johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[~SW~ Annar]

=== This is an NGADM Round 3 Review ===

So, of course, your response to everyone saying "omg, Skye, we loved every aspect of your last song, except the melodies, which were just okay," was to double down on the ONE thing that everyone didn't like? I mean, that's a great thing to do outside of the contest as a learning experience, but, uh...

Are you SURE you want to do that in the NGADM?

Yes?

...Okay.

I guess that's why you're SkyeWint who does really insane experimental stuff that people seem to like rather than a typical musician who does really tepid stuff that people seem to yawn about. Your desire to go in the complete opposite direction of what everyone's telling you to do might not win you the NGADM, but it will make you a better musician, and which one is really more important?

I do have to compliment this song at least a little bit, even though I get this suspicious feeling that you're going to skim right over my compliments in search of the negative stuff so that you can write a 5000 page rebuttal or something. Alas, the life of a NGADM judge is so hard, Skye. ;_; Anyways. I like the flamenco guitar section. I especially like the subtle strings that fade in around this point, that was a really nice touch.

I do also generally enjoy the SkyeWint Drums (TM). I'm not exactly sure where you learned how to do drums so well - it seems like you were just born with that ability or something. I think the cymbal crash can get a little harsh at times, but the rest is fine.

Your transitions are also pretty darn good. I mean, not only do you hit all the technical boxes of just making the listener aware that change is coming, but you also do a good job of cleverly coming up with unique ways to do buildup/breakdowns. One of my favorite moments is :58 when we had that cool buildup on the "guitar" which already signified a change pretty well, and then there's a beat of silence before the next section comes in. This is nicely done.

I do consider it to be a shame that you weren't able to dump copious amounts of awesome sound design all over this piece, like you normally do. The really cool transitions, the weird sound effects, the crazy effects - they're all gone, which is kind of a disappointment. (You still have pretty good transitions, though I miss how that used to be an opportunity for you to do crazy sound design stuff.) I get that you were rushed and all, and I understand how that could happen. But I think you should realize that in terms of your strongest abilities, that kind of stuff was always my biggest draw to your music. In their place, we get melodies. So let's talk about melodies.

Long story short, you bet very heavily that your melodies were really good, and I don't think that they are actually good enough to be the focal point of your song. But, knowing you, if I just say that I didn't like your melodies and moved on, you would complain that my reviewing was too subjective. Music judging *is* subjective, though. If you don't like subjectivity, go into formal logic or something. :P

Writing about exactly why a melody is working or not is impossible after a certain point. It's like writing why you think a girl's (or guy's) face is pretty. You could say something like hair color or eye color or symmetry but after I ask "why" in response to what you said 3 times in a row suddenly there's nothing left but subjective appeal.

Since you provided me the MIDI stems to your project, I started reconstructing it in my DAW. This was a fun exercise. In fact, since I was able to assign new instruments, I noticed two things right away:

1. You added grace notes to the notes. I couldn't hear this at all in your song, but it made it sound better when I could hear them. I also understood a lot more of what the melodies were trying to express.
2. Your instrument choice could have been better. The sound design on your leads to me sounded fairly rushed and not particularly expressive. The melodies immediately started sounding better when I chose other instruments for them. Same thing with the chords. I couldn't make out which chords you were using with your choice of chord sound, but when I changed it to something clearer, the chords sounded way better as well, and I could understand why you liked them so much.

I took the first bit of your melody and put some annotations on it to make it easier to talk about. Follow along at home: http://imgur.com/RAt5Zcv

1. Starting off the phrase with a trill makes the whole thing sound a bit awkward and off-kilter. If you listen to good musicians using trills, they almost never use them to start a phrase - for good reason. (Yasunori Mitsuda is one guy who uses trills EVERYWHERE - but see if you can find him ever starting a phrase with a trill.)

I'm not the biggest fan of your main phrase. You know how in most music people will use ABAC patterns, where A is the normal phrase, B is the altered phrase, and C is another altered phrase that leads into the next section? (I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, even if you don't use the same terminology.) The problem with your main phrase is it sounds more like a B section than an A section. That high F that you play sounds like it's trying to contrast to an A phrase that was never introduced.

This is a really common mistake I hear from musicians who are so tired of hearing their own A phrase after looping their song 500 times that they switch it to a B phrase, not realizing that not only is no one else is tired of it, they won't understand what the new phrase is even contrasting to since there all the A phrases have been removed. I'm not sure if that's what happened here, though I could understand if it was.

I hope this makes sense. If it doesn't, just listen to your favorite songs and see if you can spot any ABAC patterns. If you still can't, then ask me on Skype or something, lol.

2. This little descent section is nice. However...
3. Here's where it stops being nice. The callback to the first phrase is unnecessary and sounds awkward. You could probably just not have anything here and just leave the nice descent part all by itself.
5. Not too convinced by this section. It doesn't set up anything. It might have worked by itself, if you had just ended it and made a standalone idea, but...
6. instead you just lead it right into the next section with these little triplets. By this point, the melody has gone on far too long (I consider this bit to start at 4 or perhaps one note later) without expressing anything of interest and starts to sound directionless. Like a run-on sentence.
7. Alright, here's our phrase again. This is fine.
8. This sounds very awkward. The idea of going upward to finish this melody just doesn't work for me.

Here's the next section: http://imgur.com/FR1S3fK

1. There's our theme again, neat.
2. I have no idea what this note is about, and in general I think that section 3 is unnecessary.
4. Aw yeah, this section I actually like. The lead into the next section with almost-but-not-quite triples that quickly go back into normal time is really well done. I also like the little gap before the next section hits.

