About Composuary

Welcome to Composuary!

Composuary is meant to be a daily composing challenge in a similar vein to NaNoWriMo and Inktober. While inspired by both of these challenges, the format here is slightly different to help encourage regular participation

The objective of this event is to rapid prototype and experiment with various musical ideas; its all fun and games!

Communication

The majority of the communication for this event happens in a Discord server. You can find additional details in the Join the Discord section. There is also an email list if you'd prefer to receive updates through that instead.

Join the Discord

To stay up to date with the latest news and participate with other, join the Composuary Discord.

Join the Email List

If you're interested in receiving regular notifications over the course of the year about past and future Composuary events, then considering joining the email listhost by emailing admin@composuary.com with the subject "Listhost"

I will not share your email with anyone for any reason and aim to generate no more than 4 emails over the course of the year. I'm particularly frustrated by spam and will avoid inundating you with anything more than the bear necessities.

About the Maintainer

I am not a composer.

I play the violin and accordion, but not professionally and my highest level of music study was a high school AP Music Theory course. Frankly, I have a limited understanding of music composition, but I'm a huge fan of these types of month long arts projects and felt that one should exist for music composition. So, since I was unable to find one out in the world, I decided to make my own.

This is a passion project that I started up to entertain me and my friends that I've over engineered in the off chance it ended up becoming unexpectedly popular; so, if you find this project to be lacking, feel free to reach out and let me know how to improve. I know that I've gotten in way over my head and am extremely open to feedback on improving the format/scope of this project overtime.

Contact information

• Musescore Profile
• admin@composuary.com

Organizations of Importance

Composuary wouldn't be possible without a large number of free resources. As such, I thought it was important to highlight what tools are used for building and maintaining this annual event to help promote them.

Artists

The following artists were contracted to create visual assets for Composuary

Maggie Markley

Freddy Bendekgie

Abigail Vásquez

Software

MuseScore

MuseScore is free and open source composing software that is available on all major operating systems and is what the author learned to write music in. The social media site that's associated also provides free hosting for the pieces that are being written with this software.

Audacity

Audacity is free and open source audio software that is used to capture sounds internal to development computers and do simple audio splicing for building prompts.

Krita

Krita is free and open source image editing software that allows the PDF outputs from MuseScore to be easily cut up for building out the prompts.

Discord

All of the communication and community organizing happens through Discord and is built on a freemium model that allows this event to use their tools without having to spend money.

mdBook

mdBook is free and open source software that acts as the website template generator. mdBook allows the author to write out the entire website in plain text (markdown format) and have it converted to the HTML/CSS application you see.

When Is Good

When is Good is a freemium website that allows for easy scheduling of events. No account is required and their simple interface has been extremely helpful in planning out when events are happening.

How to Participate

Composuary runs for the duration of February (so it is exactly 4 weeks long 75% of the time) and each week has a different theme: harmony, melody, rhythm, literature. Each prompt will be released at 00:00 (midnight) UTC. To participate, simply read the prompt and aim to write a score/piece that incorporates the provided elements. Feel free to share any pieces you make on your preferred social media application; I've taken to publish my work directly to MuseScore and sharing it via the Discord setup for this event.

• Weekly Themes
• Submission

Weekly Themes

For weeks 1-3, you'll be provided by a daily prompt that you will need to compose to. Each week there is a theme (listed below) that will act as a framework within which to compose.You're responsible for all decisions about instrumentation, speed, repetition, etc... The goal of each day is to have a short piece completed. Short is a very relative term here, since certain tempos can make a 4 chord progression last a measure or several pages. Use discretion on what you think short is, but the target is to complete musical thought and not to compose large pieces. In addition to the daily prompt, a secondary stretch goal will be available for those wanting to add some additional challenge to their pieces

On week 4, you'll be provided a much broader and more artistic prompt (think along the lines of "A piece that shows happiness blossoming from despair") and will be asked to pull structures and motifs from 3 of the pieces you've completed over the month in order to represent that concept. This piece is meant to be long (again, composer discretion here) and will take the entire week to compose; 3 movements to explore the concept would nicely align with pulling 3 prior pieces as motifs.

Weekly Prompt Descriptions

Week 1 : Harmonies

The daily prompt will be written in chords (e.g. C - D - G - C)

Week 2 : Melodies

The daily prompt will include a short melodic phrase that should be the central motif of your piece. The rhythm is free to be adjusted but should still resemble to original (i.e. variations are permitted and even encouraged!)

Week 3 : Rhythm

The daily prompt will contain a specific rhythm. This rhythm should be the main focus of your composition and

Submission

Given that this event is still growing, no dedicate place lives from which to host all of your compositions. For ease, two great places to put your work are SoundCloud and MuseScore. No matter where you put your work up, its requested that you add appropriate tags for Composuary to help drum up interest in this little project and share your links via the Discord server.

