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Polymorphia 
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: November 06 2012 Location: here Status: Offline Points: 8856 |
 Posted: February 10 2015 at 18:18 |
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Star_Song_Age_Less
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 08 2014 Location: MA Status: Offline Points: 367 |
Posted: February 11 2015 at 19:16 |
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That is quite possibly the highest compliment I've ever received!  When you get round to it I'd love to know what you came up with. |
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https://www.facebook.com/JamieKernMusic
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Star_Song_Age_Less
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 08 2014 Location: MA Status: Offline Points: 367 |
Posted: February 11 2015 at 21:56 |
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Floflo - You have a lot of material here - all electronically generated, it sounds like. I found your soundcloud, that was a little bit easier for me to digest. Do you have all the same things there as you do on the YouTube links? I know some of it was the same. It's going to take me a little time to get anything really useful to you back on the composition because there is so much, but I can tell you two things right off the bat: 1. I'm interested in it 2. I'd really like to hear it performed rather than Midi-ed. Sometimes some sounds were too sudden and loud - made me jump out of my skin! Not sure if that was the intention or not. Electronic sounds can be tricky like that, if the sound isn't subtle it can sound a bit 8-bit Nintendo and not mix in well. Could you tell us a little about what inspired you to do all this? Where would you like to take it? Is there a story behind it? Are you in it for the pure sound? Do you want to take this material and try to use it to interact with other performers? There is a lot of potential here and I'd be interested to know what direction you want it to move in - that will help others on here give you useful criticism with perspective. |
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https://www.facebook.com/JamieKernMusic
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Star_Song_Age_Less
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 08 2014 Location: MA Status: Offline Points: 367 |
Posted: February 11 2015 at 22:14 |
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Still listening to Floflo's stuff but uploaded a new mix of my song "Meat Drum" to soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/jamie-kern-5/meat-drum-21015-mix This song is actually only 1/2 of one composition, there's another one called "Summer" that's the first half. But I'm still embarrassed by some things in "Summer," and if I'm embarrassed I already know they need to be changed - whereas I really like this mix of "Meat Drum" and that means if something's wrong with it I've lost perspective. Note - it's not supposed to sound "pretty." That's not the goal. The lead vocals are the way they are for a reason. The high backing vocals represent a past perception of something while the lead low vocals represent my current perception of the same thing. |
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https://www.facebook.com/JamieKernMusic
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Star_Song_Age_Less
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 08 2014 Location: MA Status: Offline Points: 367 |
Posted: February 11 2015 at 23:20 |
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Okay floflo79, I got to #29 on the soundcloud. I can give you a little general feedback at this point.
Firstly, the highlight for me was definitely "The Old Heroes (Real)." I enjoyed that one a lot. It's driving, and just keeps moving from one thing to the next. Some of the electronic stuff is a bit too slow and plodding for me, I'm waiting for it to do something - not so when you're playing for real. Of the electronic ones I liked "Beezelbub's Gossip" best. There's a guitar riff that just lurches out of the rest of it at you, and I liked the spontaneity of it. There are many, many different compositional ideas here, one theme of which is the use of traditional melodies (like 'My Country Tis of Thee') in various places. I would like to know if there is a story behind that or if it's something you were playing with just to try it. Musically it doesn't seem to be performing any particular task but sometimes these things exist for artistic/storytelling reasons. I need some context! The parts of the compositions that are faster were more interesting to me. Some parts just hang on a single chord for too long (throughout multiple tracks) without much of anything else happening. Sometimes that is intentional, to convey a certain emotion (such as apathy), but again I have no context, so I'm not sure. I'm simply astounded by the amount of work you've put into this. I need a break! And I'm just listening! I will listen more tomorrow. |
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https://www.facebook.com/JamieKernMusic
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Dayvenkirq
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 25 2011 Location: Los Angeles, CA Status: Offline Points: 10970 |
Posted: February 12 2015 at 16:55 |
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Me, I'm still learning songwriting.