Next section: http://imgur.com/EpOARpm

1. Again, sounding like a B section contrasting to an A section I never heard.
2. The upward ascent thing here is okay, but I'm not a huge fan.
3. But what I am a big fan of are these descending harmonized little phrases. These are great!
4. (But why didn't you harmonize this one???)
5. A little showy, but fine.

The next section is basically a copy paste of your initial section, except you extended it a little bit and added a minor harmonization with a second channel.

I'm a fan of the section starting around 1:34. This was the one section that caught my attention even in your original song without the instrument switchup I did in my DAW.

Guitar interlude: http://imgur.com/uwAfTsK

1. I like this section.

But after #1, you start a bunch of descents that melodically make no sense. To me it sounds like you had an initial descending melody which did make sense, and then you started adding additional notes to it in order to make it more ornate. Keep in mind: You usually can't make a melody better by adding more notes. It makes it more complicated, but it generally won't make it more interesting. It's like a book using big words instead of small words.

And yes, btw, I did hear the (many) references back to the original theme in this section. I do hear that you put a lot of work into developing your theme and referencing back to it multiple times. That's fine, but in a song development should be the icing on top, not the main meal. I can't make a meal out of icing. :P

All in all, this is a pretty good song. Perhaps it would have been better with your traditional Skye Awesome Stuff (TM), but maybe you're not the kind of musician to keep doing the same thing over and over again, and that's fine.

Score: 8.00

SkyeWint responds:

I very much appreciate the comments on the melody.

I also appreciate the recognition that I at least try to do something different.

I don't have too much to respond to in this, but I can say that I plan to experiment on the everything since I don't have to go RUSH MODEEEEEE.

Then again I do plan on at least trying to make 2 pieces of music per month, so I guess I'll be going rush mode anyway.

[~SW~ Float]

Btw, the three notes at 3:03 are what make this song good. I always wondered if you knew this. Like, you followed up the 3 notes with more notes to make a longer melody, but you could have removed all the rest. Eh, whatever.

[Threnody for Innocence]

=== This is an NGADM Round 3 Review ===

Well, dang. As much as you (LSD) were hyping this track to me on Skype, I still don't think that I was expecting to see a 9 minute track when it finally popped up on the NGADM thread. I have to say, that's the single longest NGADM track I can ever remember. In fact, the longest one I can ever remember is... uh... actually, it's one of mine, so I won't mention that, because it sounds narcissistic. Oh wait! Yeah, Kor-Rune definitely wrote some long pieces. Phew! Not narcissistic any more. Though your guys' music sounds nothing like his, so this is not a very good introduction. Crap!

Alright, moving on quickly...

The funny thing, which could be both good and bad about this piece, is that although you have clearly demarcated 7(!) separate sections, when I just let this music run in the background while I listen to it, I don't actually really notice the different sections. A good example is 2:30. While there's definitely some sort of background process in my mind saying, "oh hey, the music just switched into 3/4 from 4/4," and I pick up on that, it's not a jarring change. It doesn't sound like a completely different piece of music stuck randomly in there, and that's a good thing. In fact, it sounds almost exactly the same as the previous section, and that's... well, that could be a good thing in some cases, but we'll dive into that more later.

One of the funniest things about this track to me is that you said you (LSD) had to watch like 70 episodes of sad anime in order to compose it. I often have trouble distinguishing between "sad" and "beautiful" in music, and this is just another piece that adds to the confusion - I actually think that on the continuum from sad to beautiful, this is closer to beautiful than sad, but then again, it's rare for me to put music solidly in the "sad" bucket. So who knows.

The piano playing is just top notch here. I can't recall the last time I've heard such an accomplished piano piece in the NGADM. It just moves all over the place. It's got themes and variations. It's got modulations (one of the highlights for me is 1:44 with the modulation and new theme, and then 2:09 where it seems like another theme variation could go, but you don't do the expected thing, and the piano plays nothing for a second or two. Really nice idea.) It's got fairly standard chords, but every now and then when I think I've got you all figured out you throw something surprising at me. For example: 3:33, the penultimate (lol I always wanted to use that word) chord of the progression always throws me in for a loop!

And since I went and mentioned the piano, I may as well go and mention the strings too, since they are the other half of the song. :P I feel like the strings do a pretty good job emphasizing the piano. They swell at points and hide at others, and it seems like you're properly accenting your more emotional moments by allowing the strings to become stronger at just the right times. (one quick problem though - often different notes had the exact same amount of vibrato, and this did bother me)

Heck, I think that in terms of raw melodic content that this song might even beat out "Facing the Foe", which I obviously liked quite a bit.

So, I ranted and raved about your piano playing. Why did I not give this song as high of a score as Facing the Foe? JOHNFN Y U SO INCONSISTENT. Alright... let's see if I can explain why.

I find it somewhat difficult to write about this piece. I think that's because while the entire piece seems to be full of medium-high heights, there is no singular climatic moment that steals the show - nothing that makes me go, ah, THIS is the moment I've been waiting for! Or anything that I can latch onto and remember when I step away from the computer. Compare to "Facing the Foe," which had a distinct and heavily repeated motif. In this song, none of the motifs are emphasized strongly enough to stand out.

This style of writing is risky, since it requires the listener to expend a lot of effort, but *can* work, of course, if the individual motifs are strong by themselves. However, I feel like that's part of the problem with this track - the motifs run the gamut from "good" to "pretty good," but, again, there's no standout, so the piece begins to blend together.

