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Author Comments

I made a bluesy piece of instrumental progressive rock featuring some vintage-style synths. I hope you enjoy it.

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Ok, there's a lot to unpack here.

Before I started listening to the song, I immediately read the description and wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I was interested in how you were going to put all of this together. After listening to this, it's safe to say that there were bluesy ideas, prog ideas, and vintage-style synth ideas, but none of those ideas sounded cohesive together. The majority of the song sounds like a lot of ideas that sound good individually but not all together. Dissecting it all was a lot of work but I'll do my best to go through the biggest issues that stood out to me and try to provide some help on how you could better piece together these ideas.

First, the acoustic guitar intro was really interesting and pulled me in. The swells and embellishments you had between the chords were very expressive and I honestly believe it to be the best part of the song. However, once the intro was over and the chords from the electric guitar came in, I felt like I was listening to a completely different song. That isn't necessarily always bad, but that transition needed to feel more natural. Maybe it would help if you had a melody line that connected the two sections.

Second, the drums were all over the place and I believe them to be the weakest part of the song. There was never really a consistent beat and it always seemed to take away from everything else that was happening throughout the song. If there was at least a consistent "kick, hat, snare, hat" pattern looped through the whole song, I'd already start to feel like I could maybe nod my head a bit, but that never really happened.

Lastly, there were lots of melody and harmony ideas that didn't fit well together. One example is at 2:05 when there was a bass line and two electric guitar lines. They didn't sound like they were in the same key. I'd start cleaning that up by figuring out what key the bass is in and make sure the other guitar chords and melody lines are in the same key. I'd also continue doing the same thing with all the other parts of the song as well.

Ultimately, I think you need to better define the form of the song. The biggest things that'll help is having a definitive drum groove, key, and form. Once you have those things set, then you can embellish all the other parts and start piecing all those extra ideas together. I'd also use whatever songs you've been listening to as references to better understand what's missing or needs to be messed with. Keep messing around with these genre-bending ideas though, you can only get better at it from here!

Maruquop responds:

Thanks for taking your time and your feedback!

This goes through a pretty interesting range of tones and vibes. Starts out kinda slow and contemplative, like someone's telling you a prophecy or their backstory, then it kinda sounds like the neighborhood level of a videogame when you're just starting out. Cut to the grungier, heavier middle section, especially around 2:50 when the heavier bits kick in almost like a fight scene and yeah, I can visualize a whole story rising and falling with this song.

Credits & Info

Artist

Listens
199
Downloads
6
Score
Waiting for 1 more vote

Uploaded
Feb 22, 2020
3:25 PM EST
Genre
General Rock
File Info
Song
12.3 MB
5 min 23 sec
Software
  • Reaper

Licensing Terms

You are free to copy, distribute and transmit this work under the following conditions:

Attribution:
You must give credit to the artist.
Noncommercial:
You may not use this work for commercial purposes. *
Share Alike:
If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting creation only under a license identical to this one.

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