 And all the stuff I try to come up with naturally, ... it just sounds unlistenable. Again: got nothing to say, don't say anything. This is why I'm screwing around with music theory, the magic box of tools, studying other people's songs.-------------------------------------------------------- '~' is for modulation where I think modulation is happening. ============================================================= "The Chance of Love" by the Bee Gees: D A Am(D7) G Gm D Em Gm D IV I ~ V I ~ iv I ii iv I - ch.: D7(Am)/C D G G E E A A (IV) V I I ~ V V I I ~ D D G G E E A A/G E E V V I I ~ V V I VII V V ~ back to D ============================================================= "I'm A Dreamer" by Sandy Denny: - ch.: G#m G#m F# F# G#m C# D#m C# ii ii I I ii V vi V (dec.) B B F# F# G#m F# C# C# V V I I ii I V V (1/2 cad.) ============================================================= "Birds" by Neil Young: - ch.: C G C G C Bm Am D C IV I IV I IV iii ii V IV (plag.) G G7 Cmaj7 Cmaj7 G I I IV IV I ============================================================= All I'm saying is that some writers heavily employ ideas for cadences (mostly authentic and plagal) as ideas for any moment in a progression. I say "How simple, but how cool is that, and it works!" A lot of tossing around the I, the IV, and V in a chorus, with modulation as an option. On an additional note, I guess the melody has to come from whatever words you sing to the chords. Sometimes inspiration can be a b%ch. -------------------------------------------------------- By the way, I don't wanna hear anything from Pedro about what I'm doing here. The magic of conventions is yet to be exhausted in the mind of the listener/author.
Edited by Dayvenkirq - February 12 2015 at 17:52 |
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Star_Song_Age_Less
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 08 2014 Location: MA Status: Offline Points: 367 |
Posted: February 12 2015 at 20:54 |
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^I wish I knew how to be helpful to you, Dayvenkirq, we just think so differently and approach music from such opposite directions.
Half the time when I'm playing I have no idea (at the time) what chords/notes/scales I'm using - I write down the notes and then go back later to figure out the chords/key(s) when another musician needs them to follow along with. It's all about the feel of the instrument and when/how things seem to lock into place. Really interesting to see someone writing about the opposite way of coming at it - thinking about chords and scales first.Off to listen to some more of floflo's stuff. |
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https://www.facebook.com/JamieKernMusic
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Star_Song_Age_Less
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 08 2014 Location: MA Status: Offline Points: 367 |
Posted: February 12 2015 at 21:45 |
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floflo79, I just finished listening to Vango II (first part) for the second time. I haven't gotten to the others yet. I have basically the same impression of this as I did for Vango on your soundcloud, which is that I'd much rather hear it done with physical instruments. For me, pure electronics are incredibly useful to do things that can't be done with real instruments (for the most part), but when taking the place of a guitar or bass and just doing what those would have been doing, something always seems to be missing.
That said, you have a lot of interesting composition ideas but they all seem to be flowing the same way. That may be intentional, as these are all part of what seems to be an instrumental concept album. But I'd like to hear you step outside of your comfort zone and do something really wild since you have the electronic tools at your disposal. It sounds like you're doing this all with MIDI - is that so? I'd love to hear what you could do with a synth... I hope you're on sometime soon so we can converse. :) I feel like I'm talking your ear off, here. |
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https://www.facebook.com/JamieKernMusic
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Littlecarrots
Forum Groupie 
Joined: August 12 2011 Location: Uruguay Status: Offline Points: 86 |
Posted: February 17 2015 at 01:46 |
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I don't know what's the story behind Vango II, but if a videogame is ever made based on it, I'm buying it for its 'soundtrack'. Music's amazing (I haven't heard it all, just the first part), it sounds a bit like a videogame soundtrack but I mean that in a really good way! I love videogame music. Along post-rock music I think they are really capable of painting pictures in my mind, and I definitely get some beautiful mental landscapes from floflo's stuff. The music is definitely telling me something, I don't know exactly what, but I just love it. Really enthusiastic about the midi/Nintendo-like sound.
I also would like to share something I've made, it's the first piece of music I have composed with a concept I had in my mind for more than a year. The idea was using a random number generator in order to set some rules before I started composing songs. With a little help from some Excel sheets and some basic math involved, I let this "randomness" define number of movements for a suite, tempo changes, key changes, and even time signatures or the number of instruments to use, among other things. Then, restricted by those rules, I wrote this little "suite". It's all composed on computer, but I'd like to get some feedback (though I'm quite nervous considering the amazing music post in this thread before). Edited by Littlecarrots - February 17 2015 at 01:47 |
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Star_Song_Age_Less
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 08 2014 Location: MA Status: Offline Points: 367 |
Posted: February 18 2015 at 21:39 |
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^I enjoyed your composition, Littlecarrots. I like that you employed the random number generator idea in a way that would still leave you with some creative freedom - the result was interesting! I'd like to hear more. What program are you using to generate the sounds themselves?
