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Tree of Life

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Author Comments

What can I say. I never thought that this would be completed by the deadline but miracles can happen. I wouldn't have been able to find the inspiration and motivation without my dear friend and wonderful fellow musician Merry though. She's like my musical soulmate really, like the other half of me. It's always an honour to collaborate with her, especially on my compositions, despite her being an incredible composer herself!

I'm just glad to get this uploaded really. I don't know whether or not I expect to get through, but here goes nothing. <3

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This is a NGADM review.

Your Score Breakdown:
Production: 27.5/30
Composition: 25/30
Instrumentation: 13.5/15
Originality: 9/10
Emotion/Interest: 14/15

Total: 89/100 or 8.90/10 or 4.5/5 stars

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Let me start this review off by saying that this is one of my absolute favorite entries in the whole contest. Not only does it have a fabulous emotion to it, but it just has all these wonderful tasteful ornaments and some great contrast and shape overall. My favorite points were around 1:14 and 2:21- jaw on da floor!

First off, MAJOR kudos for the vocals. Tuning, phrasing, and performance are all very good. My only comment is on the production side of the vocals. Your own voice can end up sounding a little flat and mid-heavy at points, maybe consider trying some EQ or other options. Also, although a luxury, recording in stereo might add an interesting feeling of scope to the vocals more fitting of a world or ambient feel. I also feel Merry's voice could be very slightly louder.

The main thing that I think could benefit this piece is a larger climax, maybe the addition of more instruments would help achieve this. I also suggest considering adding a fitting drum, perhaps a frame drum or bodhran, even a tambourine. I've done a few collabs with Camoshark over the years and that has suitably convinced me of the need for [tasteful] ethnic drums in world music. The light percussion is nice, but could definitely be supplemented with more instruments, especially around transition points like 2:21.

The mix is quite pleasant. I do feel some more time could have been put into the middle-ground and background of the piece, which as it stands is rather simple (not necessarily a bad thing). Perhaps the addition of some recorders or flutes to play along with the vocals would be an interesting addition.

-SG

etherealwinds responds:

Thank you for the review! I definitely have a long way to go in terms of learning to mix. Hopefully next year I'll have learned a lot more. I actually did make some percussion for this and ended up removing it because I felt it didn't suit the piece and overwhelmed it a little. I think I've just gotta learn to balance it all!

All the best :)

Beautiful and peaceful :)

etherealwinds responds:

Thanks swtannie17!!

Beautiful work! I am not a musician, so I am not qualified to comment on technical aspects, but it was a pure joy to hear. :-)

etherealwinds responds:

Even as a musician, I rarely feel qualified to comment on technical aspects of things myself either ^_~ thank you!

Dang dude!! If I ever have a film job in the future and I need a musician i'll definitely keep you in mind! Brilliant song!! :D ..Now excuse me while I download this!!!

etherealwinds responds:

That is really nice of you to say so! Thank you :)

;-; it's so beautifuuul! Evertything is perfect to me, the two voices fit so well together, and the instruments, harmonies and melodies are astounding.
Thank you so much! :D

etherealwinds responds:

*__* so glad you enjoyed it!

Credits & Info

Composer
Vocals

Listens
6,184
Faves:
36
Votes
33
Score
4.60 / 5.00

Uploaded
Aug 18, 2014
8:46 PM EDT
Genre
World
File Info
Song
5.2 MB
3 min 33 sec

Licensing Terms

Please contact me if you would like to use this in a project. We can discuss the details.