also awesome great stuff as was everyone else's that I have listened to.



The Retroblueman said:


> Hi @lastburai - very exciting piece - one thing I thought I really should say is that Ryan took the 90 second time limit fairly loosely for his first competition (April this year) but for the second (July) he said he was going to be very strict on it. Don't know how he will be about it on this one but would hate for you to hurt your chances for the sake of 10 seconds of cuts...


Cheers and your track was awesome, definitely had a chasing the pumpkin vibe, excellent stuff. I can imagine them playing an entry like yours.

You are right and it was something that concerned me originally. So I did contact Ryan a few days ago before I sent my entry and he did give a reply regarding the very thing you mentioned. In the reply he said that because it was live players this time around they are not as terribly strict with the length of the piece one will enter, as live players have some flexibility with the tempo. So 10 seconds over the length is okay and one won't be disqualified. I think that is what Ryan kind of said I hope it is.

Even though Ryan did say that I still feel like maybe 10 seconds is too much and I get the sense that it probably will get disqualified, even though he said that is cool... I did do a shorter version with a score also but decided if Ryan says it is okay then maybe I don't need to send that in. As Ryan also said he wouldn't want more than one version if it is roughly the same piece of music...so in the end I decided not to send in a shorter version as the ending in the longer version just flowed better.


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## The Retroblueman (Oct 30, 2022)

lastburai said:


> Cheers I appreciate it, it means a lot if you liked it. Your entry was also awesome great stuff as was everyone else's that I have listened to.
> 
> 
> Cheers and your track was awesome, definitely had a chasing the pumpkin vibe, excellent stuff. I can imagine them playing an entry like yours.
> ...


As long as you're happy then I guess it's all good - these competitions are such a lottery anyway I think it's probably far more important that the thing you have actually put out there on the interwebs is something that you are happy properly represents your voice and intentions (i.e. rather than that than that your entry is bang on point with the rules). And, as above - I think your effort is doing you some serious credit!

Thanks for the very kind words on my effort too - one of these days I am going to do something that melts Ryan's elusive heart😁


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## Dragor (Oct 31, 2022)

Hi, this a was my entry. I did a mock up just for this version, and did a fun little visual score with it. Cheers.


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## Germain B (Oct 31, 2022)

Dragor said:


> Hi, this a was my entry. I did a mock up just for this version, and did a fun little visual score with it. Cheers.



Really intriguing and what a nice video, great effects !


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## dyross (Oct 31, 2022)

Hi folks,

Here's my entry to the competition:



The playback here is NotePerfomer straight from my score in Dorico.

Cheers,
David


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