For shame!  I couldn't even complete a song for my own compo!  But, I did work on something...

This is supposed to be the shell for a nation's anthem, dubbed "Tollenhaus" at the moment, as given to me by my girlfriend and inspired, I imagine, by cookies.

When writing this, I was trying to focus heavily on the melody.  What I love about "The Star Spangled Banner" is that, despite any ties to emotions due to patriotism, it's always so fun to sing, especially because it's rather difficult for a folk/patriotic song.  I clearly didn't come up with a melody as marvelous as that one; but, I didn't hold back on making the melody challenge the singer's range and attention to detail in regards to the notes.

Another kind of important point is, I imagined a choir of young boys singing this song in ode to their country.  Try to imagine that when listening.  Hopefully I'll get this song together and make that bit audible.

I'm going to continue to work on this project despite the compo being over.  Here's what should be in the final version:

- Lyrics.  There're a few words on my score, but not enough to post.

- A different arrangement.  Not only was I supposed to arrange this for string quartet, I was also supposed to add a section that turned the chords on their heads (that's not some lame joke about musical notation and inversions... though it should be).  "Tollenhaus" was supposed to be a proud kingdom that would be taken over mid-game and turned into a slave state.

- Quality sounds.  I bought Logic Studio recently but have yet to learn how to drive it well.  After screwing with it for about an hour and a half, I decided to revert back to using Finale to score the music.  Hopefully in the near future I can get away from using the limited Finale forever.

- A decent mix.  Seeing that it was a 11:45 and closing the night before the compo was supposed to end, the audio is really off-balance.