Of course, you are making it very hard for stand-out motifs to occur. You've avoided the two main ways that musicians cause good motifs to become great: repetition and arrangement. I've already mentioned how you don't have repetition. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but keep in mind that repetition can help good melodies really become ingrained in a listener's mind - Facing the Foe is a great example. (It goes without saying that this only works for good melodies. Don't repeat bad melodies and expect them to become good.)

The other way is through arrangement, and I feel like arrangement is the single biggest problem that this track has. As much as this track has different sections, the energy level in the different sections remains pretty much flat throughout the 9 minute duration of the track. Since the energy level is not super high, you don't run into the risk of fatigue. Instead, since the energy level is only about medium, you run into the *other* problem - boredom.

If you listen to your favorite pop songs (I don't know why I want to use pop as an example, except maybe that it generally follows the basic rules of good songwriting and everyone in the world is experienced with it) - I mean *really* listen to them, notating all the different parts and stuff - you'll find often that there are entire sections that you've just never paid attention to before. They've always been there, but you tone them out waiting for the "good part". They usually follow the high energy sections like choruses and their sole purpose is to remove some energy from the arrangement so that the songwriter can add it back in later.

This is *necessary*! You can't just bomb the listener with 5000 interesting parts in a row - if it doesn't go to the extremes of fatigue, it still can be exhausting. You have to give listeners ups and down.

Now you might be thinking, johnfn, you started off talking about arrangement because you said that it's the other way to make motifs better, but you haven't even that yet, and it's been like 5 paragraphs! To you, I say: very observant, but you need to learn how to count paragraphs a little better, sheesh. Anywho: the advantage of going down in energy in the arrangement is that when you bring the energy back up, that gives a very natural obvious emphasis on whatever melody you're focusing on when the energy returns. THIS MAKES MOTIFS BETTER. This is something that I thought was nearly completely missing in your track. I can't recall a single melody that receives focus due to the arrangement. (The only part that sort of sticks out is the 4/4 to 3/4 transition.)

To be completely fair - your song does have a few quick breakdowns, but they're all so short! I'm speaking about more protracted periods of lower energy.

You might be thinking something like, "but I don't want to have obnoxious edm-style buildups/breakdowns! That is not the kind of track this is!" Which is totally fine. Simply going from a more sparse section with just a few piano notes here and there to a more rapid section with lots could do the trick just fine. Or going from just piano to just strings, or from just strings to both strings and piano. There's lots of options to keep the arrangement interesting, even with few tools.

I'd be remiss in my duty as a judge if I didn't mention the other part of this track that needs work: the mix. I don't want to spend too long on this, because I feel like it's a rather obvious problem that everyone and their granny is going to point out, but I'll just gesture to a few sections I felt needed particular work:

1:10 to 1:15 - the ascending piano chords are a great idea, but they are buried and are not given proper emphasis.

3:38 - those crazy piano arps are so awesome, but again, they're too quiet and not given enough emphasis.

This is happens again at 4:00. I think that the piano often carries the emotional content of this song (could be my bias as a pianist! but I don't think so), but it is often either buried under the strings or not mixed quite right. The bassy parts of the piano don't carry very well, and the rest of it is often buried under the strings.

All in all, this was a pretty DANG good song - my main complaints fell mostly into the realm of the technical rather than the compositional, which is both rare and a good thing. Keep at it - I would love to hear more from you guys :)

Score: 8.25

P.S. Whoa, didn't expect to write quite so much. I guess once you get me talking about arrangement, I never shut up. ;-)

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

I'm warning you right now. I'm way too tired for a spellcheck, so a lot of the text is probably really weird XD
Either way, here we go :p

Gaah, I totally forgot about this for a while! Sorry for that D:
But as a Christmas present, I guess I might as well respond now :)
(You better have watched some Steins;Gate by now , btw-_-).

"Phew! Not narcissistic any more."

=> Don't even try. We all know what a narcissist you are, hehhe (jk).

Yeah, this turned out to become a pretty long track. It just needed to be, for all the meaning and different sections to fit into it.

"although you have clearly demarcated 7(!) separate sections, when I just let this music run in the background while I listen to it, I don't actually really notice the different sections."

=> I agree. But it's also intentional, mostly. While we call them different movements, they are all supposed to sound like parts of a whole. What those separations really indicate, are twists and turns in the "story" the piece depicts, as hinted by the names of the different movements. That said, musicwise, there are also differences between the sections if you look for them. Most noticable to me though, is the changes in emotion. Nothing is really a very "happy" part, so in that way, the contrast may not be as strong as it could be. But I'd rather arrange something in a way that keeps true to the story, than I would arrange something in a way that changes the entire piece, and ruins the meaning behind it. Although this has no concretization in an animation or a game/similar, it's not your standard standalone piece either. But as it was submitted for a competition, it's natural that you'd ahve to judge it like one :)

"I often have trouble distinguishing between "sad" and "beautiful" in music"

=> I find it very easy to grasp the emotion in most pieces. That said, I never seriously lable anything as just simply "sad". If one would feel that this track is just a "sad" composition, I think that a lot of the meaning behind it would be lost for that listener. A piece this long and complex, explores multitudinus different emotions, to the extent that the lines between them are blurred. Which I feel, is just like it should be for something like this. Also, while this track (my half of it) was inspired by anime, it really has nothing at all to do with anime :p
They just helped me get in the right mindset to write this XD

"The piano playing is just top notch here."