Gala

To celebrate the efforts of everyone involved, I'll be hosting a Gala to share some of the highlights. For 2024, this event will be a hybrid digital/in-person event with the in-person event being held somewhere within the Vancouver, BC metro area; More details will be provided in the Discord server or on the mailing list.

Albums

Below are the albums from previous years as direct downloads or as torrent files.

2025

The 2025 albums isn't fully assembled yet

The theme of the year was Nostolgia, and the core of the inspiration was a video essay on the suitability of nostoliga for horror.

Direct Download

Torrenting

Torrent Link (currently unavailable)

2024

The theme for the year was Efficiency, and the core of the inspiration was a video essay on Taylorist management philosophy in education.

Direct Download

Torrenting

Torrent Link

2023

The theme for the year was Famine, and the core inspiration for the literature week prompt was The Great Hunger

Direct Download

Torrenting

Torrent Link

License Agreement

Below is the full license agreement for putting any composers work into the Composuary album. Its pretty short and simple, but if you're looking for the (not legally binding) TL;DR:

I'm okay with my music being sold in as album for profit for 1 years, or until the operating budget for next year's Composuary has been met, and then I'm okay with it being distributed at cost.

If you're okay with this agreement (Please do read the text below as that is the legally binding bit and you really shouldn't waive rights without fully understanding what rights you've waived), then:

1. Fill out the document with your name, the date, and click the agreement checkbox
2. Upload the music you're willing to share into Appendix A.
3. Click the Generate Package button. This zips up everything nicely for me and downloads it to your browser's default download folder (typically named Download)
4. Message me for upload details.

This process is a bit convoluted since this website is hosted static (i.e. there is no "server" in the traditional sense to handle uploads) and email can typically only handle files smaller than 50MB.

Once you've finished adding all of your songs, hit the generate button below to package up the file that you'll send in.

Prompts

• Week 1: Harmony
• Week 2: Melody
• Week 3: Rhythm
• Week 4: Literature

Week 1: Harmony

Week 1 is all about writing to a harmony. A chord progression will be provided and its up to you to write a melody to fit. The harmony should be central to your piece, but not necessarily exclusive. You can branch out from it with counter harmonies, call-and-response, key changes, etc, but aim to keep your piece short. In addition to providing the progression, each day will also contain a style of music to emulate if you're looking for an additional challenge.

Prompts

Day 1

???

Day 2

???

Day 3

???

Day 4

???

Day 5

???

Day 6

???

Day 7

???

Week 2: Melody

Week 2 is about matching a harmony into a provided melody. The melody you'll be provided will include some motion and character that you'll need to frame within a harmonic structure. Feel free to transpose to a separate key, use different modes, modify time signature, etc. The main aim should be to broadly capture the melody in a way where someone could reasonably pick out where in the piece you have used the given motif.

As an additional challenge, each day will include an instrument to try using as well. This could be part of the orchestrations instead of the melodic voice.

Prompts

Day 1

???

Day 2

???

Day 3

???

Day 4

???

Day 5

???

Day 6

???

Day 7

???

Week 3: Rhythm

Week 3 is rhythm week. Here you will be provided with a rhythmic motif and you'll be responsible for framing it within a larger piece. The aim here should be to accentuate the character of the rhythm through orchestration and harmonic and melodic progression.
Feel free to change time signatures and shimmy it a bit here and there, but remember that the goal is for it to be recognizable within the piece and to the prompt

Prompts

Each sample below plays the rhythm twice to make it easier to internalize. In your piece, you do not need to maintain the repeat

Day 1

???

Day 2

???

Day 3

???

Day 4

???

Day 5

???

Day 6

???

Day 7

???

Week 4: Literature

Week 4 aims to have you branch out artistically. This week, instead of being given a portion of a composition to build off of, you will be given a piece of media to consume.
The main goal of this week is to explore a larger prompt and to build up a piece that captures the theme and feel of the reference material. Additionally, week 4 is about pulling together a single, larger, coherent piece over the course of the week instead of 7 small individual pieces.

It is encouraged that you look back on your prior work over the course of the month and take inspiration from your various Composuary submissions. As part of your submission, you should provide references to your prior pieces that you used so fellow composers can appreciate how your piece was built off of the simpler themes tackled during the month.

Prompt : ???

???

Finances

• 2025
• 2024
• Donate
• Operating Outline

Finances 2025

Table of Contents

• 2024 In Review
• 2025 Expenses
• 2026
  • Objective and Priorities
  • Budget

2025 In Review

Before diving into goals and objective for the 2025 Composuary, I wanted to spend some time reviewing the previous year's stated objectives and outlining how things went.

