[Music] Evildrspock - Compositions (finished, & in-progress)

Here are two songs I've worked on recently.  I compose completely with Cakewalk Sonar x1 Producer, out of the box (I learned with Cakewalk Homestudio 2).  I am self-taught guitar/piano, and enjoy writing all sorts of compositions.  Both of these current works were based off of guitar musings I came up with, and have atttempted to infuse into a song.  They are not complete, I want input on what's good/bad, where you would like to hear the songs progress to, etc.

I know I need to learn/practice my mixing and post production, usually I just bang out straight composition with some effects.  Maybe it's laziness, it's just a groove I've fallen into over the years; I tend to be too impatient.

"Progress"
So this song has really 2 1/2 parts I crammed together.  The intro doesn't mesh with the beginning due to different timing/tempo, but i want it to, so I experimented with combining the intro with the 2nd part's different timing.  also, the climactic break at 2:04 changes tempo, and it played naturally that way when I played the guitar live.  However, this is me sequencing the how I play the guitar, to figure out the timing/etc, so slowing down the tempo was the only way I could get it to run the way it does.  Anybody with ideas about what my intuition wanted me to do let me know. 

Note my technique for writing songs like this is usually record/write one part, then improvise over it and tweak it to get it right.  (Also, anybody familiar with Peter Buffet's music might recognize some styles in the beginning here, although it was unintentional -he's one of many influences/favorites of mine).

"The Far Away Shore"

I wrote this song on guitar originally, playing with simple variations off of a straight bar on the 2nd fret on an open tuning.  It turned into a fun B Minor musing, and when I transposed it to sequenced notes, I decided I liked the interpretation on piano, too.  The Violin improvisation meshed really well and fleshed it out for me, made me think of pirates or ships, or islands maybe.  The timing is off at the end, I know; it's all a midi-recording, I have to quantify it a little to a rhythm.


.... However, what do you think?  I welcome all advice, & would love to learn more about Digital Music Production from the fellow users here.  Thankyou~

Edit:  One More song.

"Hope"

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/j6poiedw2azt72x/Hope.mp3?dl=1

A guitar Arrangement, recorded, with improvised solo.  This is in progress, a newer version as been written (for guitar), will be recorded possibly soon.  Interesting?  Appealing?  Terrible?


(Edited for adding Soundcloud links, and updating others)

Very nice.

Due to the way that it's played, "Progress" can only be used for an automated cutscene (otherwise it'd be extremely weird in a game).

I can see "The Far Away Shore" being used as a dungeon theme.
However in my own opinion, this audio makes me bored pretty quickly and there are some moments where the violin and piano clash.

I like "Hope", I think it sounds nice, but again it sounds boring after awhile. It doesn't seem to change enough to make it more interesting.
It feels like the same thing is played over and over, and even when you change chords it still sounds the same.
Another instrument added at the right time should make this wonderful


I do like the songs I hope you make some more and I'll be sure to check again

You have a very concrete style, and reminds me heavily of Acoustic Asturias. I listened to it purely as music, not as a video game composition, so I have no real input on where it might be used in a video game. However, I can appreciate the simplicity of your instrument selection, and the fact that a majority of it is recorded instrumentation. My only real gripe is that for your violin, you stick mostly to the low-end notes; the violin has a wide and beautiful range, and I feel like your music would benefit from those shrill, piercing high notes as well.

edit: This is more of an issue in Hope than in The Far Away Shore, I just wanted to point that out.

D&P3, I appreciate that, it's hard as a creator to recognize sometimes what becomes boring/uninteresting, because in that moment of creation I get so wrapped up in how cool/new my music is to me that it's hard to hear it with the ear of a newcoming listener.  I certainly don't want the finished compositions to be boring!  I can fall into a rut of repeating myself musically, and I try to avoid making my music monotonous.  Listening to it again I'm sure a big part is the rhythm, too; If I don't vary the rhythm enough (which can be easy to fall into a "rhythm" of, ha! ... yeah bad joke), it becomes far too repetitive.

Another thing I'm trying to learn is how to record my guitar with a proper timing track to sync with the computer; I guess I can just monitor a guiding drum track to record the live instrument (on a mic in my apartment), but then it can be hard to hear my guitar playing.  It's a balancing act.