Why thank you! As I told you on Skype, it was all played in one take. At the time, I had already played the piece like 100 times if not more, during the 9 days the piano part was made in, so I didn't even have to correct many mistakes. Some of the parts are very difficult, but I had to arrange it so that it would actually be playable by me :p

If I recall correctly, 2:09 is one of the last places I got arranged in the way I wanted to. There are a lot of modulations and key changes in this piece, so to get all the parts to fit together, a lot of time was spent or transitions especially.

I use a lot of chords in this piece actually. Some are indeed standard (like the D minor, F, C, Bb, Am sections etc.), but many are not, depending on how you look at it. The modulations and borrowed chords especially, make for a lot of variation in the track. That said, I wanted even more avant garde chord progressions to sound smooth. In the 4th movement especially, you'll find some weird chords and progressions (dem0lecule made most of that movement, actually; I just arranged it).

Penultimate is a pretty cool word indeed XD I don't know if he himself remembers, but dem0 made the chord at 3:33 to be like it is (I think it's Fm => F (or A?), unless my memory is all wrong).

I'm glad you like the string work! Dem0 made most of the base, and I arranged them to fit with the piano. But it really bugs me that we didn't have time to make a good version with his samples, and that all of the automation would need to be revised! This is a piece that will definitely be, well, not remade, but at least revised at some point! :D

"I find it somewhat difficult to write about this piece"

=> But you couldn't have left a shorter review to respond to XD? I kid, of course. I'm happy you wrote your review like you did :3

"nothing that makes me go, ah, THIS is the moment I've been waiting for!"

=> I actually don't think this is as much a problem with the arrangement, as it is a problem of the production, which is really mediocre at best. If I could bring the sections to life with more dynamics, I feel like it'd be easier to notice what's what :)

As for repetition though, there is actually much, much more than there ever was in "Facing the Foe". But it's not as jammed in the listeners face, and a lot of it is only partial repetition. The middle sections of this piece do have much less repetition than the rest of the piece though, which is probably partly why Step felt they were the most heavy to get through. I was originally planning on going into detail on where all of the repetition and careful arrangement lies in this piece. But I don't quite feel up to the task, really, and I don't even think I could fit it all in this one response. I think you'd have an easier time if you could analyze sheet music of this piece :p
Or just listen to it as many times as I played it ;)

Once again, this piece is written partly like one would a movie score. Unlike "Facing the Foe", everything can't stand out and be awesome. And while you may not think it now, I promise you from experience; that'd actually be way more tiresome than listening to this piece. I don't think that comparing the two tracks is really an accurate comparison to make, at least not if it's supposed to have a point, and no be arbitrary. Except of course, that you obviously personally like "FtF" better, which is fine. But from a compositional standpoint and from one of arrangement, I'd say that if such a thing as objectivity existed, this would objectively be way better arranged and composed than "FtF" :p

"You've avoided the two main ways that musicians cause good motifs to become great: repetition and arrangement."

=> I simply disagree. That said, if we wanted to have written a pop song, we probably would've written a pop song :)

As I said, I won't go into the arrangement or specific repetition of the piece. But I can say that I spent 90% of the time I put into the piece on arrangement, and only 10% on composition (That said, I spent a lot of time). Dem0lecule focused more on the compositional side of the strings, as they to the most part, are based on his. I did compose all of the piano of course, but I come up with melodies and chord progressions rather quickly when I am as inspired as I was when composing the piano section of this piece.

"As much as this track has different sections, the energy level in the different sections remains pretty much flat throughout the 9 minute duration of the track."

=> Once again, I see where you're coming from. But I'd say that this is almost all because of the bad production. It really takes away a lot from the piece. The piano by itself would probably show the dynamic better at this point, but it too would need a better sample to do this.

"If you listen to your favorite pop songs"

=> As I said, this is not a pop song :p

"I don't know why I want to use pop as an example..."

=> I don't either XD

"you'll find often that there are entire sections that you've just never paid attention to before."

=> You can say that about literally anything though! If anything, many pop songs get bering to me, as I've heard much of the pop formula again and again. There is only so much that using a certain formula can do for me, really. I see a difference between "arrangement", and a "recipe". Recipes can be good if you don't know what you're supposed to do, or if you want instructions on how to make foods that most people already recognize and will enjoy like the everyday stuff they see. But it can be more interesting to eat homemade food when visiting a friend, and taste their unique spicing or their unique dish, no? Sure, there are ways that those foods can turn out to be bad or mediocre too. But it is really those kinds of foods, that can reach a potential that a recipe never could. And funny enough, food tastes a bit different based on atmosphere and on who made it. That is why I think that the meaning (even if the meaning is the listeners; make a piece your own, as they say) behind a piece can be much more important than general rules. Arranging the piece differently could ruin all that, especially since it's written based on the "story", not the other way around.

That all said, I think that the dynamics of this piece need a lot of work, to bring out what should be brought out. The food needs some stronger spicing for sure, to bring out the right tastes :)
I hope that that isn't what you mean with the word "arrangement" though. But it doesn't sound like you do. But as an example of how the arrangement does bring the energy at some points, take the part after the climax, at 6:29. Or another part (which 6:29 is actually a repetition of), at 1:25. Or parts like 3:45, which is also a clear transition.

As for more climatic parts, take for example: 2:49. Or the biggest climax: 05:38. Or the repetition of the main theme near the ending: 7:43.
What bugs me, is that all of these could be so much more powerful with better production, which is easily the biggest flaw in this piece.

