Need some help/opinions/inspiration for a song

[Scribblegroove 565]

Hey there everyone!

 

I haven't really posted before on the creative resources board, but I could really use some help. I've been working on this one song for quite a while now. I'm not sure what it's going to be about in the end, I have only fooled around a bit with the lyrics, but I think the arrangement is pretty solid already.

However, I can't seem to finish it. Ever time I start working on the song again I feel like there's parts that don't sound right or that some things are missing. The fact that I'm not very experienced and make a lot of mistakes that I find a few days after I've made them doesn't help that either :c

 

So, I call upon the community of wonderful artists and creative minds to give some opinions, share some ideas, give some advice and all that kind of great stuff. If you don't like it, it's alright to tell me too, just be a little sublte about it, and try to tell me what you don't like about it.

 

So to start off here's the most recent version of the song. As I said I don't really know what it's going to be about (probably something MLP related) so I just named it kablam :3 It's an awful sound, but that's because I don't have proper notation software installed on my PC yet an noteflight has nothing better to offer :c

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/71586651/Kablam.wav

 

(you can view the scores with music on noteflight if you register.)

http://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/f0f16ebceef724a29f1508621bed3bb9371fc88d

 

Big problem with this one is that the main couplet isn't very interesting yet because I don't know what to do with the melody or rythmic section. That's why I kept it simple there. But for clarification, that's where most of the lyrics are supposed to go

 

This version is a little older, but it might give you an idea of where I'm coming from and what the process behind making all this was

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/71586651/Copy_of_A_song_of_some_sort....wav

 

http://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/6616e24e99bb0398750c001faa6af66c99c9124a

 

 

There's a lot of wrong notes in this piece. Eventually it became too much work and I am too lazy to go through the entire thing to take them out. With this one I have worked on the melodies a little, but they aren't great yet. I just can't come up with something better

 

Heres the lyrics I came up with. Nothing amazing story-wise, but the rhyme and the amount of syllables are pretty great if I may say so myself. Biggest problem is that there's almost no room to breathe with this melody.

 

A song about the main villains taking revenge on those who defeated them... Or something. Lyrics not finished :C

 

(Chrystallis)

Eyes locked down on the prize
You won’t see through my disguise.
I devise your demise,
This is my reprise.

(Tirek)
Fury’s surging through my veins.
My head is full of bloodstains.
Anger reigns and sustains.
I have broken the chains.

(Sombra)
Once, the shadows clasped, to my soul.
The frozen prison lost control.
And in the dark I will claim freedom once more.

(Chorus)
You can't fool me I will find my way.
I won't stop searching 'till I make you pay
I'll leave you broken, your land torn apart
Because the time I've been imprisoned couldn't mend my frozen heart

 

So once more, please give me your ideas, opinions, anything really. I need some inspiration otherwise this will become another addition to my "never to be finished songs" bin.

 

Thanks on beforehand :3

[HereComesTom 2,232]

Well, coming from a more video-game-kind of brony, I'd say that, if I were going to turn this song into video game background music, I'd probably have a busy-looking area, like a mall or a city full of neon lights.  (...Would you like me to try doing this?  I've made a level editor for my platformer engine that can take WAV files for BGM, so it's doable...!)

 

 

 

There's a lot of wrong notes in this piece. Eventually it became too much work and I am too lazy to go through the entire thing to take them out. With this one I have worked on the melodies a little, but they aren't great yet. I just can't come up with something better

 

Actually, I think this pretty good.  It's way better than anything I could come up with.  It's true that there were some notes that sounded a little off (EDIT:  that sounded off the first few times I listened to this piece), but here's the thing:  that might actually be a good thing.  My first impression listening to your latest-and-greatest version was that the song smacked of happiness mixed with indecision, like the song itself couldn't quite decide what the best way to play itself was.  If indecision is the point of the song, then that works perfectly!  What came to my mind while listening to it (but before I read your villain-song lyrics) was Twilight, singing about being indecisive about who she was after becoming a Princess.

 

I read the lyrics for your villain song, and this could work---but TBH, it feels like the song is a little to happy to work as a villain song.  If the song were made somehow darker, it could work well as a villain song, though---your earlier version seemed darker to me, especially in the parts where it slowed down and sounded like an ominous organ was playing in the background.  I have to say, though, the later version was much more polished than the early version.  As for the lyrics themselves, the only part of the lyrics that doesn't quite seem to me to work is Tirek's second line about his head---maybe that one should be changed; would "remains" be a good word to end on for that line?

 

I'm definitely not the most informed poster on this site when it comes to composition or music; I'm pretty much going by what I like and what my reaction to the music is.  But hopefully this can at least get some conversation started for you; this song definitely has potential and deserves some attention.

 

 

EDIT:  having listened to this song over the course of the last 24 hours or so (yes, I kept listening to it---it was more than good enough to make me put it on repeat in Windows Media Player while I was at work), I can say that, while this may not have been what you were aiming for when you started working on this piece, it would make excellent video game BGM---I was looking at maps of Manhattan to imagine what kind of path the mane six would take through the streets if I were to make a level based on Manehattan with this as BGM (though I won't try something like that until and unless I get your permission to use your music).

 

All that being said, I also honestly think this piece could also be more than what it is now, for instance if it were remixed or re-instrumented (if that's a real word).  I guess your estimation of how good Kablam is currently depends on what you to use it for.

Edited December 8, 2014 by HereComesTom