Headwinds

In general, the 2025 year did not go to plan. Unfortunately, a number of substantial life events greatly impacted my ability to prep for, operate, and participate in the 2025 Composuary. Between dealing with immigration and returning to school, there was little time available to run 2025 the way that I had hoped. With that in mind, the following is a report on the stated objectives from 2024 into 2025.

Get 50 active participants

Composuary is still a very small community and information about it is still spread, predominantly, through word-of-mouth. Given the small operating budget, there is very little room to do paid promotion. Looking forward towards the next year, this trend will likely continue. As per the struggles outlined in the Headwinds section, the operating budget for Composuary will continue to be extraordinarily tight.

Live Performance During the Gala

The Gala this year was a very small and intimate event. Unfortunately, I do not believe that this particular goal will be feasible until the event is much larger than it currently is. While I still dream of this, it will need to be put on the back-burner for quite a while yet.

Incorporate Composuary

Due to my legal status in Canada, there isn't currently a sensible way for Composuary to become a legal entity separated from myself. This will continue to limit opportunities to find grants and other types of external financing.

Upgrade Website

While I'm technically savvy enough to manage an overhaul of the website myself, constraints on my time since last year have made that task impossible. The current format and structure of the site is likely to continue into the next year or two.

Create Educational Video Content

This was quite a lofty goal, and I genuinely forgot that I had even set it as a target. The intent for this was to provide ways to on-ramp more people to the project who may find the prospect of writing music rather intimidating. The motivation behind this goal is still relevant and I'll be exploring it more in preparation for 2026, but I do not think that I have the capacity nor skill necessary to facilitate this.

Expenses

2025 Expenses

2026

Objectives and Priorities

Looking forward to 2026, I need to acknowledge that my time will continue to be heavily constrained. I'll be building towards a graduations project during January/February of next year and as such, I have drastically cut down on my hopeful goals going forwards. As a major focus for next year, I'm looking to have this project finally hit some type of "ignition" point where there is enough community support for it to be self propagating. With that in mind

1. Get 20 active participants: In an attempt to reach more people, I'll be putting a very small amount of money into advertising. This will likely be the sort for business cards and other paraphernalia to give a greater sense that this project is long lasting and worth people's consideration.
2. Automate the Event: Much of the work that goes into running Composuary during the month of February is pretty redundant IT things. While it isn't very hard to update the website everyday with the latest prompts, I've struggled to maintain consistent times. Looking to the next year, I'm looking to automate many portions of that process so the day-to-day operations during February aren't dependent on me being within an arm's reach of a computer.
3. Improve Social Media Presence: Up until now, the extent of Composuary's social media presence is just Discord. I've done this for a particular reason: I greatly dislike broadcast social media. I do acknowledge this has limited the ability for Composuary to find people without direct invite. As such, I'll be exploring ways to integrate small bits of social media to the project. I'm weary of this move as it firmly puts the control of this project in the hands of companies that I do not trust and might lead to "algorithm gaming" which I feel will deeply undermine what I'm wanting for this project: a genuine community of artists trying to improve their craft and be playful.
4. Back Archive Year 1: The first year of Composuary took place on a private Discord server that I ran with a few of my friends. The event was smaller then (even smaller the now). The pieces that went into that event are currently not available as an album, and for the sake of completion, I'd love to go back and fix that.
5. Rebuild the Website: The current website is using an autogenerating template called mdBook. While this was suitable for getting the project started, it doesn't feel very homey or welcoming and I'd love to rebuild the website from scratch to be a place that better reflect the identity of Composuary. I do recognize the disparity between this wish and the above claim from the 2025 In Review section, but one can dream!

Budget

With the above stated goals, this is the projected budget for 2026. Barring unexpected luck with finally finding a grant that this project is eligible for, I suspect that there will only be enough to finance through tranche 1.

Finances 2024

Below are all the finances of Composuary laid bare. I believe firmly in complete transparency in finances. I have asked to profit from the work of other and want to make sure they understand what I am asking for and why. Where and how I spend money to operate this community is not secret.

Table of Contents

• 2024 Expenses
• 2025
  • Objective and Priorities
  • Budget

Expenses

The following budget and expense reports have both CAD and USD. This is because Composuary was initially started in the United States but I have since moved to Canada and brought it with me. Many of my contacts are in the US and I still have US based accounts. This makes budgeting and financial planning fun and exciting! For that reason though, the budget for future years shows both currencies as I have a subtle expectation of both spending and earning in both currencies.

2024 Expenses

2025

Objectives and Priorities

Below I've laid out the 2025 budget for Composuary. The budget is set as a number of priorities which act as funding tranches; I can personally fund priority #1 of my own accord. Priorities #2-#4 can only be achieved through financial support: purchases of 2024 CDs, direct donations, and grant awards. I suspect, given the size of the current pool of participants, that funding for 2025 will likely not fill tranche #2. Either way, I am one to over plan, so I've laid out how I imagine this budget would be distributed over 2025.