"I can't recall a single melody that receives focus due to the arrangement."

=> How about 7:00, which comes right after the calm part? And this too serves as a bridge, that lead up to the main theme at 7:43 again? Or indeed, the calm part before that at 6:30 again, which comes right after the climax? Both of those are part of the 3 main motifs btw. 1:41 is another part which receives focus thanks to the arrangement, though not as much as 2:03. The sections starting at 2:30 makes more use of gradual buildup, which is another way to emphasise something.

"To be completely fair - your song does have a few quick breakdowns, but they're all so short! I'm speaking about more protracted periods of lower energy."

=> Well, some of the breakdowns are indeed a bit short. Some of them seem shorter due to the fact that the piece is so long though. Apart from the 2nd and the 6th movement, there aren't really any long sections that are calmer. But I am certain that your problem with this would be fixed through better production and dynamics too.

"but I don't want to have obnoxious edm-style buildups/breakdowns! That is not the kind of track this is!" Which is totally fine"

=> Yeah, This track is what it is meant to be. I personally find it to be very arbitrary to compare it to pop songs especially, as anything more than an interesting observation.

"I'd be remiss in my duty as a judge if I didn't mention the other part of this track that needs work: the mix."

=> Duh XD

I agree about both parts you meantioned too. And they are far from the only ones :P
Same goes for 4:00.

As for the bassy parts of the piano not showing, I've found that that is largely because of how Piano One is sampled. I'm sure there are ways to make them appear more, but I am not good enough for that :p

I'm glad to hear that you liked the piece despite the arrangement not really being your cup of tea :)
Thanks a lot for writing such a monster, and I'm sorry for the insanely late reply! But I have less that 700 characters left, so I hope that makes up for it.

Merry Christmas, Grant!

[Vanquish the Night]

=== This is an NGADM Round 3 Review ===

So, BassFiddleJones and JoshGawaldoMusic turn out a orchestral/rock hybrid track. What's next, PirateCrab making a metal tr... hmm... Alright, so both of you guys pretty much stayed the course this time. That's totally fine! It's the NGADM, after all. But was it successful?

First things first. I have a confession to make. I've always considered that orchestral rock has to be one of the cheesiest genres. Like, it's this marriage of two completely separate genres, which is normally interesting, but it combines them into something that is just super overly bombastic. It's actually quite dangerous because it's very possible to, in the process of being bombastic, forget about what makes music good in the first place.

Your song is not simply bombastic, however. Bombastic is only one of its *many* virtues. In terms of variety, this song is by far the most varied of any track this round - only LSD/dem0 come close (and their song was twice as long - that's like cheating). It's got rock. It's got orchestral transitions. It's got hints of heavy metal. It's got some piano ideas. It's got a FRICKIN FLAMENCO GUITAR SOLO. You'd think from my description that it'd start to sound like a bunch of songs strung together, but you guys miraculously keep the whole thing tied together. Magic.

So let me get right into what makes your song good in the first place. It's 1:26. YES. To me, this is the central idea of the track, the section that elevates it to be excellent rather than good. When I think about this song, I think about this section. Yeah!

The chord progression at this point, while bordering ever so slightly on the realm of cheesy, is sweet. I mean, who doesn't like III? NO ONE, that's who. I also like how you switch it out to be a V on the second iteration of the progression. I often find that too many IIIs can be kind of irritating, but just a few can really improve a track. Honestly, the melody is rather take it or leave it here. It doesn't really add anything - it just sort of outlines the chords. This is actually totally fine, since the chords deserve to be outlined, but I thought you should be aware.

Similar to your last piece, I definitely want to talk a little about the transitions, because I feel like they could be a lot more solid. Like, you guys have so many good ideas, but without proper lead in to your ideas, it's easy to either miss them, or simply not be as impressed by them as they deserve. One example would be :39. You lead into this nice guitar solo with some orchestral stabs, and on paper that sounds fine, but in the song the transition is very jarring and does not highlight the solo at all. This is a shame because the solo here (at least the first couple of seconds of it - it loses its way ever so slightly after that) is really solid, and deserves to be highlighted!

Another missed opportunity is the lead into 1:26, starting around 1:14 with yet another awesome solo. Of the couple of solos I've heard up until this point in the track, I think this one is probably my favorite (though they're all very good). However, again, there is *absolutely no indication* that we're about to drop into the best part of the song. The drums stay completely steady, and the volume on the solo stays the same as well. With a gradual ramp up in intensity from 1:14 to 1:26, the 1:26 section onwards could be even stronger than it already is.

Alright, so I think that pretty much highlights the biggest overarching problem I have with this track. However since this track is so dang varied I want to point out a number of other thoughts I had about it that were not generalizable enough to expand into broad track commentary.

2:15: Excellent use of iv. I take back what I said about III, iv is definitely my favorite chord. I don't like how you resolved it back down to I, though. I think simply holding at iv until the next section hits would have made a stronger transition. The listener can infer the I from the next section.

2:20: I may be the odd one out on this, but I don't think that this flamenco section is really working. It's really hard for me to say why, exactly, other than that I know that I should be saying "WOW THIS IS AWESOME" but what actually ends up happening is that I'm saying "huh, those chord blasts really obscure the flamenco guitar that sounds like it would be awesome if I could hear it better." Plus (and I hate to say stuff like this without being able to justify it), the 2:27 guitar slides come out of nowhere. I think the track would have been more effective if you had stuck just with flamenco and maybe drums for a bit longer before bringing back in the heavy artillery (the electric guitar).

