My Career is in Your Hands

Up until this point I've been an obsessive listener and lover of music while just recently trying my hand and composition. After a very rocky start - seeing as I had no background or formal training in music theory - I finally came up with something with at least some semblance of stuctural integrity.

Now, here's where you good people come in. Do I even remotely have what it takes to make music people will actually BUY, or should I just stay a musical hobbyist (which I'd be more than happy with also).

Well without further ado:

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

- Clifton

Well............it is soporific.

i actually have tried to respond about three times now, and i end up deleting what i've written ...

let me just put it this way: most successful artists were told repeatedly that they would never make it and that they didn't have what it takes to succeed in the music business ... and the only reason they succeeded was because they kept on going anyway

if you listen to people's opinions, most of them will be negative, and they will tell you (for whatever reason) that you are not good enough. in most cases, they are right. in some few cases, they just don't see the potential of the material, and they call it wrong

after having heard your music, i think you are still in the learning stage, and that you have to develop a lot before you could reasonably expect people to pay for your original music

you could work really hard at it for years to come and never get there. in fact, chances are that's what will happen

selling original material and making it profitable in the music business is very difficult. generally speaking, it's not a realistic goal for, i would say, 80% of the people who try it

Welcome to the HC Songwriting Forum, Clifton!

This can be a great place to give and get feedback on songs in progress, as well as for discussions of the craft and art of songwriting -- but a lot of folks pass through here. And sometimes it's easy to get lost in the shuffle.

Of course, giving thoughtful, insightful constructive criticism beyond the "That rocks! Keep up the good work!" level can take some effort.

It's likely you'll increase your likelihood of getting such thoughtful feedback if you, yourself, put some time in to doing the same for other folks.

Once people get to know you as someone willing to put take the time to give a considered opinion on their works in progress, it's likely they'll take the time and effort to give you the same. For more tips and insight into the customs and culture of this forum, take a look at the sticky threads at the top of the SW Forum listings.

I listened to "The Bane of Synaesthesia"... I like the composition.

But I'm not sure it's well served by your choice of voicings -- the slightly muddy sound of the Lesley organ-like synth obscures the melodic and harmonic features which are the song's strongest elements. Also, it sounds like all the action is taking place in the one voice. Even if one were a conventional organist, a common approach would be to set up different sounds on each manual, to help define and contrast elements of the composition. And you have far greater freedom -- my advice is to use it.

Also, this is certainly secondary to songwriting but it's a part of presentation, your production has a lot of good ideas but it's marred by too much reverb. A little reverb tends to go a long way. And if you use it on everything -- watch out. Instead, try using it as a way to push individual elements into the distance. If you push everything back, it's boring and muddy. As an alternative try your central foreground element relatively dry but put just at little echo (and I mean not too much) on a foreground element. Echo, when approached well, can help push an element forward, in a sense, by suggesting a great distance behind it.

Anyway, sounds like you've got a real good start here, composition-wise. A little tinkering, and I think you could have a recording that realy brings it to life.

Totally agree - well put.

A genuine thanks for all the feedback! These were basically trial runs on the absolute worst (or best) setup that was available to me. Everything heard was made with my brothes ancient Radioshack Keyboard (with 90% of the voices not being available) and a buggy freeware sequencer that my friend "aquired" for me. Had difficulty exporting the midi data to mp3, so I had to hook to keyboard itself up to the mic jack on my PC and record - hence the crappy sound quality. I'm not making excuses for it's sheer terribleness, its just that I was severely limited as far as instrument voices and mixing editing options. With a better setup the ideas would sound a bit clearer.

I was going to make these into vocal songs, but I just left them as instrumentals. Overall it looks like this is going to be just a hobby thing, which is fine.

Thanks to everyone

- Clifton