For the 2025 year, there are a few main objectives I'm hoping to achieve:

1. Get 50 active participants: I've had a fantastic time running Composuary and would love to see this project grow a little bigger. To make that happen, this next year I'm looking to do more advertising to try growing the awareness of this project. This quickly becomes and expensive proposition.
2. Live Performance During Gala: One of my biggest objectives for Composuary is to make the Gala more exciting and I'd love to be able to hire session musician to play some of the pieces made during Composuary.
3. Incorporate Composuary: Now that Composuary has run for a number of years, making the project "official" is becoming a rather important thing to do. As an individual person, it is challenging to file for the types of grants that Composuary would qualifies for, banking and other financial matters have to move through my personal accounts, and the lack of legal separation can be rather concerning given the long and litigious history of the music industry. Creating a separate corporate entity helps to alleviate a lot of these problems, but comes at a rather hefty cost.
4. Upgrade the Website: While the current website has been functional, it was never meant to be long lasting. It is currently built with a templating engine called mdBook (highlighted in Organizations of Importance). While effective, the theme and formatting don't feel like they fit particularly well with how I want Composuary to look and feel. While I dream of a website that acts as a small social media site which could handle all the music formats that people use (as well as bridge the connection to the major social media sites) the main goal for the coming year would be migrating off of a template based website in favor of something custom built to feel a bit more "homey".
5. Create Educational Video Content: I've spoken to many people about Composuary and a common refrain is "I'd love to do that but I don't know where to start". I'd love to put together some simple starter videos for Composuary, looking at how to make some of your first songs from the perspective of a song writer, a composer, and a DJ approaching musical problems from the harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic perspective.

I expect to make some of these priorities happen with the budget list below, but most of this effort will be "off-book" as I find time throughout the year to work on these various projects in my spare time. What money I'm able to find will help accelerate much of this effort, so thank you to the music makers that allow me to sell your work and to those that contribute directly to making this happen.

Budget

Donate

If you have found Composuary to be entertaining and you'd like to support it financially, I accept donations via PayPal. By donating below, you acknowledge that Composuary is currently a sole proprietorship and that you are trust me specifically to use the funds you provide specifically for Composuary. If you have questions about how this event is financed and where money is currently spent, and where I plan to put funds in the future, please refer to Finances for more detail.

Thank you very much for any donation you can provide:

Operating Outline

The Composuary project has quite a bit of work that goes into operation and maintainance. As I ask for financial backing into this project, I think it only fair to be transparent about the work that goes into making this event happen every year so that doners are able to decide for themselve whether they believe this project is worth their support.

While I enjoy the work that goes into maintaining this event and find the task quite rewardsing, the reality is that coffee isn't free, so I ask for a small salary and place it as the last priority among the operational expenses for Composuary. Every year, once the operational budget has been filled, I pull back all sales to "at cost" and no longer aim to profit.

Quarterly Operations

• Q1 (April-June): I'm doing a lot of clean up and shutdown tasks to put Composuary to sleep for the year: updating the website, archiving, managing permission in the Discord, etc. None of this is particularly challenging, but it is time consuming.

• Q2 (July-September): I'm beginning to hunt for prompt material; this involves watching a lot of video essays, reading books, listening to a large assortment of music, catching up on new, going through podcasts and world history. None of this really counts as "work", it just kinda has me working through what the core theme for the following year should be as that will drive the following.

• Q3 (October-December): By this point I've decided on the core prompt for Literature week. I commission artwork for the album, contact various organizations to sponsor content (no luck on that one yet) and looks for auxiliary resources to build out the core prompt into a bigger juicer problem. I solidify my list around the music I'll use to inspire harmony, melody, and rhythm week and assemble the playlist of song that cross genres, themes, and times.

• Q4 (January-March): This final month of work is where things get really busy:

  • With a general outline of all the prompts in hand, I sit down to write them all. A full week of prompts is a full day of work setting up, from writing to MuseScore, exporting MP3s and PNGs, chopping everything apart, and getting set in the website.
  • Writing the literature prompt takes quite a bit of time as I try to pull together months of thinking, research, and disparate ideas into a digestible form.
  • Printing and distributing fliers and other miscellaneous advertising efforts take place during this point.
  • Putting the album together: tracking metadata, audio mastering, printing, burning discs, shipping.
  • Planning out the Gala: finding location, prepping food, setting schedule, cooking decorating, coordinating hybrid elements, cleaning up and clearing out.

Store

Composuary is mostly a community arts project for creating music. As such, there isn't much in the way of merchandise. The following items are meant to help cover the costs of operations and act as meaningful mementos from the year of participation.

For all merch, please email admin@composuary.com for details about payment and shipping

2025

Popup card

A popup card made in reference to the 2025 literature week theme.

$30 CAD / $25 USD : Shipping Included

Archive

Previous Years

• 2025
• 2024
• 2023
• 2022

2025

Inspiration

The following YouTube playlist contains the list of songs that were used as inspiration for the 2025 prompts.

Prompts

• Week 1: Harmony
• Week 2: Melody
• Week 3: Rhythm
• Week 4: Literature

Week 1: Harmony

Week 1 is all about writing to a harmony. A chord progression will be provided and its up to you to write a melody to fit. The harmony should be central to your piece, but not necessarily exclusive. You can branch out from it with counter harmonies, call-and-response, key changes, etc, but aim to keep your piece short. In addition to providing the progression, each day will also contain a style of music to emulate if you're looking for an additional challenge.

Prompts

Day 1

Style Challenge - Folk

Day 2

Style Challenge - Rap Rock

Day 3

Style Challenge - Pop

Day 4

Style Challenge - Metal Pop

Day 5

Style Challenge - Christmas Song

Day 6

Style Challenge - J-Pop

Day 7

Style Challenge - Funk

Week 2: Melody

Week 2 is about matching a harmony into a provided melody. The melody you'll be provided will include some motion and character that you'll need to frame within a harmonic structure. Feel free to transpose to a separate key, use different modes, modify time signature, etc. The main aim should be to broadly capture the melody in a way where someone could reasonably pick out where in the piece you have used the given motif.

As an additional challenge, each day will include an instrument to try using as well. This could be part of the orchestrations instead of the melodic voice.

Prompts

Day 1

Instrument Challenge - Piano

Day 2

Instrument Challenge - Trumpet

Day 3

Instrument Challenge - Electric Guitar

Day 4

Instrument Challenge - Voice

Day 5

Instrument Challenge - Violin

Day 6

Instrument Challenge - Synth

Day 7

Instrument Challenge - Vibraphone

Week 3: Rhythm

Week 3 is rhythm week. Here you will be provided with a rhythmic motif and you'll be responsible for framing it within a larger piece. The aim here should be to accentuate the character of the rhythm through orchestration and harmonic and melodic progression.
Feel free to change time signatures and shimmy it a bit here and there, but remember that the goal is for it to be recognizable within the piece and to the prompt

Prompts

Each sample below plays the rhythm twice to make it easier to internalize. In your piece, you do not need to maintain the repeat

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Week 4: Literature

Week 4 aims to have you branch out artistically. This week, instead of being given a portion of a composition to build off of, you will be given a piece of media to consume.
The main goal of this week is to explore a larger prompt and to build up a piece that captures the theme and feel of the reference material. Additionally, week 4 is about pulling together a single, larger, coherent piece over the course of the week instead of 7 small individual pieces.

It is encouraged that you look back on your prior work over the course of the month and take inspiration from your various Composuary submissions. As part of your submission, you should provide references to your prior pieces that you used so fellow composers can appreciate how your piece was built off of the simpler themes tackled during the month.

Prompt : Nostalgia

This year's Composuary literature prompt focuses on the idea of endless nostalgia. The refusal for any idea or media to ever die, to ever not be resurrected and remade. This endless push for perpetual existence of worn out pop culture moments takes differs greatly from modernizing old stories to the current era (thinking of how Disney took public domain media to produce their Golden Age).

Pintrest members window-shop for experiences, behaviors, and goods they find
"inspirational"... They therfore curate "inspired"lives - lives they may not have,
but wish they did

                                          ~ Laurie McNeill, John David Zuern
                                            Online Lives 2.0: Introduction
                                            Biography, Volume 38, Number 2, Spring 2015

Primary Work

Additional Reading

While the prompt for this year focuses on those who are haunted by the ghosts of pop culture past, Tom Scott discusses the problem from people who become the ghosts of pop culture past

This idea of these pop culture moments is more thoroughly captured in the work of Jamie Loftus on her podcast 16th "16th Minute of Fame"

2024

Inspiration

This Spotify playlist contains all the songs that were used to create Harmony and Melody week prompts.

Prompts

• Week 1: Harmony
• Week 2: Melody
• Week 3: Rhythm
• Week 4: Literature

Week 1: Harmony

Week 1 is all about writing to a harmony. A chord progression will be provided and its up to you to write a melody to fit. The harmony should be central to your piece, but not necessarily exclusive. You can branch out from it with counter harmonies, call-and-response, key changes, etc, but aim to keep your piece short. In addition to providing the progression, each day will also contain a style of music to emulate if you're looking for an additional challenge.