3:08: Hey, it's a call back to the 1:26 section! Really nicely done, in a way that does not sound at all like a carbon copy of the previous section it's referencing. In fact, it's so different I almost didn't realize it was a reference.

3:50: This section is nice, too. Nice melody on the strings. I'm such a sucker for the C -> Em/B -> Am idea (or any transposition thereof), which I think is why I like this section so much.

That solo at the end (e.g. 4:50) just HAS to be a mixing error. Why is it so quiet? I can sort of understand the reasons you might have done this on purpose, but I can't help but think that with the solo louder this section would have been much more effective. It could be such an awesome way to close the song!

All in all, this was an awesome song. Sorry if this review is a bit scattershot, but then again, your song was super varied, so there was a LOT to comment on. :) One of my favorite entries of the round.

Score: 8.75

bassfiddlejones responds:

johnfn! I don't want to insult your amazing reviews with a short response, but alas time has prohibited me. Your feedback is taken and used for future work, so I want to thank you for that.

So yes, transitions. They're tough to begin with, and we really threw the kitchen sink in this track with all the time/key sig changes, flamenco guitar, etc. So there was a lot of transitioning to do, and honestly some of them just got more attention than others! I think we did a better job of it this time, but it's an area to grow in for sure.

Also, solo at the end was not an error, it was intended to sit that far back in the mix! The idea is like, the electric guitar is fighting the orchestral/acoustic elements which ultimately win in the end.

Anyway, glad you enjoyed the song man (despite your feelings of cheese for the genre). We put a lot of work into it!

[Past, Meet Present]

=== This is an NGADM Round 3 Review ===

So, you turned in yet another absolutely insane metal piece. It's got solos. It's got a great chorus line. It's got absolutely insane amounts of energy.

Just another day in the life of a PirateCrab :)

Let me just talk quickly about the chorus melody - it's awesome. It's got just the right amount of that really typical piratecrab feel that I get from a lot of your pieces - your chorus melodies typically come off to me as trying to express something along the lines of "this is the awesomest song in the world and I don't care what anyone thinks." Er, sorry, it's kind of hard to translate melody to words, and that sounds pretty stupid when I write it out, but when I hear it in the song those are the thoughts that go through my head. This sort of "awesome and don't care about anyone" vibe is something I hear from a lot of your tracks, and I enjoy it every time. Who wouldn't?

Seriously, not only is the main phrase great, but that one melodic ascent at 1:26 on the tail end of the phrase is just awesome. It really shows that you know what you're doing.

I've said it before and I've said it again - every time I listen to your tracks I'm reminded just how much of a beast you are. You have really got a lot of the really tough stuff down. You can write melodies better than just about anyone in the competition (except maybe midimachine, but it's kind of strange to compare across such disparate genres. :P). Not only that but you're one of the few people who live record their stuff rather than being a lame person such as myself and letting the computer do it. This obviously adds a lot of realism to your track.

On top of all your ridiculous melody work, you toss in some really successful variation. My favorite would be the breakdown at 1:50. I'm kind of a sucker for this sort of heavy breakdown concept. I kinda wish you did it more, actually! Or perhaps just developed the breakdown a little further before returning into the song

Of course, you are probably wondering exactly what I didn't like about this track. Well, keep in mind that it was an insanely close round between you and your competitor. One fun thing to do would be to go and listen to your competitors track and say "hm, my track is about as good as this one," since the scores were so close. Hopefully, this exercise leaves you a little surprised. You both turned in fantastic work.

The first thing I want to mention is the mix. Keep in mind that this is a minor concern and not as much of a problem as the next thing I'm about to mention, but yeah, I think the mix could be better. I think that the lead guitar is generally mixed a tad too quiet, imo. For instance, 1:20. Come on, this is the CHORUS of the song. I would really expect the lead to stick out of the mix. Instead it sounds like it's mixed to about the same level as the backing guitars. Also direct your attention to 2:16, where it actually sounds like the lead is quieter than the backing chords. Again, this strikes me as off. The drums, too, are a touch too quiet, generally speaking.

Anywho - that's a concern, sure, but let's get into the biggest issue I have with this track.

When I listen to music, the single most important criteria I use to determine a score is: "would I decide to spontaneously listen to this track?" (Keep in mind that I do spontaneously listen to metal, so listening to a track like yours is not out of the question for me at all.) Of the tracks of yours that I have analyzed closely, I think that your round 2 submission comes a little closer to the "spontaneous listening" category than your round 3 submission. I also think that it falls behind your competitor, as well. Why?

Fatigue.

Simply put, it's too exhausting to listen to your track. It's constantly max energy, and to my ears I only hear a single breakdown where you take the energy off just a little bit - that'd be the breakdown at 1:50. (This is partially why I like the 2:02 section so much.) Again, just so you don't think I just generally hate metal or loud songs, I listen to a good deal of heavy metal just for fun, and I rarely run into this problem. This is just exhausting for any listener. I need to go put on some Elliot Smith after I listen to your track, hehe.

So, yeah, this song is in desperate need of some breakdowns. Keep in mind that a good break doesn't just decrease overall listener fatigue: it also helps put a focus on parts of the track that you think are the most important. The moments at which you are building back into the song from the break are some of the most exciting and attention grabbing parts of any track, and often people will highlight the sections right after breakdowns as their favorite parts in songs, despite not really knowing why those parts are so effective. The reason is that not only do breakdowns help with fatigue, they also offer much needed contrast to a song, and contrast is crucial.

