Messages

JimReed made me enter. Here you go pal, this one's for you.



I hope you choke on it.

There is of course no definition for how long or short your piece can be. There are standards depending on how formulaic you wanted to be but I would never ever recommend another person to simply follow these formulas just because they are predefined. They exist more as a way to explain to people who are learning, how to put music together in a way that is accessible and a way for record companies to tap into predetermined formulas that they know work (and will therefore sell.)

A common structure for a pop/rock song might be: [Intro - Verse - Chorus - Verse - Bridge - Chorus - Coda]
Or a slight change: [Intro - Verse - Verse - Chorus - Bridge - Chorus - Chorus - Coda]

This is to say that your song is specifically defined by these aspects of itself. And kind of disappointingly that it is constrained by what is expected of it. (And this is a modern development.) If you listen to a lot of soundtrack or classical music it doesn't adhere so strictly to these structures and for the most part is considered far far superior compositionally. Different genres can become ensnared by these formulas too, for instance Jazz would perhaps be more free of structure (not to say that it doesn't have any) than Techno which is very rhythmic and that word again... formulaic.

Of course I am really going off on one here and as someone who is clearly a competent musician, I wouldn't assume that you didn't know this already. So I guess I'll get straight to the point and talk about your song itself.

For the introduction of your tune, it is fairly progressive in that it starts with one layer and builds upon itself up until what I would consider to be the first "verse." It then breaks briefly before repeating and you continue to add instrument layers on top of this. Any of these could really be defined as a "chorus" and that's not really clear, however the underlying structure of all this never really changes at all. It is minimalist in that it adds layers and takes layers away but it is the "same" (and I use that word only because I can't think of a better one) all the way through, despite there being a lot of variation.

HOWEVER don't take that as a criticism because it suits the style of the song perfectly fine and I myself am a main offender of this. Me personally, I am a sucker for repetition and music progression, but I seem to be a minority and that's one of my biggest difficulties in making the music that I make. (I'm the only one who likes it.)

Actual criticisms though. The song progresses, but it doesn't ever reach a point where I would consider it to be at a peak. I couldn't differentiate between verse/chorus, only the repetition of layers, when you add new ones and take ones away, which leads it to come across as a kind of progressive drone. A matter of personal taste on my part maybe but you mentioned you were concerned about the structure so I thought it would bring it up. The length is perfectly fine, I wouldn't worry about cutting anything unless you feel it's really necessary

6:19 is by no means at all "too long" or even long at all so do not worry about that. However in your variation, when the verse/choruses are repeating after the break and whichever instrument is taking it's solo. I would suggest upping the scale at that point rather than having a straight repetition of the verse and chorus that played at the beginning. If you start the song at the 36 second mark, listen to that segment, then skip forward to the 5:03 mark and listen to that segment they are exactly the same, and this same structural segment repeats continuously throughout the song, minus the interchanging melody. So at that point, later in the song, a variation or an addition to the underlying structural layers would in my opinion do the song a lot of good.

I will say, I enjoyed the song a lot and I feel I am being overly blunt in saying these things but please only take from it what you agree with. I'm not trying to be a critic as it would be nice to just say "Hey this is a good tune!" but you said you were clueless and I wanted to give my own opinion. I hope I have at least said something interesting or that will help you in your decision about the structure of your song, or it least gave enough of a response to strike up an interesting discussion on it.

What I'd like to finish this post on, is to also say that while these formulas and structures sell records and are easy to digest. They are also complete crap and I personally would say a blight on compositional music. People shouldn't feel inclined to follow them simply because they are what people would expect, and I think musicians should make an active effort to try and break from them, to get rid of that habit in listeners. If someone listens to your music and says "Hmm, a melody would fit well there." They are not the right people to make that decision, that falls with you. It is a fault on them as a listener that these formulas are so ingrained in them that anything else other than what they would expect, feels abnormal.

Perhaps some people will disagree with me, but there you go. Great work on the tune, I really dig the melody.

:thumbsup:

Well ive had my wacom for 5 years and it was second hand when I brought it and its only just  starting to act a bit odd (I think its something to do with the pressure sensitivity) I really wanted a A4 one like the one i have now, I just find that size easer to use.

Does any one know the benefits of getting a more expensive tablet over a cheap one and are they really worth the extra cost?

From my very very limited knowledge I would assume: More levels of pressure sensitivity.