Agreed that Vango II could easily be a video game soundtrack, but oddly your composition reminded me much more of video game stuff than Vango II did. There were definitely some moments when I felt like I was on my way to see Kefka in his tower. :) (Love FF6). |
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https://www.facebook.com/JamieKernMusic
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Littlecarrots
Forum Groupie
Joined: August 12 2011 Location: Uruguay Status: Offline Points: 86 |
Posted: February 19 2015 at 17:38 |
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^Thanks for feedback! I have to admit I'm quite influenced by videogame music. I love game soundtracks especially 'classics' like the Donkey Kong Country 2 from SNES or Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask from the N64.
About the sounds, I'm using a pretty old program, Melody Assistant for the sounds, I like it because you can write the music note by note, just like you write on staves on a sheet. I mixed everything (I'm a bit of a disaster when it comes to mixing, though) on Cubase then. And for now I don't have anything else from this "project" though I plan on continue composing with this idea on mind, it's quite a challenge :) Though, I have more stuff I've made on my soundcloud if you wanna check. And thanks again for listening!
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Star_Song_Age_Less
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 08 2014 Location: MA Status: Offline Points: 367 |
Posted: February 22 2015 at 12:40 |
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^Yeah, me too. I grew up playing video games almost as often as I listened to music. When I was much younger, friends used to tell me that my music sounded like it came from such-and-such video game. It was fine with me, I liked it. It made me ridiculously happy when Yes wrote "Homeworld" for a video game. I felt irrationally validated.
I've never used Melody Assistant but I agree being able to write on a staff is convenient. I don't mind the typical MIDI interfaces, though. I think I'm just used to looking at the MIDI lines in Cubase now. A version of it came with a keyboard I bought and I've been using that since then to record and mix, but I'm no great hand at mixing, either. I doubt that will ever be my strong suit. I would like to check your other stuff out - I thought your playlist jumped to someone else's music, I'll take another look! |
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https://www.facebook.com/JamieKernMusic
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Littlecarrots
Forum Groupie
Joined: August 12 2011 Location: Uruguay Status: Offline Points: 86 |
Posted: February 24 2015 at 18:17 |
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^Yep, I don't know if it has something to do with being somehow 'classically trained' (I studied violin for some years) but writing on a staff feels more 'natural' for me.
If you get to check something, I'd love to get more feedback. Thanks! :) I'm still amazed with the so many talents in this thread.
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Star_Song_Age_Less
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 08 2014 Location: MA Status: Offline Points: 367 |
Posted: February 25 2015 at 00:52 |
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Have some feedback on more of your music, Littlecarrots. Didn't listen to it all yet, was practicing guitar for a long time. Here you go so far:
#11 (Little carrots) – I would describe this as “sweet.” I’d love to hear this with more realistic MIDI sounds or, even better, a real orchestra. We all can hope, right? #4 (Little carrots) – I feel like I’m listening to a soundtrack here. It’s nice music, easy to listen to. #6 – Wow, this forcefully reminded me of some of the music from an old video game called Legend of Dragoon. I loved that soundtrack. And as this progressed it became simply beautiful. I don’t think you should change anything about this. It feels as if it’s telling a wonderful, positive story. This composition did what all my favorite music does: it took me on a musical journey that was so compelling I couldn’t help but follow, and want to take the journey again. #5 – A nifty creepy interlude. StringHead Pts 1 – 7 : I like how this one flows from one theme into another seamlessly. This one is more interesting for me on an intellectual level rather than having emotionally caught me up (like #6 did). However, I think this has great potential, I would like to hear this performed, not entirely, but partially by human beings to add more expression to the textures, which currently don’t vary much within each theme. Whenever there are electronic drums, I tend to find them lacking, and the ones toward the end of this seem lackluster to me. I’d prefer a human performer. There are probably many people who don’t mind, though. Benjy – Creepy, it reminds me of some stuff from Final
Fantasy 6 again. Definitely could be
video game music. One of those tracks
that I would like in a game but would probably skip if it was on a CD I
owned. By the way - what happened on #6 doesn't happen often. It takes something special for me to really get lost in it. Edited by Star_Song_Age_Less - February 25 2015 at 00:54 |
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https://www.facebook.com/JamieKernMusic
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floflo79
Forum Senior Member
Joined: March 21 2013 Location: France Status: Offline Points: 245 |
Posted: March 01 2015 at 11:06 |
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Hello Star Song Age Less and Little Carrots ! Thanks for the feedback ! To answer your questions :
1. The two albums are based on two books, so there's a story, but I didn't really follow it for the compositions. 2. I will surely make a real sound version 3. There's many influences, but I can say Mike Oldfield, Pink Floyd and many other prog bands like Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant, Nine Inch Nails sometimes... I think that Vango II is more mature and better than the first one. And yes, you're right, it sounds like a videogame soundtrack some times. I love VG soundtracks too.