Prompts

Day 1

Style Challenge - Comedy Rock

Day 2

Style Challenge - Emo Punk

Day 3

Style Challenge - Doo-Wop Funk

Day 4

Style Challenge - Country Rock

Day 5

Style Challenge - Work Song

Day 6

Style Challenge - Barber Shop Quartet

Day 7

Style Challenge - Waltz

Week 2: Melody

Week 2 is about matching a harmony into a provided melody. The melody you'll be provided will include some motion and character that you'll need to frame within a harmonic structure. Feel free to transpose to a separate key, use different modes, modify time signature, etc. The main aim should be to broadly capture the melody in a way where someone could reasonably pick out where in the piece you have used the given motif.

As an additional challenge, each day will include an instrument to try using as well. This could be part of the orchestrations instead of the melodic voice.

Prompts

Day 1

Instrument Challenge - Classical Guitar

Day 2

Instrument Challenge - Violin

Day 3

Instrument Challenge - Piano

Day 4

Instrument Challenge - Voice

Day 5

Instrument Challenge - Flute

Day 6

Instrument Challenge - Hurdy Gurdy

Day 7

Instrument Challenge - Accordion

Week 3: Rhythm

Week 3 is rhythm week. Here you will be provided with a rhythmic motif and you'll be responsible for framing it within a larger piece. The aim here should be to accentuate the character of the rhythm through orchestration and harmonic and melodic progression.
Feel free to change time signatures and shimmy it a bit here and there, but remember that the goal is for it to be recognizable within the piece and to the prompt

Prompts

Each sample below plays the rhythm twice to make it easier to internalize. In your piece, you do not need to maintain the repeat

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Week 4: Literature

Week 4 aims to have you branch out artistically. This week, instead of being given a portion of a composition to build off of, you will be given a piece of media to consume.
The main goal of this week is to explore a larger prompt and to build up a piece that captures the theme and feel of the reference material. Additionally, week 4 is about pulling together a single, larger, coherent piece over the course of the week instead of 7 small individual pieces.

It is encouraged that you look back on your prior work over the course of the month and take inspiration from your various Composuary submissions. As part of your submission, you should provide references to your prior pieces that you used so fellow composers can appreciate how your piece was built off of the simpler themes tackled during the month.

Prompt : The Drive for Efficieny

The prompt for this year's Composuary aims to confront the forever push towards Taylorist style efficiency and the natural consequences of that drive. Generative AI and the push for a smaller and leaner workforce are both indicative of a general trend in "reducing waste" of work. The push for more product faster with fewer resources eats eats into product quality and erodes at "meaningful work": work that is rewarding and achieves genuinely productive ends.

Primary Work

The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every
minute that he is a man and not a piano-key

                              ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
                                Notes from the Underground

Additional Reading

The push for efficiency is ever present in much of our modern world which creates a number of different angles from which to look at this topic. Below are a collection of resources to provide more nuance to your work. This list is long enough that you are unlikely to get through all of, so summaries have been provided to help pick two or three that you believe are worth the time investment to better understand efficiency.

The first few resources show ideas of "efficiency as art" and aim to highlight that, like stated in the video, drives for efficiency are not inherently good nor bad. Later examples show more of the toxic side of drives for efficiency.

• Language
• Housing
• Animal Harvesting
• Everest

Language

Ithkuil is a constructed language the aims to be maximally precise and concise. The reading below aims to show how the language works and should highlight the mindset behind making a language efficient.
Ithkuil Website: Browse time 15 minutes (can spend weeks reading it though)

The Ithkuil Fallacy: a 7 minute video looking into the concepts of "language efficiency" using Ithkuil as a reference.

Housing

The Tiny House movement begins to blend from the light to dark side of efficiency. Driven by growing house prices and a lack of access to space and affordable housing, tiny homes are typically custom built by their owners to maximize the value of their living spaces at incredibly small footprints. While there are many designs that are beautiful, functional, and livable, the driving forces that inspire the types of design seen in the likes of Netflix's "Tiny House Nation" are matched equally by Hong Kong's "coffin" homes. In both circumstances, we can see that "efficient" real estate usage comes with trade offs.

Living Big in a Tiny Home: A wonderful YouTube channel showcasing amazing and beautiful tiny homes. Any video you find here will show wonderful and efficient use of space. Watch one or two to act as a comparison for the following two videos in this section.

Living in 15 sq ft: 7 minute video showing how coffin homes are laid out and the living conditions within some of the poorer places in Hong Kong

Inside Hong Kong's cage homes: 15 minute video looking at the land policies that have led to the development of the cage homes.

Animal Harvesting

Shark Bait: A half hour long documentary put together by Gordan Ramsey looking into the industry around capture sharks for shark fin soup.

