BIT.MUSIC '95

International Competition of Musical Composition

Bit.Music '96, a festival that in '95 gained so much prestige in the music field. Bit.Music '96 will take place next year in March or April (detailed informations will follow). Other initiatives apart (see BIT.MUSIC PROGRAM paragraph), Bit.Music '95 have an interesting competition dedicated to novice and expert MIDI musicians.

THE IDEA
People interest in musical session (also in the Computer Music) has increased more and more on every edition. People presence to various initiatives of this session was considerable, but to organize a real musical competition we never got the necessary premises. Concerts, demonstration of products and other ideas, have had a secondary role as regards the only real protagonist: the Bit.Music festival.< BR>
Bit.Music '94, we have thought to replicate the competition of MIDI composition. Materials required to take part of it are: a keyboard, a computer, a sequencer software, and lot of fantasy (and obviously some musical rudiments).

RULES
In order to compete, every composer has to send only a single and original piece ("remake" will be rejected). Only one piece for every composer will be admitted to the competition, other pieces of the same composer will be rejected. All musical pieces have at most to last three minutes: everything exceeds time limit will be drastically cut off. In considering that even visitors judge pieces, this choice make presence greater and don't boring musical reproduction.

All musical pieces must to be in General MIDI Standard file form (.MID), the computer model used does not matter. In considering the wide spreading on various platforms of programs which can manage the DOS floppy disk size, MS-DOS compatible floppy disk is the required support for .MID files saving.

Reproduction of musical pieces will be performed by General MIDI products: CuBase (Windows Score), Notator Logic (Windows) and Bars&Pipes Pro 2.0 (Amiga) sequencers. In order to allow comparing original and reproducted sounds, composer has to send a floppy disk holding General MIDI Standard file and also a tape holding the original piece.

It is important to emphasize that only General MIDI Standard respectful pieces may compete. Consequently, all pieces containing extraneous standard (i.e. SysEx) preset references will be rejected from the competition.

In order to compete, every composer have to send a floppy disk and a tape aforesaids. Also, he necessarily have to enclose following documents:

- Very short artistic introduction about musical piece (long documents will be summarized). Hidden meanings and reasons which caused piece's birth. This documents must be added to the MIDI file on the same disk in ASCII format .
- Little technical introduction about musical piece. Harmony, melody, arrangement and so on.
- Summarizing technical form. composer name, piece title and duration, hardware platform used, General MIDI Standard sequencer software used and additional software products.
- Authenticity statement. Composer has to vouch for piece originality. Also he has to state: "My piece proposed for the competition is neither a complete imitation nor a partial imitation of a copyright protected piece. So I assume full responsabilty about forgery or plagiarism."
- Permission statement for reproduction, in order to permit public listening of the piece in the Bit.Music aim, and for promotional purposes. So, every composer has to send this statement: "I authorize the press department of Bit.Music to use my work, which is presented in the competition, for public listening in the Bit.Music's aim and for promotional purposes. I understand that I maintain the copyright to my work and that this permission in no way prohibits me from using my material in any way I desire."

Every composer has necessarly post all above-mentioned material until Feb 1996, the 1th. Will not be admitted to the competition all materials received after this date, or pieces received without documents required.

AWARDS
All pieces admitted to the competition are judged by a jury (judges' sentences will not liable to criticism), composed by some musical field professional people. Jury's valuation decrees a fifteen pieces list, to be submitted to public judgment. At the end of the festival, only the first one jury's classifyed piece gets the "Jury's award", whereas the first one public's classifyed piece gets the "Public's award".

BIT.MUSIC PROGRAM
Besides the above-mentioned competition, Bit.Music provides for various interesting initiatives. Daily reproduction and daily public valuation are planned from 10 a.m. to 01 p.m., and from 03 p.m. to 06 p.m. In Bit.Music '94 will be performed public demonstrations about MIDI use, with and without computer's help.
Also, are planned seminars. These seminars will explain how to use most popular sequencers software (i.e. Cubase and Bars&Pipes Pro). Moreover, new specific Computer Music and MIDI products will be presented. Detailed Bit.Music program will follow as soon as possible.

EVENING PERFORMANCES
Some musical groups will perform free evening concerts. This further initiative allows Bit.Music's visitors to complete pleasantly their journey.

For further informations, please contact:

Michele Iurillo at yuri@skylink.it

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