Instrumental Guitar track

[renips]

http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/2906351

 

Take a listen.

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Text version:

 

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I listened to "Sweet Serenity" a couple times.

 

Guitar instrumentals present such an interesting set of challenges. You need to create an identity for the song, decide on the scope and nature of the composition (long, short, evolving, cyclic) as well as the philosophy behind the soloist's part if, like so many, it's built on a sort of mini-concerto format.

 

I felt like the part that was potentially most engaging was the main, thematic part. That's where the identity of the song is created and the takeaway feel generated. The other guitar part does ok at both introducing a gathering density to the music the first time around and, the second, gives us a breather, a little space between the heavier melodic sections. However, I wasn't sure the transitions between sections felt organic to me, more like one stopped and the other started. With a different approach, that gap might feel breached by the development of the music on either side, but that didn't really happen here. Another minor qualm I had was the drum scoring (dare we call it programming? ) As a guitarist, myself, who is sensitive about using drum machines instead of a real human drummer as the gods probably intended, I mention this with some trepidation, but I really got the feeling I was listening to a drum part created by a guitarist. I've been programming drum machines for a quarter century, but I have to admit, it took me a good long while before I stopped overwriting my parts. I like a lot of the rhythmic ideas there, but it doesn't sound, as they say, very drummerly. It sounds pretty busy, but I suspect it could be improved if you were to work with the dynamics to turn some of that busy-ness into ghost beats, those just barely there beats that soften syncopation into something sexy. Like I said, a lot of cool ideas they just need to be eased into the background a little, make things feel a little more elemental, a little more muted, and more varied to give a more human, open feel.