I got myself a Bamboo. It's small, neat and works fine (on Vista.) Currently collecting dust in a drawer when I found out I am not so good at art.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm fairly sure america is the first country to turn it's presidential election into a global reality tv show. I lost all respect for either of the main candidates when they started acting like celebrities rather than politicians but anything's better than Bush so good luck I guess.

Wow, a lot of the same games coming up over and over again. How many people actually played ALL the games because I've gotta say, it seems a little biased towards "vote for your favourite games out of the few that you did actually play."

I'm also guilty of this however.

The number of times I've seen people blanch at the thought of having to kill and eat their own food

We raised pigs, cows, chickens, etc., though all of our chickens escaped into the woods behind our house and became truly free range chickens (most of which were promptly eaten by free range raccoons, free range bobcats, and of course the odd free range stray dog or free range vulture). I have personally helped feed, tend to, raise, slaughter and eat these animals. I know there's a lot of people who come from different backgrounds and so your statement wasn't strictly directed at me...but I do understand the work that goes into raising these animals. The work that goes into slaughtering them. So on and so forth.

I've always said if I raised the animals and killed them myself then I would eat that meat because it's not so much the thought of eating another animal that I have the problem with but just I disagree with a lot of the mass production and the way people are desensitized to the food they are eating, it's processed and packaged for them and they never even have to care about the animal that they're eating, let alone kill it themselves.

However this was an opinion I held maybe 1 - 2 years ago. Even if this was the case I'm not sure I would go back to eating meat now, so I would have no problem with you or anyone else eating meat if you raised and killed or hunted the animal yourself. I will stick to the alternatives though.

While I can see the point of the people who are pushing for more people to eat free-range products, the fact of the matter is this.

Given the sheer population of earth, and the percentage of that population who regularly eat meat, it's pretty much certain that you will -never- convince enough of them to eat free-range to make a significant dent in the profit margin of those farmers who don't utilise such practices.

Like someone else said, of course I wish I could live in a world where every single animal that was bred for the sole purpose of eventually becoming food was treated humanely until the end of its days, but here's the thing. I don't. And neither do you.

You might say that this attitude is -why- we have this situation in the first place, but let's be perfectly honest here. There are just too many people supporting and advocating things the way they are right now for even a large group of people to make a difference.

You are thinking about this on a much larger scale than you should be. You should be thinking about the way YOU feel about the subject and not about what the rest of the world thinks. It's true that just because me and other vegetarians have said FUCK YOU MASS PRODUCTION  *shakes fist* they're not going to stop slaughtering animals to pack the shelves of your nearest supermarket, but I can at least feel good about myself for holding on to what I believe in. It's such a cop-out attitude to say things like "heh they're going to kill the animals anyway" or "oh well it'll never be global." and it MIGHT never be global but the amount of vegetarians and people demanding free range products is on a massive rise so maybe not in our life time but in the future maybe.

I don't know if you've ever been in a slaughterhouse or really thought about the amount of animals that have to be killed DAILY to stock the shelves of just ONE supermarket, let alone supermarkets all over the world but it's such a stupid amount of animals to be killed just to feed the insensitive people who say "well i like meat" because people don't HAVE to eat meat, there's alternatives out there, so why does this happen? This isn't even touching on the subjects of battery farming and other living conditions for animals, the way they are raised and slaughtered or even the working conditions of people who themselves (human beings) work in these slaughter houses or the fact that most people are desensitized about the food they eat because it's so neatly processed and packaged and delivered to them at their convenience. The number of times I've seen people blanch at the thought of having to kill and eat their own food is phenomenal so when you're put in that position maybe you'd have a different outlook.

So yeah a large amount of mice and field animals might get killed during the process of growing and collecting vegetables for me to eat but I bet it's nowhere near the amount that are killed to feed the population of earth that just don't give a shit. At least I believe in something and am trying to take the best steps I can to hold up to that.

EDIT: I'll also just follow this up, that I really don't care if you personally eat meat. I don't want to lay on a guilt trip or even try and convince anybody else to become vegetarian because I do what I feel is right and I think you will do the same thing, but as opinionated as it may be my belief is that what you are doing is unnecessary and some of the opinions you've expressed are pretty ignorant. The same way you might think some of my opinions are pretty ignorant.

I'm sorry "i stole your car" but your argument irks me on a fundamental level.