Dances with Wolves - Buffalo Massacre A 3 hour long movie from 1990. The key scene within this film is the "Buffalo Massacre". Searches in YouTube will find this quickly, but given that there isn't a YouTube account associated with the production company, I have not provided a direct link. This scene in the movie portrays the waste of colonial pelt harvesting that, in irony, aimed to improve the efficiency of bringing in hides by leaving the rest of the animal to rot.

This increased hunting capacity ... and American policies that advocated for the 
extermination of the buffalo — meant to starve Aboriginal peoples into 
dependence — enabled industrial-scale buffalo hunting. In the 1870s, these conditions 
were met with a steady price for buffalo products, a lack of regulation of the hunt and
new tanning processes that rendered buffalo hides a valuable commodity. These conditions
encouraged massive slaughter in Canada and the United States, resulting in the near
extinction of the bison.

                    ~ John E. Foster
                      Buffalo Hunt
                      https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/buffalo-hunt

Everest

Well There's Your Problem - Everest: A 2.5 hour long engineering disaster podcast (with slides) that covers how the prestige of the world's tallest mountain has led to a massive influx of people wanting to "conquer" the peak. The results of a drive to get people up and down the mountain as efficiently as possible have led to a rather bizarre scenario.

2023

Prompts

• Week 1: Harmony
• Week 2: Melody
• Week 3: Rhythm
• Week 4: Literature

Week 1: Harmony

Week 1 is all about writing to a harmony. A chord progression will be provided and its up to you to write a melody to fit. The harmony should be central to your piece, but not necessarily exclusive. You can branch out from it with counter harmonies, call-and-response, key changes, etc, but aim to keep your piece short. In addition to providing the progression, each day will also contain a style of music to emulate if you're looking for an additional challenge.

Prompts

Day 1

Style Challenge - Punk Rock

Day 2

Style Challenge - Ballad

Day 3

Style Challenge - Rock'n'Roll

Day 4

Style Challenge - Waltz

Day 5

Style Challenge - Funk

Day 6

Style Challenge - Jazz

Day 7

Style Challenge - Doo-wop

Week 2: Melody

Week 2 is about matching a harmony into a provided melody. The melody you'll be provided will include some motion and character that you'll need to frame within a harmonic structure. Feel free to transpose to a separate key, use different modes, modify time signature, etc. The main aim should be to broadly capture the melody in a way where someone could reasonably pick out where in the piece you have used the given motif.

As an additional challenge, each day will include an instrument to try using as well. This could be part of the orchestrations instead of the melodic voice.

Prompts

Day 1

Instrument Challenge - Cello

Day 2

Instrument Challenge - Saxophone

Day 3

Instrument Challenge - French Horn

Day 4

Instrument Challenge - Guitar

Day 5

Instrument Challenge - Harp

Day 6

Instrument Challenge - Voice

Day 7

Instrument Challenge - Harpsichord

Week 3: Rhythm

Week 3 is rhythm week. Here you will be provided with a rhythmic motif and you'll be responsible for framing it within a larger piece. The aim here should be to accentuate the character of the rhythm through orchestration and harmonic and melodic progression.
Feel free to change time signatures and shimmy it a bit here and there, but remember that the goal is for it to be recognizable within the piece and to the prompt

Each sample below plays the rhythm twice to make it easier to internalize. In your piece, you do not need to maintain the repeat

Prompts

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Week 4: Literature

Week 4 aims to have you branch out artistically. This week, instead of being given a portion of a composition to build off of, you will be given a piece of media to consume.
The main goal of this week is to explore a larger prompt and to build up a piece that captures the theme and feel of the reference material. Additionally, week 4 is about pulling together a single, larger, coherent piece over the course of the week instead of 7 small individual pieces.

The piece of media provided will take some time to digest and consider, so the prompt will become available 1 day prior to the start of week 4. Additionally, a discussion group will be hosted on the Discord server to share thoughts on the prompt to help process what ideas may be worth pursuing.

It is encouraged that you look back on your prior work over the course of the month and take inspiration from your various Composuary submissions. As part of your submission, you should provide references to your prior pieces that you used so fellow composers can appreciate how your piece was built off of the simpler themes tackled during the month.

Prompt : Famine and Hunger

The prompt for this year's Composuary aims to contextualize hunger and famine into musical form. Tens of millions of human lives have been consumed by hunger over the past few centuries; notable events within this window are the Republics of China's Great Leap Forward, the USSR starvation of Ukraine during the Holodomor, and the British capital squeezing within India and Ireland. These historical famines, while partially triggered by external events (crop failure by blight, changing whether, lack of man power), are more appropriately viewed as malicious behavior of public and private sectors to meet the human right for a sustainable food supply.