Anyway, this was an insanely close matchup, and you did fantastic. I hope that you can take my words here about listener fatigue to heart, because I do believe it's the biggest thing holding your music back. Keep at it - looking forward to hearing more from you in the future. :)

Score: 8.50

[Dark n' Damp]

=== This is an NGADM Round 2 Review ===

I'm about to say a thing. Please humor me and laugh. This is very important to me.

"The idea of the song is wandering from a tranquil area into a cave that gets progressively deeper, danker, and more dangerous"

I AGREE. THIS SONG GETS *EXTREMELY* DANK TOWARDS THE SECOND HALF.

Haha, get it? Thanks, I'll be here all wee- mont- until whenever NGADM is over. ima slave. ;_;

Alright, on to the review.

Whenever I see a song that's 7 minutes long, I instantly freeze up with fear. Not because I hate listening to long songs or anything! (Some of my favorite songs are long!) It's just that, on the portal, long songs almost inevitably are arranged poorly - they generally repeat the same ideas far too often, or alternatively arranged in a haphazard way that makes no sense to anyone but the author.

So I am happy to report that you NAILED the arrangement! This piece progresses like a professional track. The first half is this gradual move from acoustic to heavy thrashing, but it manages to stay compelling and interesting the whole way through. Like I said, this is super rare, so good job. You do an excellent job of combining together a bunch of sections with different energy levels in a way that is so cohesive I don't even notice it happening unless I pay super close attention, simply because it all fits together so naturally and so well. This right here is a big reason why I ended up scoring your track so highly.

Let me point out a few specific moments that I really enjoyed from that first half:

The sweet sweet bass at 2:15. Have you ever heard of Porcupine Tree? This sort of bass work (and just the whole progressive feel of your track) gives me a feeling you would like this band. I was actually kind of sad that I didn't hear more bass work along these lines.

Ooh, yes, the playing at 2:37. Changing into this new timbre is super satisfying. And then the drum work, which is fantastic, by the way. EXCEPT. That AWFUL snare noise. I'm sorry, but even from the beginning of the track, the snare just stood out to me like a sore thumb. A crisper snare would make a big difference. It's kind of a shame, honestly, because your drum work is otherwise lovely.

3:56, when the song suddenly changes into a completely different beast. And yet it all feels completely natural thanks to the wonderful arrangement. YES! This is how you properly arrange a song.

Now, here's my main criticism. It seems to me like once we get into the heavier riffing section of this song, that the song begins to get a little too repetitive - we stay on that one riff with only a few minor variations essentially until the song ends. And the truth is that I'm not convinced that that riff is *that* good to play out for a good 3 minutes. Which isn't to say it's a bad or offensive riff, but I really do want some more variation towards the end of the song. There is one great solo in there, and that helps a lot, but overall, yeah, I wanted some more variation.

So, overall? You did a *really* good job here. This song flows in a way that I very rarely hear, and that's definitely impressive. I'd like to have heard melodies that were a bit stronger, admittedly, and the song is just a *tad* repetitive towards the end, but this is still one heck of a song. Keep it up.

Score: 8.0

[Clockwork Waltz]

=== This is an NGADM Round 2 Review ===

This piece is great! It is a small but realized world all of its own, and compared to a lot of the music that I hear it really has a unique vibe going on. It reminds me a LOT of ZipZipper and a little less of SteamPianist, but perhaps a little less insane than either of them.

We launch off with a little melody played on the music box, which is joined by some orchestral elements and gradually elevated until we get into the main section at around 1:30. I have to say, the chord choice at this section is just awesome. Your entire song has this totally fantasy-sounding vibe to it, like we are flying through another magical world. In fact, come to think of it, I could totally see this song in some Harry Potter soundtrack - it's got exactly that magical and wonder-filled vibe.

The little details that you put into the arrangement - the ticking clocks all over the place, for instance, add a lot. I'm also a fan of the choirs in the beginning of the piece. Yeah, the timing is slightly off, but you can fix this by bumping the pattern ever so slightly in the other direction in your DAW of choice.

Honestly, I really dig the section around 1:30. It's so nice that I wish that you would have stayed there a little longer and explored the melodic space a bit more. Perhaps a modulation into another recapitulation of that theme could have made this song better? Just a thought.

After the initial, magical 1:30 section, we move into another section based around speeding up the tempo. The composition here is, again, very strong. The chords somehow become even more awesome as you develop the piece. I really dig what happens around 2:20 - suddenly we have some cool sounding majors that add even more to the awesome vibe of this song. But as much as I like the chords, I feel like this section is overall somewhat unsatisfying. It's too short! Just when we're just about to really get into it, the song is over. This is incredibly disappointing! I can only imagine how good this song would be if you would have properly fleshed out that section.

The above is a good segue into my main critique about this piece as a whole: the arrangement is unsatisfying. I have to admit, the first few times I listened to this track, I didn't think it was special at all. Eventually, when I sat down and analyzed it, I realized it was much better than I was giving it credit for. The reason I didn't appreciate it initially was because of the arrangement.

A song that is arranged very well will very emphasize the best parts of the song - either by dynamics, by transitions, or something else. This song is the opposite - it hides all of its awesomeness because the transitions and dynamics do not emphasize the good bits of the song. We don't even realize that we're in the 1:30 climax until the climax is over because there's nothing in the arrangement that says "hey, this is a climactic moment!" This takes away a lot of the satisfaction of listening that this piece could otherwise have. It instead makes us disappointed because the good part is over before we could even realize it.

