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Reviews for "Coin and Haggle"

Newgrounds Audio Deathmatch? What was that, did I miss something?

Either way... I love the ambient feel of this... The violin is so soothing. Your friend Jeremy is a great musician. The coins help set the feel and location of the piece, as well as a little sort of percussion like concept as well. In all honesty, it feels like you would be in a market place, the way everything seems to mesh together in this musical fashion is nice.

I enjoyed every bit of this piece. I hope you do well in this deathmatch that I had little idea of. 5 stars out of 5 friend.

MichaelJ responds:

Check out the Deathmatch in the audio forum, they have it every year!

Jeremy is awesome... that's all I can really say.

I think the coins really embellish the piece. A market place is exactly the setting I had in mind.

Thank you for the review!

Makes me think of a shop theme for a game in a medieval setting. Mainly because of the coins, but the rest fits as well. I like how you recorded a live violin. The other instruments sound pretty good and realistic as well by the way. It's not like the violin stands out.

MichaelJ responds:

Yes, I think it all fits together nicely. I'm so grateful to have a friend who plays violin (extremely well).

This is a really nice piece. The melody on the violin is fantastic! I like the harmony on the violin towards the end also.
Great use of percussion and the chord progression helps move the composition along. :)

MichaelJ responds:

Thank you! My favorite part is that last section. I'm glad you liked it!

Sounds very relaxing indeed. Not exactly what I'd call medieval... certainly has a folk tone to it, but it seems to have a modern influence on the syncopation, harmonies, and percussion (especially the middle section).

The composition is nice- rather plain and simple though. Medieval music would have a lot more in terms of counterpoint with various melodies and "choruses" of instruments. It's strange if you listen to a lot of medieval music, it's actually very complex with what the melodies and countermelodies are doing, often in a very prescribed format, especially as it gets into the Renaissance and the land of ultimate musical complexity, Baroque.

The instruments are well selected, although for a more authentic sound you might want to find some sort of folk harp or bray harp and maybe even some viol samples for the strings to really match the sounds of that era.

The main issue I have with this is dynamic contrast. While I understand you want to keep a gentle ambient mood, most of the music for ensembles in Medieval times was about certain choirs of instruments (e.g. a recorder ensemble with a soprano, alto, tenor, and bass recorder, or a sackbut ensemble, with soprano, alto, tenor, and bass sackbuts, etc.). The largest ensembles were simply multiple groups of these that would bounce the melody back and forth (i.e. the crumhorns would start, then recorders would take over, then sackbuts would take over, etc.). This way, the melody, however bland or boring, would sound new each time. While having samples of these isn't possible (or always pleasant sounding), a similar idea can be adapted for the modern orchestra- passing the melody around between instruments and instrument families. In addition, having the instruments be louder for a bit or quieter for a bit is always a good idea to create more contrast. At least for me, it doesn't make me want to press play again other than for the sole reason of writing this review.

The next thing to consider is a contrasting B section. You DO have a middle part which is rather unlike the start and end (which are clearly both of the same stem), but it doesn't have much to it- it's kinda like a "drum break" when no one is really certain what is supposed to be happening and I think that space should either bring the song into a new key temporarily and a new melody, or at the very least have some sort of interest and melody to it.

You guys definitely have some great ideas, and I look forward to hearing more of your work.

Keep compos(ed/ing)!
-Samulis

MichaelJ responds:

Wow Samulis, thank you for the awesome review!
You're right, I guess I have no idea what medieval music is. I'll definitely be returning to this review to reread that explanation.
I have been looking for a new harp, but I haven't found one I am happy with yet.
Oh, the B section. I really had a hard time figuring out what should happen there. It is definitely just a confused drum section. I think it will be easier to fix when I have studied a little more music theory... Maybe I will go back some time and redo it.
Thanks again for this useful review!

Ah dang. I was listening to this one and then I was going to click away from the page but then I accidentally clicked to vote 3 instead, which is not what I intended to do at all! And I took it down from it's perfect 5.00 average so I felt double bad. So I'm going to write a quick review to make it up. And vote 5 on it once the day rolls back around so I can sort of cancel out the damage...

Anyway I really like this one. The violin playing is really expressive and beautiful, and the melody is very nice too. On top of that, I really enjoyed the subtle incorporation of money into the percussion of the song. The whole piece has a really interesting vibe to it - it feels light and mysterious. Subtle flourishes with the harp and pizzicato strings in the background add a lot.

My biggest complaint - and I'm sure you saw this coming - is that the piece is very short, and of that length, it takes even less time to develop its theme. I found myself wishing that it would explore the melodic space a little more and perhaps go somewhere else.

Aside from that though, I liked it a lot. Keep it up.

MichaelJ responds:

Oh, how could you!?
Haha, it's alright! Thank you for the review. I definitely saw that coming - I have been working on this piece for a while, and I can't figure out how to extend it. I decided it was time to move on to a new piece.
I am thinking about studying music theory when I go to college. I really have no idea what I am doing!