critique wanted Midnight Lament (Unofficial Lullaby for a Princess Sequel)(WIP)

[Aurelleah 894]

Okay. So the bridge where it drops down to just strings isnt finsihed, nor is the transitions. Only things I'd consider near-finished are all the parts where the vocals are except the ending. It's coming along pretty nicely so far I think, but leme know what you think so far.

 

 

I desparately need feedback on its composition, direction and flow and overall feel -- Thanks!

 

Feedback gotten on the whole thing, just need mixdown feedback --- Preview says its not a valid url, just click "Listen on soundcloud"

https://clyp.it/k3ayq5mn

[SugarfootWillie 383]

Thoroughly dissected this and I cannot find anything that hinders the composition as a whole. The audio drop from 2:05 to 2:45 threw me off: I was expecting a crescendo like in Haydn's Surprise Symphony. Not to say this detracts from the piece (because it doesn't), just saying I had an assumption. However, you addressed this as an incomplete section and I would like to hear what you have planned to complete it.

[Bass Concerto 27]

It's a very great piece, and is very fun to listen to! I would keep most of it as is. However, you could be a bit a more creative rhythmically. (That's actually something I'm still trying to get the hang of as a young composer.) For example, you use the three-quarter-note rhythm quite a bit. You can mix it up by putting a dot on that first quarter. BAM! All new rhythm! Same thing for the many measure full of eighth notes. Just stick a dot somewhere and you have a whole new rhythm, and it'll usually sound better.

 

One other thing. At the very beginning of Celestia's verse, you do a weird thing with the accentuation on "So sorry..." What I might do here is either make the second note in the measure a half longer or make the first one half a beat longer, keep the second a whole beat, then catch up to the beat by making the last note an eighth note.

 

More or less, play around with rhythms more. Much of this is based around a really simple rhythm that, while it does sound pretty great as is, can easily be fiddled with some while maintaining the structure and cohesion of the piece as a whole.

 

Does that make sense? I hope it makes sense. I don't know how much music experience you have and I'm a music composition major in college, so hopefully everything makes sense. Anyway, it was really fun to listen to. Can't wait to hear it completed!

Also, I forgot to mention this, but you should probably show this to the people who made Lullaby for a Princess. They'll probably appreciate it since you're marketing it as a sequel to it, plus, free publicity! Always a good thing.

[Aurelleah 894]

Thoroughly dissected this and I cannot find anything that hinders the composition as a whole. The audio drop from 2:05 to 2:45 threw me off: I was expecting a crescendo like in Haydn's Surprise Symphony. Not to say this detracts from the piece (because it doesn't), just saying I had an assumption. However, you addressed this as an incomplete section and I would like to hear what you have planned to complete it.

Yeah, I'm totally blank-slate for what I wanna do there, I just threw together some strings to fit dead air for now till i can decide on a progression there

 

 

It's a very great piece, and is very fun to listen to! I would keep most of it as is. However, you could be a bit a more creative rhythmically. (That's actually something I'm still trying to get the hang of as a young composer.) For example, you use the three-quarter-note rhythm quite a bit. You can mix it up by putting a dot on that first quarter. BAM! All new rhythm! Same thing for the many measure full of eighth notes. Just stick a dot somewhere and you have a whole new rhythm, and it'll usually sound better.

 

One other thing. At the very beginning of Celestia's verse, you do a weird thing with the accentuation on "So sorry..." What I might do here is either make the second note in the measure a half longer or make the first one half a beat longer, keep the second a whole beat, then catch up to the beat by making the last note an eighth note.

 

More or less, play around with rhythms more. Much of this is based around a really simple rhythm that, while it does sound pretty great as is, can easily be fiddled with some while maintaining the structure and cohesion of the piece as a whole.

 

Does that make sense? I hope it makes sense. I don't know how much music experience you have and I'm a music composition major in college, so hopefully everything makes sense. Anyway, it was really fun to listen to. Can't wait to hear it completed!

Also, I forgot to mention this, but you should probably show this to the people who made Lullaby for a Princess. They'll probably appreciate it since you're marketing it as a sequel to it, plus, free publicity! Always a good thing.