The funny thing is that my initial critique of this song was simply that it was too short and needed more development. As I think about it more though, I'm not sure how much of it is due to the length and how much of it is due to the arrangement not showcasing the development that is already there.

Anyways, arrangement issues aside, I think that in terms of composition and overall feel of a track, you more or less nailed this. Keep it up!

Score: 7.5

[[IV]Mokosz]

=== This is an NGADM Round 2 Review ===

So when the scores for this track came out, I felt kind of bad, because I was the only outlier giving you a low score, when everyone else really seemed to love this piece. So I feel like I should do a good job justifying exactly what I think about this piece, because I don't want to be that kind of jerk. Well, I guess I'll still be a jerk, but at least you'll hopefully feel that my jerk-ness has some sort of justification.

This piece is pretty DANG good. Like everyone else has been saying, the production value is immaculate. It's orchestral with just a slight tinge of electronic to it - kind of reminded me of JacobCadmus' and SoundChris' song from Round 1, actually. The instruments sound awesome. The percussion is detailed as heck, and it fits perfectly in with the rest of the track. The mixing is darn near perfect as well, though there isn't any real bass to speak of, so you got off easy there. (Not that that's a bad thing. It's totally fine to have a track without much bass content if it works well with the mood, and I think that it works *very* well with the mood here.) You also have a great knack for introducing new instruments. This song is composed of a couple of different sections which fit together very naturally.

The thing is, this piece would work darn near perfectly as a background track for a video game. I think someone mentioned that this is great title screen music, and I'd say that's exactly what I could see from it - the title track of some sort of epic, mournful war game.

So why was I such an outlier? Let me see if I can explain.

I've mentioned this before, but the way that I score tracks is as standalone pieces of music. Particularly what this means is that songs that get higher scores from me are songs that I want to keep listening to. Songs that really jump out, that do something new or interesting. This usually boils down to mean that I like songs that are arranged in a compelling way and have strong melodies or beats, but none of that stuff is a requirement. The only requirement is a song that I want to listen to again.

There's nothing wrong with writing a really good opening menu track for a game and nailing the production, but it's also not really a track that I would be especially compelled by, or really have a strong desire to listen to over and over again. And it's hard for me to fault you for that, since it's not an opening menu track should make you want to keep coming back for it - but again, it doesn't really stand out in my mind either.

The arrangement for this track, for instance, is not particularly compelling. The energy stays at the same level for the entire track. Again, fine for a menu track, but it doesn't really make the song compelling to listen to. The melodic content is also not super compelling. Again, it's not offensive - it works very well to establish your mood, honestly, and I can tell just by listening to your melodies that you have a lot of compositional talent, because the details are . But it isn't doing anything that catches my interest, either.

So in the end I'm left with a song that ticks all the production boxes, but does not grab my attention. I hope that this review isn't too negative. I think that you are doing a LOT of things right here, and if you were to push your skills and work a bit harder on the arrangement and composition, then I think you would do fantastic.

Score: 6.5

[No Hope in the Horizon]

=== This is an NGADM Round 2 Review ===

Dang. Here's the thing. This piece is really nice, but it's so darn short that there almost isn't that much that I can say about it. Of what I heard, I liked it quite a bit, but there just isn't enough content here for me to feel totally satisfied - I feel like this isn't a total song. It needs more in the way of arrangement to really get there, and 1:30 is almost never enough.

But I do want to take a little bit to talk about what I liked here. First of all, you have a pretty darn good grip on composition. You kick off the song with some really nice ideas. For instance: That diminished chord at :25! Ah, it's rare to hear diminished chords, and this one works very well. And then the way that the major turns into a minor around :30. That's another thing I almost never hear (with the exception of IV -> iv). This whole section has a really nice progression. It has this sort of inevitable feel to it, like I'm gradually proceeding to my death and I have no choice in the matter. In that respect, I think that your choice of title pretty much nails the mood here.

After this section, which lasts a bit more than a minute, we go into a quick second section with another nice progression: vi -> V -> IV -> iii. This progression always stands out to me because it's the Greensleeves progression :) but it almost always sounds nice (especially if you were to change that iii into an III). The melodic content at this section is alright, but nothing spectacular or particularly gripping. I'd say that most of the emotional weight of this song is being carried by the chords. This is alright, since the chords are solid, but it's something you should be aware of.

If there's anything that I do want to complain about (outside the length, argh!), it would be that at points it seems like the velocities on the notes are unnatural. The big offender is the 3 note descending phrase that crops up a lot in the initial section. It often sounds a bit too hard and stands out to me.

I'm also not totally certain about the transition at 1:14. I think that there's probably a more graceful way to move into the second section rather than loud chords.

All in all, this is a really nice song, and it's clear that you have compositional chops and know how to use them. On the other hand, it's obvious that it's a bit of a rushed piece, simply because it's just begging for more development. I still gave you a good score, though, because I felt like your compositional abilities were strong, and I have a soft spot for that.

Score: 7.5

NyxTheShield responds:

I feel kinda bad to dissapoint you because i have no background in music theory, i do everything by ear hahaha (I don't get that notation either :ccc i ofteen see it but i am not able to understand it hahaha)

I am planning to expand it in the future!!! Life is harsh and i am not able to compose for the time being, but as soon as i am free again i will tackle this piece again i am glad you liked it!