"Hope" has a finished version, however it may be awhile before I record it, as my recording station is currently down.   I added more parts and the guitar playing resolves much better.  However, I appreciate the input!

You have a very concrete style, and reminds me heavily of Acoustic Asturias. I listened to it purely as music, not as a video game composition, so I have no real input on where it might be used in a video game. However, I can appreciate the simplicity of your instrument selection, and the fact that a majority of it is recorded instrumentation. My only real gripe is that for your violin, you stick mostly to the low-end notes; the violin has a wide and beautiful range, and I feel like your music would benefit from those shrill, piercing high notes as well.

edit: This is more of an issue in Hope than in The Far Away Shore, I just wanted to point that out.

Thankyou, I 've never heard them until your reference, but I really like Acoustic Asturias! (go figure, given the allusion)  They really jive with my likes and style, that's for sure, and that's a humbling compliment for me.  :'(

The Violin passages were improvised to see what I could do with the tunes.  I will definitely clean it up and build more definite themes, and play more with the violin's range.  This was me experimenting with my new program's capabilities, and enjoying the pretty sound samples.  I plan on layering more instrumentation through the songs to make it more punchy and layered/varied; see some of my finished compositions for what I meant.

Overall, it's been an interesting learning curve.  I learned music on the computer, and have slowly taught myself piano, and more recently guitar.  As I get better at playing guitar, my interest in composing on the computer is less and less as I play the instruments faster, and can think quicker, "freer," I guess.  But, bridging the gap between intuition and the computer can be challenging, I tend to want to come up with complicated rhythms lately and it's hard for me to adapt them on the computer midi, let alone add layers.

So, my next new creation, I've been writing this on guitar on and off for the last month or so, and decided to refine it a little here with some accompaniment embellishments.

Faeries (Childhood - Part 2) - darker ending


Faeries (Childhood -Part 2) - brighter ending

So, this song doesn't actually have a title yet - it is part 2 of my song Childhood, which I will upload in the next few days (when I transpose it to the computer, soon enough).  They are two songs with similar stylings, where this song was meant to be variations on the 1st song but ended up becoming it's own.  I'll upload it soon so you can compare the 2, I promise! 

What do you think?  Areas I think I need to work on are 0:47, the instruments my stop too abruptly before beginning again; and at I think 1:55 my 2nd to the last chord should probably be a D instead of A minor, I shouldn't be introducing a new progression right at the end, it's too "minor" sounding, needs to follow the rising progression.  This will be addressed. 


EDIT:  I updated the song with my proposed change.  Preference?  Ideas?

(2nd edit:  Updated links, and added applicable Soundcloud links)

My first post in a while!  I've since created a Soundcloud account here (It's also hotlinked in my signature) for any and all interested.

Here's my most recent compostion:


I'm currently working on part 2 of this song, its gonna grow and come back to the idea presented at 0:45, which will be expanded upon and improved.

I think Progress would work for a game like Bastion. It is a little unfinished, though, but I'm sure you're aware of that.

The Far Away Shore one would also be great in a game like Bastion, or Journey, or one of those non-traditional artsy indie type games. Or maybe a more current JRPG like Xenoblade Chronicles. My only complaint about this track is that the violin is a little too constant for my tastes. There's not enough breath. Sure, violins don't need to breathe like woodwinds or vocals do, but breathing room is still something most people expect from a melody. Just my 2 cents.


Your compositional style is very strong, I'll say that. Especially your guitar orchestration, and your very solid grasp of sections (ABABC and the like) and chord progressions. It makes your music flow extremely well. It always goes somewhere, and that place it always similar, but different enough to be interesting, and it always happens just at the right moment, before things get tedious. The only things that get to me are the melodies. While they are nice, like I said before, some (not all) are very constant. It's a bit suffocating, or overwhelming because there's no breathing room, no time to stop and catch your breath. But that might just be me.

I could learn something from your music. I'm going to study you.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR29FcZedxw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR29FcZedxw</a>

This was a fun experiment I did last year.  I was playing around with my MIDI keyboards ability to record short sections of data to a button I could then replay, as well as an experiment with my ability to play 2 instruments at once.