Yea its in 6/8ths time, which is always tricky to make sound natural cause of how used to we all are to 4/4

 

It's a bit hard to tell what you mean in the second paragraph, though -- I did try to remove some of the overly rhymthic parts This is how it looks when composing 

https://gyazo.com/55ca42379ac5fffa16920ba843b77fb6

https://gyazo.com/20e3c7a5159740d510a041af5fb20c25

So instead of using classic notation we use length, as opposed to dots, it makes it a bit tricker to actually get unique timings and stuff because of that and because of not being able to reference other sheet music (since we dont really use sheet xD

 

It's surprisingly hard to get ahold of ponyphonic

[Bass Concerto 27]

Okay, yeah, I don't really know how to look at that and tell you what would help xD

 

Honestly, though, it feels more like 3/4 than it does 6/8, but that doesn't really matter that much.

 

So, the second paragraph. Words have certain accents to them when you say them. For example, the word "example" has an accent on the second syllable. It's not written; it's just how we say it. Therefore, when we're singing and the word "example" comes up, the second syllable should be emphasized rhythmically, by putting it on a stronger beat than the others. The strong beats in a 3/4 measure (I'm just gonna call it 3/4 since that's easier to talk about and it feels like 3/4 for the majority of the piece) are counts one and three. The upbeat of 2 is also a strong beat. The upbeat of one and three are weak, as is count two.

 

With all this in mind, let's look at how you wrote the measure containing "So sorry..." The word "Sorry" has an emphasis on the first syllable; the second syllable is weak. However, in the measure, you gave sor- beat two—a weak beat— and -ry beat three—a strong beat. Of course, you can't simply reverse it, so you need to play around with it until it feels more natural. Does that make a bit more sense now?

[Aurelleah 894]

Okay, yeah, I don't really know how to look at that and tell you what would help xD

 

Honestly, though, it feels more like 3/4 than it does 6/8, but that doesn't really matter that much.

 

So, the second paragraph. Words have certain accents to them when you say them. For example, the word "example" has an accent on the second syllable. It's not written; it's just how we say it. Therefore, when we're singing and the word "example" comes up, the second syllable should be emphasized rhythmically, by putting it on a stronger beat than the others. The strong beats in a 3/4 measure (I'm just gonna call it 3/4 since that's easier to talk about and it feels like 3/4 for the majority of the piece) are counts one and three. The upbeat of 2 is also a strong beat. The upbeat of one and three are weak, as is count two.

 

With all this in mind, let's look at how you wrote the measure containing "So sorry..." The word "Sorry" has an emphasis on the first syllable; the second syllable is weak. However, in the measure, you gave sor- beat two—a weak beat— and -ry beat three—a strong beat. Of course, you can't simply reverse it, so you need to play around with it until it feels more natural. Does that make a bit more sense now?

Yeah, I get what you mean, but it takes a long time to get a great set of vocal takes -- I had to wait 6 months for my vocalists to finish up these ones just to be able to orchestrate it Vocals wise I can't change anything aside from post processing, slight timing and pitch; it's mainly the composition of the orchestral arrangement I'm concerned with :3

[Bass Concerto 27]

Oh, I'm sorry, I was under the assumption that you were the vocalist. Yeah, with that situation, I'm going to ignore the vocals and listen to it one more time.

 

*listens*

 

*or, tries to*

 

It looks like Soundcloud is being weird; it's saying that the track doesn't exist and that I can't listen to it. If I recall correctly, though, I specifically recall piano sounding really nice. *shrugs*

[Aurelleah 894]

Fixed link

 

Oh, I'm sorry, I was under the assumption that you were the vocalist. Yeah, with that situation, I'm going to ignore the vocals and listen to it one more time.

 

*listens*

 

*or, tries to*

 

It looks like Soundcloud is being weird; it's saying that the track doesn't exist and that I can't listen to it. If I recall correctly, though, I specifically recall piano sounding really nice. *shrugs*

https://clyp.it/k3ayq5mn

 

i fixed some stuff and privated it

[PlunderSteed 1,251]

It's pretty solid overall.  The only recommendation I have would be to make the time signature a bit more pronounced.  At times it's hard to tell which signature you're working in, especially when the piano gets a bit soft or sparse, and the vocals stray from the beat.

 

Also, I second Bass Concerto's critique of where to place emphasis within the lyrics.