Whoa... how did I miss this one? What a beautiful song. I've always admired your solo pieces, it's like all you need is just one instrument to tell a story and write something amazing.
Sounds a little like Nobuo Uematsu, would fit perfect in a Final Fantasy game!
I've listened all the way through :3 The main melody does repeat often but you keep adding something new to make it interesting throughout the song.
Nice work as always LSD :)
Author Comments
Well.
This is a pretty long improvisation, so I don't expect you to listen to all of it. Especially, since it's so damn iterative haha XD
I sometimes listen to it myself as background music though.
I came up with this simple theme over a year ago. Thus, the recording is again, very old. Also, I stayed true to the theme almost through the whole improvisation, so it's extremely repetivive. I kinda failed with adding reverb and such as well, but oh well.
I also refrained from removing any mistakes from this track :D
(It's sooo long; I don't have time to fix it up!)
Aaaanyhow. If it is at all humanly possible, please, enjoy ;)
LucidShadowDreamer responds:
Whoah! I didn't expect a sudden review on an older track from you, hahha XD
Thanks a lot!
To this date, this is still one of my best improvisations. Even if the first minute or so was planned to some extent (if I recall correctly). It's definitely heavily Final Fantasy inspired. Especially from one certain theme in FF7 :3
It's a shame that the quality is not as great as it could be (some extra noise in there).
It's not as difficult as people think to write something for just a lolo instrument. In fact, I think it's much easier than to write a track for an entire orchestra :D
And I've heard you play the guitar wonderfully. I'm sure that that's all you'd need to make a brilliant track :3
And thank you for listening all the way through despite the length! I haven't uploaded that much lately, but I have about 5 tracks that I am waiting to upload (for different reasons). So pretty soon, one can expect some pretty rad stuff. 3 of the tracks are solo piano pieces too, and one might be the best piano solo I've written so far :D
It's a shame that you're not in the NGADM this year, but you're probably busy :(
Thanks again for listening and reviewing!
:)
I heard some things!
wow man this is beautiful, you certainly are an excellent pianist and you improvisational skills are very good. I always love the reverbs you use, they complement the piano so well. I love the way you transition into the bass arpeggios at about 2:45. Though it may be a repetetive melody, the way you vary it throughout the piece makes the repetition hardly noticable, like adding ornaments, arpeggios, going up octaves, changing to triplets and even going into a minor section at around 5:00. Once again mate outstanding work and keep it up.
What you have here is a really beautiful piece and I think maybe you should work out what sections you like the most and structure it into a shorter piece. It doesn't need to be 17 minutes long but I understand that it's an improvisation so you loose track of time being in the moment and keeping flow etc.
LucidShadowDreamer responds:
I'm glad you like the reverbs I use :D (I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing).
I'm also pleased to see you liked the variation in the way I was playing too!
"I think maybe you should work out what sections you like the most and structure it into a shorter piece."
=> Yes, I've tought about doing this before, but I've never got to it. I will do that sometime though, since 17 minutes is faaaaaar to long for the avarage person's attention span :p
Thanks a lot dude, I'll do my best to keep it up! :')
It's really beautiful!! :O :D I wish I could play as good as you, really. :) Very emotional! :D
LucidShadowDreamer responds:
Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you liked it :'D
I love the emotion and simplicity of it. The sound design is excellent, and the melodies are beautiful. I love the changes in emotion, e.x. 1:17. I'm really impressed with you piano and improvisation skills, though. I couldn't do anything like this on the cello! At some times, it's very light listening, like the live piano music at a country club, and at others, it's very heavy and emotional, like the background of a PBS show based on a Charles Dickins novel. It doesn't bother me at all that it's not edited or manipulated electronically. It gives it a very organic vibe. I like the transition at 5:37 a lot. It is a little repetitive at times, but you already know that. Like you said in the description, it's good background music. Anyway, my favorite part is 6:37-7:27. I just love the dreamy vibe it has, and the contrast to the contemplative mood of the next section. It's like you're capturing someone's entire life in a song: the mix of emotion, security, reflection, relaxation, struggle, etc. Amazing! I also adored 8:17, as well as the transition around 9:30. One thing I suppose I didn't like was the heavy/low chords you used from around 10:10 to 11:10. I totally fanboyed over the part at 11:35, though. The space there just creates the perfect portrait of a starry night, or a child going to sleep, or something else which has so much clarity in its innocence. I felt similarly about the part around 13:30. 12:35 was also a highlight. You brought that main theme back in a timely manner. I think you should've transitioned more smoothly into 15:22, however. Overall, though, simply fantastic work. It's perfect in its imperfection, so-to-speak. It has an ideal bareness and simplicity to it which lets the haunting beauty shine through. I'm getting the sense that you simply played what you felt very clearly, which is hard to do and extremely creative. This is just freaking amazing. It's like I'm right there with you and the child that I picture when I hear this. This song is the reason why I need more classical music on my iPod. This is easily front-page material. I just love it in a way I couldn't possibly express over the Internet. Amazing. Fantastic. Bravo. There are no worthy words, LucidShadowDreamer. I think I'll let the music speak for itself now...
LucidShadowDreamer responds:
OMG! Thanks for such a super long and totally über-AWESOME review!
Okay, I think I'll have to try a Johnfn style reply for this one...
=> changes in emotion
Yes, I'm glad I managed to play this so truly from my heart. Sadly, this was recorded so long ago that I don't quite remember what was going through my head at the time D:
=> Improvisation skills
Thank you as well for thinking this :D But trust me, only in rare cases do I manage to actually improvise this well XD
If you keep playing your cello, and especially if you practise melodies and improvisation, I'm sure you could learn to do very well too!
=> not manipulated electronically
Well, I did do a few things, to improve the sound quality, but nothing else. I forgot to mention it in the description, but as usually I added some reverb, tried EQ:ing this sligthly (although I suck at it) and ran the sound through UpStereo :D
=> Transitions
Yeah. Most of these worked, as the structure of the song really helped me in leading the piece back to the main melody. But as you mentioned, 15:22 is not that functional. Especially since I totally played the wrong bass-tone and apparently also managed to press a few other false notes hahha XD
=>6:37-7:27
Ahh, I love this part too! :D I think it's very inspired by some of the inspirations that Kyle Landry plays! (He's not on Newgrounds).
=> Catching someone's life in the song
Yeah, I guess so too. It's probably because of all the variations in emotion, as you said. Also, it might be because it almost feels like it takes an entire life to listen through the whole improvisation XD
=> Heavy/low chords at around 10:10 to 11:10
Yeah, in retrospect I kinda agree with you. I still wouldn't edit that part out though, but I should've avoided mashing the low keys so hard I think :p
=> starry night, or a child going to sleep (11:35)
Great. Now I can't NOT imagine a child looking at a night sky filled with stars, through the window while lying in the bed, when hearing that part. But you're right, it really would suit that scenario :')
=> perfect in its imperfection
I feel that way too. This song is actually filled with mistakes, but I've grown to like most of them, since they too add to the improv, imo.
Aaannnyhow. Really, I can't thank you enough for writing such a long and detailed review! It really means the world to me :)
I owe you a big review (probably many) sometime in the future!
Credits & Info
- Listens
- 3,891
- Faves:
- 12
- Votes
- 13
- Score
-
4.77 / 5.00
- Uploaded
- Mar 15, 2014
- 11:23 AM EDT
- Genre
- Solo Instrument
- File Info
- Song
- 15.8 MB
- 17 min 16 sec
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