None of us are in any way slamming vegetarians for what they choose to eat (or not to eat). Why are you doing it to us?

Do you actually realise how many field mice and other assorted animals are painfully slaughtered all the time when farmers are collecting all of the things you eat?

And they're not even going to be used for something useful (like food). They just die, caught in the blades of some harvester or other.

I'm not advocating the cruelty that some farmers display towards their slaughter-bound animals, but at the end of the day they're going to end up wrapped in clingfilm in the supermarket whether I personally eat them or not. And when their lives are over it isn't going to matter to -them- what conditions they lived in. Why should it matter to me?

Actually I was making an ignorant post in response to the long list of ignorant posts that have already been posted so thanks for picking up on that.

I kind of stopped reading the thread about halfway down the first page. I'm a vegetarian so after reading the discussion on whether it's better or worse to buy free range meat, all I can really say is that whether you do or don't buy free-range, you still disgust me.

Thanks

I have 13... I really should cut down.

Hey there guys, I was wondering if you could help me out with something. I'm looking to put together a little bit of portfolio "mood to music" work. I know what I like and what I'm comfortable composing in but I want to show that I can adapt to situations outside of what I would regularly be happy doing and if nothing better, give me practice in other styles.

If you guys could throw down a few suggestions of a Mood and a style of music that I could take away and mull over for a while then I'd really appreciate it. There's a chance that I might not do your suggestion if it's really obscure or I bang my head over it for a while and don't really come up with anything that I feel is any good.

I'm asking you guys simply because I don't want to come up with the suggestions myself. Also no matter what the style of music or the mood, I am ultimately aspiring to compose for soundtracks so I would probably choose "Sombre Swing Jazz" over "Emotionally Scarred Cannibalistic Death Metal" simply because the first one works better as soundtrack music.

Anyway if you do make a suggestion, I may not come back and actually show the product for a while. I'm planning to do all this on top of other projects and it's pretty low on the priorities list so it could take me anywhere from 2 weeks to a month just to put out one song.

So yeah if you guys don't mind doing me a favour: "Mood - Musical Style."

Thanks

That's a lot of games!

Usually I wouldn't vote unless I had played every game (for fairness reasons) but I don't think that's going to happen this time. I'm afraid I'm only going to play through the ones that look and sound the most interesting to me and vote off them. I know this isn't really fair but it's either that or don't vote at all.

Hey I might not ever make a game soundtrack again so I wanted to make the most of it, it's a bit OTT I know.

Right well here it is. Enjoy!



[DOWNLOAD 7MB]

Tracklist:

1. Title
2. Ambience
3. The Attic
4. Finale
5. Credits

It clocks in at just over 7 minutes and also has a little readme file for anybody interested in the random musings over the songs that were going through my head during composition. Thanks for all your kind words regarding the music and I hope you all enjoy listening to it over again.

Well thanks for all the kind words guys. I'll start working on putting together that soundtrack, it shouldn't take too long at all.

Also the Frank Klepacki tune is indeed the amazing introduction music.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_FUdqAzkHp8

EDIT: It's approaching 3am and it's done! I'm just going to clear it with Hillbilly that he's fine with the package and if so, I'll post the download link tomorrow

Happy New Year pals! Hope you all have a great one.

I completed the first two Monkey Island games without the use of a walkthrough, I completed Day of the Tentacle without the use of a walkthrough. The first time I ever really needed to get some serious help in an adventure game was Broken Sword and Broken Sword II but it wasn't the internet that I went to. Lucky for me I had a magazine which had a HINTS SECTION and after the release of Broken Sword they did a hint spot on the three hardest puzzles so that's what I ran to for help.

[i stole your car]

Uh, wow. The ending sure was something...
...But I'm impressed by whole game anyway. It has a very strong style and atmosphere. And music (Hey there, i stole your car! I'm talking about ye music!) is simply charming and very atmospheric. And it's just of a good melodic quality. Slightly reminds me of Frank Klepacki's ambient tunes. So, expecting more neat music from you.
And the game itself, as I said, is pretty. The blending of a warm christmassy feel, dramatic tension and weird suspense was very well executed.

Hooooly shit I don't believe you even know who Frank Klepacki is! He did one of the most amazing tunes for an old DOS game (one of my favourites) called Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon. So that's a pretty big complement, thanks pal.

If anybody is interested at all in the music I can put a few extra hours into tweaking the music for a soundtrack release.