This May, we’re not just launching another music challenge—we’re celebrating a decade of creation, collaboration, and community. 🎉

To mark 10 incredible years of Flat, we invite you to take part in a very special edition of our composition challenge!

Just as carbon endures immense pressure to become a diamond, our journey over the past decade has been one of growth, resilience, and brilliance—thanks to creators like you. ✨

The journey from carbon to diamond isn’t just a metaphor—it’s one of nature’s most powerful transformations. Carbon—an ordinary, abundant element—is exposed to extreme heat and immense pressure. Over millions of years, these conditions force carbon atoms to rearrange into a perfect crystalline structure: a diamond. The result? One of the strongest, most brilliant substances on Earth—formed through heat, time, and resilience.

🎼 The Challenge

Compose a piece that symbolizes the extraordinary transformation from carbon to diamond.

  • Start dark and dense, representing raw carbon—unrefined, full of potential.
  • Build intensity with rhythmic tension and harmonic pressure, capturing the heat of transformation.
  • End with brilliance—let your music sparkle with clarity and radiance, using shimmering textures, glowing motifs, and emotional release.

We challenge you to musically express the power of transformation, time, and inner strength—a sonic story of becoming.

🧾 Instructions

  • New Compositions Only: Compose a fresh piece specifically for this challenge—no adaptations of existing.
  • Musical Narrative: Clearly represent the carbon-to-diamond transformation.
  • Length: 1–4 minutes.
  • One Entry per Participant and no collaborations allowed this time

🧩 Judging Criteria

Your piece will be scored based on:

  • Narrative Expression (30 pts): How effectively your music tells the story of transformation.
  • Creativity & Instrumentation (25 pts): Use of unique textures, instruments, and techniques.
  • Emotional Arc (20 pts): The ability to evoke the tension and triumph of metamorphosis.
  • Thematic Depth (15 pts): Symbolism and alignment with the carbon-to-diamond concept.
  • Founders’ Enjoyment (10 pts): Our personal connection to your work—make it sparkle.

📬 Submit your score > here.

🎁 Anniversary Prizes

To celebrate our 10th anniversary, this challenge includes special prizes for the top entries:

🥇 First Place:

  • A MIDI Keyboard.
  • A lifetime subscription.
  • A special badge to commemorate your achievement!

🥈 Second Place:

  • A lifetime subscription.

🥉 Third Place:

  • 1 year of Flat Power.

⏳ Deadline

Submit your masterpiece by May 31, 2025 at 23:59 GMT-5.

No late entries—diamonds take time, but deadlines are deadlines. 💎