Wonderful singing, nice composition. The second very interesting piece in a roll. And again you combined medieval, celtic, asian styles ... what should i say ... just impressive. But the best things about this piece for me are the pauses between the singing. They realy intensify the feel extremely. Good tast of music! Also the polyphon singing is composed very well, and BlazingDragon has done a great job on the piano. Overall wonderful to listen to your piece!
Reviews for "A Long Way Home"
etherealwinds responds:
Thank you very much, I really enjoyed your submission too! This is the first competition I've joined on Newgrounds and I don't think I'd truly have felt just how talented everyone else is on here if it weren't for the NGADM. It's really inspiring and motivating. Really, thank you greatly!
Simply beautiful. The harmonies are balanced and pure-sounding, very lovely music to study to! I'm a sucker for different languages other than English, and I feel you really captured the Danish tongue very well here. Also, Joy is an amazing singer! I love the reverb you have behind her voice.
BlazingDragon's piano is also spot-on, as usual. You both have a flair for the whimsical and I'm so happy you collaborated! Need more of you guys together! :D
Best of luck, my friend!
etherealwinds responds:
EEE thank you! Your review makes me extra happy (but don't tell anyone!) I'm really glad you liked it. Collaborating with both Joy and BlazingDragon in one composition is definitely one of my prouder moments, they're both wonderful. Danish is such a hard language to grasp but it's really beautiful. It's always a challenge not to butcher a language that you're not too familiar with, but thankfully Joy's fluent so she was a lot of help! :) thank you again for your kind words Phoamy!
Y'know, I'll be absolutely honest, you had me scared that I'd lose to you!
Impressive track and the vocals are very good! BlazingDragon did a good job with the piano too!
Mixing could use a little work in my opinion especially since you're stuck with soundfonts. I used to use only soundfonts too, so I know it takes a bit. Although if you want I can always send some tips and tricks your way! :D Don't worry about not having EW, it's the skill not the tool that counts. I still use soundfonts. ;)
If there's one thing about the track that I'd like to hear more of are the vocals actually. It feels like a vocal prelude followed by instrumentals, but it would have been nice to have heard a return of the vocals. Just my personal preference though.
Regardless of the outcome of the judging, I'll say that your track is amazing no matter what they say. I'm honored to have been matched up against you, and you've definitely earned yourself a new listener! ^.^
Keep at it!
~Phyrnna ^_^ <3
etherealwinds responds:
I practically had that feeling when I first listened to yours. As soon as the Uillean pipes came in I thought to myself "yeah I'm screwed". Who doesn't love an epic Celtic track? You certainly pulled it off amazingly and it's also an honour for me to have been matched up against you. If I don't make it this round, it doesn't matter because I had a lot of fun!
The reason I chose only to include only one dominant part of vocals is due to some of the judge reviews on Blind Maiden, my round 1 entry. It was very much dominated by a full vocal part the whole way through. Don't get me wrong, it did surprisingly well o_o but I decided for this piece I should have a larger focus on the instrumental side of it.
Thank you and all the best to you! Best of luck as well, although I don't think you'll need it =^o^=
Incredible! Wonderful start and fantastic singing. It hooked me from the beginning! Also when the singing gets polyphonic it sounds just so perfect from 0.00 until 1.06 - 100 percent!!!
I am not a big fan of erhu - i would have prefered some lofty solo violin. Some harmonic situations sound a little bit out of place for me:
- 1:31 - strange progression ... sounds a little bit inept for me.
- after 1:45 shoul be more movement in the piano - arpegios in the left hand or something. The harmonies are good but could have a more lush sound
- dont use strings as synth pads - keep them breathing. Change dynamics / velocity and moving. This would improve your works extremely!
- the end could have been stronger - epic slow percussions and the singing COMBINED with the singing style from the beginning would have been perfect.
So what can i say. An extremely good piece with little weak points, but overall awesome!
Keep it up - hope you will make it to round three - wanna see what you are upcoming with!
etherealwinds responds:
Thank you so much for the constructive points and your kind words! I'll address them each.
Violin would be lovely to put in one of my pieces, but I don't have any VST's or soundfonts that sound realistic enough. I think the erhu however does sound fairly realistic so I opted for that instead!
After 1:45, I wanted the song to slow back down after the erhu so that it could very very gradually build into the third part of the song to represent the journey of the girl. For me, more movement straight away wouldn't really have fit, as a journey doesn't start in the middle, right? ^ ^
My string work isn't too good at all, mainly because I'm limited to using Squidfont and until this composition, I didn't really know how to alter the dynamics of the strings manually. Thankfully BlazingDragon gave me a few tips that really helped!
The reason I decided not to have any vocal parts on the last part is due to the symbolism of having been lost. In the story of my composition, it would not have made literal sense. When it comes to using orchestral percussion, I actually struggle a little because I never know which to use and where to really place it, as well as not having very good soundfonts for them unfortunately :( I've never had much money to spend on such things, but EWQL would be the first thing I'd buy if I did!
Thank you Tatort! Your advice will really help me grow as an artist and I appreciate the time you took. All the best :)
So many cool melodies in this. I love the feel, very dreamlike. Big fan of the strings+woodwinds+piano together too. :)