Wrongplanet Musicians' Showcase

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Here's my Soundcloud. I would take the time to go past page 1, since it's not like the good stuff will be at the top. Feedback appreciated! (click on underlined text!)

I wrote this song yesterday, I hope you will like it, it is very much what I feel
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=964bpy_2odw[/youtube]

My focus is still on the piano, but I'm really served with learning the fantasie impromptu by chopin^^ it was a challenge I made myself for someone said it would be one of the hardest pieces to play for the piano, and I thought "I have to learn it in my first half year of practising". at the beginning the triplets on the left hand were hard but now I'm already done with the piece until the first quarter of the Db Major part. I can play it already in a solid speed, at the end of this year I think I should be able to play the whole piece in nearly the speed of the original. I'll upload it then!

I have a webpage of free easy piano arrangements of public domain music at:

easybyte org

popular worldwide, visitors from every country except some around equitorial Africa.


One day my "Earth Day Anthem" may take off, see the words and hear the music at:

youtube com/watch?v=nDLybM4JKhc


If anyone has experience with Yamaha's Vocaloid 3, I would be especially interested. As a 9/11 memorial, I put words to the last phrase of the last movement of Bruckner's 4th symphony, and thought a vocaloid synthesizer voice might sound good.

Thank you!

I don't know what you expect from that.
very strange... what should this be? either you write your own music or you make it good, what a boldness!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ1McdLK ... re=related
listen to that. it's something like a hundred voices (human and instrumental). all perfectly composed. each single voice.

strange.

Last edited by awes on 30 Oct 2011, 6:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oh dear. What a sad and hateful attitude you have.

Frankly I don't understand the cultural obsession with originality in music. I believe it leads to a lot of plagarism, where bands copy songs and pretend that they're wholly original. As opposed to citing your influences and being honest about contributing to the growth and maturation of an existing song. Therefore, I have more respect for Weird Al Yancovic (who parodied pop songs) than, say, Stone Temple Pilots (who merely imitated Pearl Jam).

It's a new imposition on culture that really only dates as far back as the Beatles. Who started out as a cover band, mind you. Who then "advanced" to writing new words to older song arrangements before writing their own music to go with it.

I for one see nothing wrong with writing lyrics to someone else's tune. Consider blues music, and traditional european folk music. You'll fine the same "tune" with different lyrics over and over.

Consider "come on in my kitchen" by robert johnson,,, same tune as "worryin you off of my mind" by Big Bill Broonzy and "Sittin on Top of the World" by Mississippi Shieks, Bob Wills and Howlin Wolf. It's a great song and part of the greatness is the flexibility of the lyrics. People personalize music written by others to themselves.

Recording a song ruins this process, it freezes a song in time until folks believe that there's only one definitive version of it. Even musicians who write songs suffer from this. They record a single performance of a song, and then every version they ever play of it always gets referenced to that one "definitive" track.

Have you ever learned a song completely by ear, seeing the musicians play it live? It's wholly different from learning from a recording, because most musicians slowly change and adapt their songs over time. You learn the "feel" of a song instead of a static one time representation of it. Completely fascinating.

Anyway, oracle, I think you're doing alright by your writing. I'd rather see someone say "hey I wrote new words to this tune I like" than have someone completely copy another musician or band's song and pretend it's completely original.

I of course could also give a hypocritical patronising answer that makes everyone feel warm and cuddly (including me) but that would help nobody, least of all himself.

Last edited by awes on 31 Oct 2011, 12:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I thought I would make a better record of it. I hope you'll like it
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE02MbigwwM[/youtube]

Awes, I think you're unduly harsh. And I'll be the first to deliver a heavy-handed critique of someone else's work. I find most people, though, can't really handle criticism even when they DO ask for it, so I generally opt for something in private rather than something in a public forum.

Part of nature of this forum, IMO, is that a lot of us are extremely uncomfortable with sharing our work, maybe even too self-conscious or worried about what people might say, that for better or for worse this is about the only somewhat meaningful expression of our artistic side we might get. Sure, I prefer to be honest, and I don't like giving someone warm and cuddly encouragement if I have to be disingenuous about it. In those cases I prefer just to keep my opinions to myself.

That said...

The post comes across to me as spam-ish. I could be wrong, of course. I looked at the website just briefly and noticed that "Good Morning To All/Happy Birthday" by Mildred and Patty Hill was listed. Supposedly all the music is public domain/free. I happen to know that "Happy Birthday" is actually still under copyright. I want to say maybe Warner or Sony currently owns the rights to it, but I'm not exactly sure. I just know that when I teach it to piano students it's usually accompanied by a copyright notice. If they're giving it away for free, then they should have a steady source of income by which to pay royalties.

In other news, speaking of originality--in case you haven't noticed (I'm sure you have) I started a thread about the progress I'm making with a new composition for handbell duet and orchestra. When I finish the demo I'll post the soundcloud link here.

yes, awes... i already spoke to you about the first post you made in response to oracle2world, and you need to fix your second one. that was downright nasty and unnecessary. your opinions are your opinions, but we strive to make this a helpful and supportive forum.

Hi

In 2009/2010 I wrote and recorded a song called 'Someone Like You'. It was a wedding present for my husband, who I married in 2010.

Shortly afterwards, a young lady called Adele released a song called 'Someone Like You' which became very successful. So now, whenever I tell anyone about my song, I have to explain that it's got the same name, but it's not the same song, nor was it in any way influenced by hers, as I wrote mine first.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=953H80ENT0I[/youtube]

....

