This is an NGADM Round 1 Review

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It is such a shame to see you go. You were one of the top scoring losers in the contest, and if you weren't in a group with such high overall scores you may very well have made it to the second round, so you could treat us with another gorgeous piece of music like this one is. There's a certain sense of maturity in this piece that makes it captivating, enjoyable and unforgettable. You have a masterful sense of melody.

Honestly, my main issue with this is something that may have already been implied; you played it too safe! For a piece with just two main instruments and a whole four minutes worth of content, I was hoping to hear significant changes in texture, mood, etc, or perhaps modulations, tasteful use of dissonance, or changes in tempo/rhythm. Even the ending was a bit of a cop-out, I felt, with an arpeggio into a simple tonic major chord. You wanted to reflect a journey/process with this track, but I felt like you didn't explore enough places for that.

Anyhow, this is still an emotional masterpiece. I love what you did with it, and while I personally feel like you played it a bit too safe, that isn't necessarily a wrong thing anyway. Brilliant work, and if we do another contest next year I hope to see you then!

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SCORE: 8.9/10

NGADM Review

Lovely piano intro :) Really the whole song has a beautiful feel to it. The name is very fitting as well. The little bells with reverb really bring home the feel of imagination to me.
So starting with composition, you did a really solid job. You didn’t do anything too crazy, but it wasn’t really necessary for a track like this. Your melodic themes are beautiful and I love hearing a unique melody within each instrument like you did in this track. I hear too many tracks that are just bare basic progressions where none of the instruments could stand alone as a melody in their tracks, but yours is different. And all of them tie together to be very pretty!
I don’t really have a lot of bad things to say about this track. I suppose some more realism in the instruments would be better. The overall sound and composition is really lovely. Nice work :)

8.5/10

-Ryan

I love the emotional quality at the beginning. At around :22, I’m hearing some dissonance between the piano and guitar. This piece progresses pretty slowly, and I think you could’ve done more to form a fuller texture at times. I’ll also say that the melody notes in the piano at around :40 are pretty high-pitched and harsh-sounding. You might want to equalize out some of the treble tones in that instrument, or otherwise transpose that riff down an octave. I did like the warm strings you had here, though. The part at around 2:10 offers some much-needed structural relief. However, I think the second half of the piece was a little underwhelming. I wanted to see you create some more melodic development and really go for maximizing the emotion. Instead, it had the vibe of being elegant and upbeat, but not quite cinematic or climactic. You could’ve used some more dynamic contrast to really bring out the drama here. I would’ve returned to the dynamic level you had at the beginning during the breakdown at 2:10, and then created some soaring melodies thereafter to really sell the majestic quality of this piece. This is a solid track, but next time I want you to take some more risks! Otherwise, keep up the good work, Jabicho. ;)

8/10

This review was written for the Newgrounds Audio Death Match 2015.

You were right. The headphones did make this sound amazing. Such a journey this piece takes me. The piano sounds amazing. I love it's melody. Very good use of panning.
I am a fan of your strings and that flute? That plays at certain parts. It gives off this ethnic sound.

I wish I had more to say. But I'm lost in words. I feel so soothed listening to it. Very well done and a definite download :)

This song is so beautiful o.o The melodies are amazing, and with songs like this, people generally disregard the mixing, but the production quality on this song is great too!

But man, the composition is so good in this song. Everything from that soft beginning to the magical ending was great! There were so many melodic gems. 1:45 in particular stood out for me, since it's a beautiful way of playing some of the simplest notes possible - the first, third, and fifth of a scale. I mean, those three notes can make such nice motifs. Everyone does it - garlagan, that Book Thief movie, the seatbelts jingle on airplanes, etc. - but you made it sound really nice and original here, and I really commend you for that :D

All the strings scattered throughout create so much dynamic variation throughout the piece. 2:29 was another of my favorite moments in the song, because of the intensity of the strings that brought out the melody, and the way you had guitar in so many places just added to the strings/piano combo.

If I were to nitpick at some details, I would probably say that the panning was a little distracting for me, but looking at 1f1n1ty's review, it looks like that's definitely not a problem for other people :D Anyways, great work, and good luck with the NGADM! :)