The primary article to use for constructing your piece is The Irish Famine Poem which helps to humanize the suffering faced by the Irish at the hands of the British during The Great Hunger (known to most non-Irish people as The Irish Potato Famine). The work by Crash Course is a good overview to the man-made causes of famine. Additionally, extra reading has been provided to help understand some of these catastrophes in more detail and you are encouraged to look for resources beyond what's provided if there is a particular famine you would like understand.

Why should there be hunger and deprivation in any land, in any city,
at any table, when man has the resources and the scientific know-how
to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life?  There is
no deficit in human resources.  The deficit is in human will

                                                            ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Recommended Prereading

Satiation, like any state of vitality, always contains a degree of
impudence, and that impudence emerges first and foremost when the
sated man instructs the hungry one.

                                                            ~ Anton Chekhov

Primary Work

We know that it is possible for us multinational companies to feed
even 15 billion people in the world if we take the right actions.

                                                            ~ Helmut Mucher
                                                              C.E.O of Nestle 1990-1997

Further Reading

The Great Hunger

Behind the Bastards: That one time Britian Did a Genocide: Part 1

Behind the Bastards: That one time Britian Did a Genocide: Part 2

Behind the Bastards: That one time Britian Did a Genocide: Part 3

The Great Leap Forward

Holodomor

Siege of Leningrad

Anthropocene Reviewed: Seed Potatos of Leningrad

2022

Prompts

• Week 1: Harmony
• Week 2: Melody
• Week 3: Rhythm
• Week 4: Literature

Week 1: Harmony

Week 1 is all about writing to a harmony. A chord progression will be provided and its up to you to write a melody to fit. The harmony should be central to your piece, but not necessarily exclusive. You can branch out from it with counter harmonies, call-and-response, key changes, etc, but aim to keep your piece short.

All the prompts in this week are directly inspired by real music; in addition to providing the progression, each day will also contain a description of the style of music this progression came from. You don't need to incorporate this into your piece, but it could provide an additional challenge if you're looking for that.

Prompts

Day 1: Lullaby

E - G#m - Bm - A
Am - E - F# - B7 - E

Day 2: Work Shanty

Am - F - E
Am - F - E
Am - Dm - F
Am - E - Am

Day 3: Disco

Dm - Gm - Dm - Gm
Bb - Gm - Dm/A A
Dm - Bb - C - Dm
Bb - Dm - C - Dm

Day 4: Old Country

A - G - A - G - A
G - A - G - A
A - D - A - D
A - D - C/G - D
Bm - E

Day 5: Chamber Music

Gm - C - D - Gm
Cm - F - Bb - F
Em - A - Dm - C
Bb - Am - D - G

Day 6: Pop

Dm - F - Gm - Bb
C - Dm - Bb - C

Day 7: Musical

A#m - D#m - Cm -F
F# - F - A#m - F - A#m
Am - Dm - B - E - Am
Am - Dm - Bm - E - Am

Week 2: Melody

Week 2 is about matching a harmony into a provided melody. The melody you'll be provided will include some motion and character that you then will need to frame within a harmonic structure. For simplicity, all melodies are written in C on the treble cleft in fairly standard time signatures; none of these conventions need to be maintained when you write your piece. Feel free to transpose to a separate key, use different modes, modify time signature, etc. The main aim should be to broadly capture the melody in a way where someone could reasonably pick out where in the piece you have used the given motif.

The prompt will be provided as a PNG

Prompts

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Week 3: Rhythm

Week 3 is rhythm week. Here you will be provided with a rhythmic motif and you'll be responsible for framing it within a larger piece. The aim here should be to accentuate the character of the rhythm through orchestration and harmonic and melodic progression. Feel free to change time signatures and shimmy it a bit here and there, but remember that the goal is for it to be recognizable within the piece and to the prompt

The prompt will be provided as a PNG

Prompts

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Week 4: Literature

Week 4 aims to branch out artistically. This week, instead of being given a portion of a composition to build off of, you will be given a piece of media to consume. The main goal of this week is to explore a larger prompt and to build up a piece that captures the theme and feel of the reference material. Additionally, week 4 is about pulling together a single, larger, coherent piece over the course of the week instead of 7 small individual pieces.

The piece of media provided will take some time to digest and consider, so the prompt will become available 2 days prior to the start of week 4 to give you time to consider the work and begin to fleshing out some basic concepts and structures

It is encouraged that you look back on your prior work over the course of the month and take inspiration from your various Composuary submissions. As part of your submission, you should provide reference to your prior pieces that you used so fellow composers can appreciate how your piece was built off of the simpler themes tackled during the month.

Prompt: Fear of Depths

This video essay discusses the fear of the deep in a rather profound and interesting way. Given its presentation and context, I'd recommend watching this film more than once.

Using this as a reference, work to create a composition that encapsulates the feeling of diving into the deeps. Aim to capture the flow downwards through the layers of strata, the loss of self perpetually going downwards.