Last edited by b9 on 31 Oct 2011, 5:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

OK, guys, enough beating up on awes. I think he gets the point by now

I will say this, though: One thing I've learned about the music biz is that no matter what area of it you're in, it's a tough gig. If you're lucky enough to find them, there are a few guys out there in publishing willing to tell you if your stuff sucks and why. But being professionals, they aren't going to spare your feelings. A lot of people who actually manage to get their demos heard under the guise of "seeking advice" aren't really interested in advice or help but rather getting a foot in the door, and that's the wrong thing to do. They have no intentions of improving on their art because they think it's perfect the way it is, that it's the next greatest thing. They have an agenda. They have a record/publisher exec's ear, and they want to get signed. So when a pro tells them their stuff reeks and offers advice on how to improve it, they just walk away with the attitude that the pro is just a jerk. And they'll never change, and they'll never have much success if any.

And then people wonder why it's so hard to get professional advice on music! Honestly, those guys just don't want to waste their time on people who aren't going to listen to them anyway.

Personally, I prefer working in areas in which there is a need for something new and exciting, hence my current obsession with space music and handbells. Nobody is writing much music for handbells, so it's not hard to come up with something original. Actually, a better term than original is "unusual." My approach is blending my fanaticism for vintage instruments with the sound(s) of the 80s and classical instruments--and solo bells is SO UNDERdone. Sure, I'm interested in what other people think, but for the most part I compose for myself. That someone else may get some enjoyment out of it is just icing on the cake.

But I'm not above criticism, and I hope nobody here is above criticism, either. There is a right way to do it, though. I still follow the formula I used back in grad school as a composition student and in instrumental master classes: Start with comments about things you LIKE about a performance or composition. Strengths, etc. After that, offer CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, and that means not just telling someone what sucks about what they're doing, but actual possible ways of fixing problems or other directions they can go that will strengthen the work. Finally, actual encouragement.

The one piece of advice I give almost everyone is "keep writing." When I started composing before I had any formal instruction in composition, there were two profs I shared my work with. Almost every time they'd tell me it wasn't really what they were looking for. It was frustrating, but I had a hard time accepting that I was sharing my stuff with the wrong audience, i.e. academia. One day I just had a "light bulb" moment and collaborated with an English major to write my first art song. And that's when my theory/orchestration prof (also the composer-in-residence) actually smiled when listening to it. It wasn't long after that I started writing 12-tone pieces which actually went over a lot better than my previous stuff. The point is that every time I let my theory prof hear something I'd written, he'd just smile pitifully and say "just keep writing." And he'd do that every single time until it finally clicked in my own head what I was missing.

It's not that we're trying to sell-out or sell-short when we give "cuddly" encouragement. It's that you never know when it's finally going to click with someone and the whole world suddenly makes sense musically. Did I care much for the earth day song? No. Because it's just not my thing. I looked up the youtube channel and found people actually SINGING it which I thought was more effective than what was linked to in the post (just GM piano and lyrics, and I'm never a big fan of mechanical GM sequences. Find a Bosendorfer, Steinway, or Yamaha sample set and sequence it yourself). Just because I can't identify with the song doesn't mean that it won't mean something to SOMEONE out there. But I'd rather see/hear someone writing new words for "Ode to Joy" and not like it than having someone's imagination wasted having done NOTHING. If you aren't a professionally trained musician or outright gifted, it's going to take a lot of tries before you "get it." I wouldn't discourage anyone from trying, and part of that is because of how dismal I believe my own life would be right now if I'd never heard one of my favorite teachers tell me "just keep writing."

I'm sry for my behaviour. I've got a mother complex, everytime I see people doing anything that appears to be not that logical I go crazy.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPOvL6IR_7A[/youtube] here's a new piano composition from me I wrote today.
please excuse that because of the lack of practise it's not played that fluent, I will reupload it if I'm able to play it without mistakes.
it's my fourth composition for the piano, I'm playing three months now

This is beautiful Awes! Thank you for sharing it.

Typically my first thought when I hear stuff like this is that the composer is just immature (musically/artistically) and/or inexperienced. But as I was listening, some thoughts flew into my head. I'd put you somewhere between 19th century and New Age. Something to think about:

While you're working up your playing skills, try using a sequencing program to record one hand at a time at a much slower tempo. Quantize the parts that you don't want to sound "free," and make sure you adjust the quantization to account for tuplet figures, dotted rhythms, etc., etc. I've found that a mechanical sequence can be forgiven as long as there are variations in key velocity/dynamic contrast, though often there will be passages that you can't really quantize at all. When I first started composing with a computer early in college, I found this approach helped me get good results quickly; and it's an approach I've returned to 7 years after finishing college now that I have better gear to work with.

Now, I mentioned that you sound very much 19th Century/New Age--like, more Suzanne Cianni New Age than David Arkenstone New Age...but still leaning 19th Century... If you can learn to avoid that whole "revivalist" sound and learn how to make good demos, you'd definitely find some good work in licensing. Have you thought about maybe going that direction? Something like:

nomamusic.com

thank you very much for this extremely productive comment!
In my compositions the left hand is truly neglected, maybe because while I'm creating and memorizing the harmony it would be too challenging to also memorize a demanding accompaniment. I should use those arpeggios only as a workaround. I would rewrite it and then quantize it since it would certainly be necessary then^^
licensing sounds really interesting, could also be a great springboard to higher musical spheres after some years
now I've at least got a realistic opportunity how to use my music once I'm good enough!