Dreams of the Dead

Zombiehit just joined the crew!

We need you on the team, too.

Support Newgrounds and get tons of perks for just $2.99!

Dreams of the Dead

Author Comments

Alternate name: "Milo's Theme".

This is another old piano composition of mine. One time, somewhere in the middle of 2012, I asked my friend to come up with a random name, and I said I'd make a song based on it. Well, he said "Dreams of the Dead", and here's the result.
There are few songs I've made that have evolved so much over time that this one has. The reason is probably that I was writing my book at about the same time I made this song, and I rearranged it to fit an important scene in the story, which also ties this piece to one of the main characters.

Anyhow. This is actually one of my favorite compositions of my own making, and I'm not really sure why. It's very simple (melody heavy), has a lot of flow (some odd transitions though), and such. Still, something about it speaks to me. The piece has a lot of memories and emotions tied to it, which probably makes me biased o.O
Apart from that, this composition is pretty different from most of the other songs I've made, and I've not been able to make anything like it since either.

The recording is from tonight, and I left in all mistakes and errors. In general, the quality is okay, but towards the climax somewhat near the end there is some clipping, and I was (as always) too lazy to do the whole recording process again, so I left it there.

Enough talking...
Enjoy my past feelings in the form of this composition :)

Log in / sign up to vote & review!

Fuzzy-L0g1c

2014-11-19 16:39:00

Beautiful piano piece. I love the contrasting dynamics. The ostinatos make the melody much richer as well. I like to hear your piano pieces because you focus a lot on certain aspects. The fine details, especially the left hand parts, melody and ostinatos as I mentioned earlier make it really memorable. Keep up the good work. :)

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thanks, Fuzzy-L0g1c!

The beautiful words you use flatter me :p
I actually know next to nothing about music theory, but now, thanks to you, I know what ostinatios are XD
Slowly, I will learn :3

I think I should actually practice a lot on my use of the left hand, as I've limited it's use too much in my opinion :/

Thanks for the review!

Krichotomy

2014-11-08 14:57:58

Oh, this one /is/ good. I'm going to put it in my collection of music that inspires further music and stories. Even the title is thought-provoking.

Isn't it awesome for one of your own compositions to be so significant to you? :)

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thanks a lot for all these reviews Krichotomy!
I really appreciate them, as well as the fact that you're listening to the music I've made :D

It is awesome indeed :3

Phonometrologist

2014-10-29 11:40:26

So my first thoughts is that this is pretty chill. Good background music in a sense and I’m currently working right now—administrative stuff.
Usually I don’t like leaving comments while I’m at work, but I felt compelled to say two things.
One is that I enjoyed this piece in a way that I first mentioned here, but the second is that by the way the composition is made, it sounds like an improvisation.
To me, as a personal taste, the chords along with the melodic notes stacked on top of them sound a bit bland to me. This is fine if the desired effect for the listener is to digest this lightly and quickly without having to savor each bite. Music is like cooking, and non-chord tones is what gives it some added flavor. And for a solo-piano composition, it is even more essential that this would help define you as an artist where people can begin to recognize your works apart from others.
That being said, the rhythm in the melody along with the arpeggios are strong, and the chord progression at 2:20 is great to listen to.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thanks for the giving review, Phonometrologist! :D

I'm not at all surprised that this sounds like an improvisation to you. Actually, several piano pieces I've made sound improvised. The reason behind this is probably that the main idea behind many of my songs have originally been improvised. If I've improvised something I like, sometimes I remember it and continue by developing the idea into a whole song. Not only that, but many of my compositions lack real thought behind them; that is, I don't think too much about the structure or development of the piece or so on. I simply play :p
I you want to make a perfect piece that pleases everybody, this is usually not the way to go (nor do I always do so, of course, but when it comes to this piece I'm sure I did). I feel that this allows for a lot of pure emotion enter into pieces though, just like in improvisations :)

I understand what you mean with the somewhat bland sound too.

I'm glad you still liked the song though, and the chord progression at 2:20 (although I should do something about the clipping, now that I listen to this again). :)

larrynachos

2014-10-26 01:02:05

Your songs are always so beautiful <3

This piece is really melancholy. I love it!

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thanks man! I saw you got interviewed by Asandir btw XD
That's pretty cool :3

LunacyEcho

2014-10-25 23:22:43

It's been a day and this has already been used in a game. Wow.

So, this is certainly melody-heavy. It's also a piano composition. And I'll be damned if it wasn't from 2012. You know, when it started playing, I didn't realize it started on beat 1. You use the 1-2-3 intro a lot, so I figured it was a pickup to the actual intro. :P

Loved the chord progression in this one! So many unexpected changes. I've been trying to figure a few of them out, but I'm having very little luck. It feels like nearly everything is B, when I'm sure it's not. :D One of my favorite things you did (I think) was that at 1:10, when you played the major and minor of F consecutively and it felt perfectly seamless. Although may you didn't and I'm just horrible at music theory. :P

It's interesting how names of songs come up. 'Dreams of the Dead' is a perfectly nice name that I wouldn't have been surprised to hear came after writing the piece, but it's interesting that it was named before. I've never actually tried basing a song off of a name before. :P Would I be right in guessing that the name of the friend who gave you 'Dreams of the Dead' is Milo?

Great song! Repetition-heavy, but great background music as usual. Fifty days left! You can make it!

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Would you look at that; I didn't even notice until you told me :p
It'd be fun to make more games of my own actually :/ (In time, I'm sure of it!)

Melody is definitely the driving component in this composition XD
Hahha, yeah I know. I love the 1-2-3 intro! (Using it is a guilty pleasure of mine). I guess I probably intended to use it here too, and I kinda did, depending on how you decide to look at the piece, I guess o.O

I like the chord progression too, especially where it's not simple :p
B is in deed a chord that is used, but not the main one.
The piece starts in Ab minor (the first chord progression is Ab minor- Gb- E- B, which I think only is played once). The most used chord progression is without a doubt: Ab minor - E - B- Gb.

That thing about 1:10.
At 1:05, I'm playing a F minor chord, though I'm using a G tone at one point in the left hand, although I'm playing a Gb with the right hand at 1:07, which makes it a bit weird... I've got no idea what that's called in music theory though, if there is such a thing.
At 1:10 though, I'm playing a Ab minor chord (add 9, if you count the melody), which goes into a Db major chord and so on...

My personal favorite (odd) things about this piece is the place you kind of mentioned, the place at 1:29 where a similar thing is happening (although the F minor chord that uses a G transitiones right into a Gb major chord) As well as an interesting section at around 1:55. I'm switching instantly between a Db Minor chord and a Db majord chord, which worked surprisingly well in my opinion (between 1:57 and 2:00).

There's one pretty horrible transition/modulation in this piece though, and that would be the one between 1:38 and 1:43 -_-
On the other hand, there's a pretty good modulation closer to the beginning :3 (0:39-0:40).

Song names are almost always interesting to me. This isn't the only one my friend has come up with either. Let it be well known that I'm not usually very good with names in general... During certain moods I'm okay though XD
Aaaaannnnndd Nuupe! My friend isn't named Milo :)
Milo is the name of the character in my book (that hasn't been written in for ages), that this piece is dedicated to :p

Thanks for your... Like Millionth review or something! ;'D!!!!! (53 to go... I'll do my best, as usual...)