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Star_Song_Age_Less
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 08 2014 Location: MA Status: Offline Points: 367 |
Posted: March 01 2015 at 13:05 |
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^Hey floflo! Glad you're back. :) Cool, I got a sense that there was something behind it, when I do a net search for Vango book covers come up, is this one of them?
 When I've been inspired in the past to write music based on a book it's never really been a narrative of the events in the book, more of a series of feelings based on it, is that how it is here? I'd love to hear a real-instrument version of this. I can identify the Gentle Giant and Pink Floyd influences in this now that you mention them, especially Gentle Giant. But this definitely has a quality of its own. I agree that Vango II is more mature, but there are parts of the first one that are really good. It takes time and practice to become consistent, I've been writing music for about two decades and I'm still not there. I look back at older music and realize how "kiddish" it is. But I also find that as I get older I see ways to change earlier songs to make them better. |
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https://www.facebook.com/JamieKernMusic
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floflo79
Forum Senior Member
Joined: March 21 2013 Location: France Status: Offline Points: 245 |
Posted: March 01 2015 at 13:51 |
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Yes, it's this book. When I was composing Vango I, I thought that it was my best compositions, but now that I made Vango II, I think that Vango is pretty "kiddish" as you said. A real instrument version of this album will be very later, because I don't have good recording material, and I don't have some instruments "used" in the album.
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Star_Song_Age_Less
Forum Senior Member
Joined: December 08 2014 Location: MA Status: Offline Points: 367 |
Posted: March 01 2015 at 14:02 |
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I eventually gave up on the home recording and started going to a studio - I didn't have time to become a recording expert in addition to playing the music itself. The down side to that of course is expense. It's taken me a long time and a chunk of my income to get my music to where it is now. Some people are naturals at putting this all together in their own homes, but I'm not.
And even now, there are compromises. There are parts that should really be played, for example, by a real violin or cello but I have MIDI in there instead. Keep writing - you are obviously passionate about this and it shows. |
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https://www.facebook.com/JamieKernMusic
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Dayvenkirq
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 25 2011 Location: Los Angeles, CA Status: Offline Points: 10970 |
Posted: March 01 2015 at 14:51 |
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Disclaimer: This is not an ad; this is a recommendation.
I've been informed there is a project that can help you write sheet music for free on the Web. I've tried Flat, and so far it looks pretty good. It does have at least one bug. For some reason, when I told it that I want a blank sheet in 12/8, it gives me that, but the time signature in the beginning says "21/8". How strange, so I reported that. Other than that, it looks alright.
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Littlecarrots
Forum Groupie
Joined: August 12 2011 Location: Uruguay Status: Offline Points: 86 |
Posted: March 02 2015 at 15:37 |
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^Tried it, it's really interesting and I'm loving that hammond sound. Yet it worked a little bad on my computer, but maybe it's just me. Also I wasn't able to download the song either on wma or mp3.
About the rest of the songs, yeah #11 would sound better on more realistic MIDI sounds. #4 was intended as both imitation and subversion of post-rock music at the same time, that's why it has the soundtrack-ish sound. It grows but it doesn't climax, and it's like a test on repetition resistance. A test for myself, I've never worked on the same idea for as long as on that song. And well, #5 is just a little interlude between #4 and #6, as I thought it was needed among to epic-in-lenght song. I would definitely love to have StringHead recorded with 'real' instruments! And I'm really glad you think there's a good flow between sections. I was afraid that my intention to fuse different styles could be a disaster. And about Benjy, I composed it inspired by a horror film script my bf had to make for some of his classes. It was meant to be used on a fictitious pitching, that's why the 'creepyness'. Also floflo79, now I'm really interested on those books! Your music is just so interesting I really want to know the story behind. And I'm going to check the Vango "one" album too. Edited by Littlecarrots - March 02 2015 at 15:39 |
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Star_Song_Age_Less wrote: