Feedbacks please on this sound/lyrics scetch

[Emusic]

I'm working on making 3-5 good and catchy songs for a young female wannabie artist. We made this scetch tonight. Like it? Feedback much appreciated. Thanks.
Link to MP3

here is the scetch on the lyrics:

tell me why, this dusk never ends
this darkest stage of twilight makes no sense
an everlasting winter in my soul
his past looks dark - black as coal

And fear is pumping through my veins
running to something without a face
every other day we leave
to where we cannot - cannot perceive

(chorus to come)

[Rokket]

I don't want to sound harsh, but here is what I feel:

She's got a nice voice, but I'm not too excited about the melody of the song. There's not enough of a change up in the way it's sung; there should be some transition between the verses, IMHO, that leads up to the chorus (perhaps change the second chorus to a bridge, and do the transition there?).

It seems to lie flat as is....

You've got something nice working there, I just feel it needs a bit.... more.

[Emusic]

Yeah that has struck my mind. But its a scetch only. Will work further on that. Allthough I think this is a kind of tune/song that maybe should be flatter than many other types of pop. At least in the verses.
Thanks for the feedback.

[Rokket]

Originally Posted by Emusic

Yeah that has struck my mind. But its a scetch only. Will work further on that. Allthough I think this is a kind of tune/song that maybe should be flatter than many other types of pop. At least in the verses.
Thanks for the feedback.

I'm not suggesting a major rewrite, but perhaps just a little in the way she phrases some of the lines, just to inject a little different feel as you build up to the chorus (or bridge, whatever...).

It does lend itself to be more subdued, but not flat...

Keep up the good work. You have 90% of the equasion nailed: you have talent there.....

[Garry Sharp]

Emusic

Just listened. I think that every response here cannot help but be influenced by how we feel about the genre, but....

I love this style of music and I absolutely love this. It reminds me of my favourite bits of Shakespeare's Sister.

The harmonies on "in my my soul" were a bit dodgy but that's just a detail. You could get away with ditching the opening bit, but that's only a view.

The timing on the "every day" bit was brilliant.

Superb, overall, I've played it about five times. Please finish it - I would pay to download this. Well done

Edited on reflection to say why I liked it (apart from the genre thing)

First is, the music and feel matched the lyric so well; linked to that was the claustrophobic feel the music evoked.

Second was, the coherence of the lyric. Except for the the line about "his past" - "he" only appears once and doesn't fit.

Third - it's damn sexy.

[Emusic]

Hi Garry.
By ditching it you mean scrap it right? Pardon my French; I'm norwegian.
Further; yeah we have a good feel for this one. I really like it too. It's an earlys scetch though, so the arrangement should be much better in the final version. I'm striving to find good solutions for prechorus(eventually) and chorus now. Have to be something groovy and catchy.
The "his" part is already changed to "this past looks dark - black as coal".
She's got a sexy voice eh? That girl got potential. Shes 21 y. And good looking as well. The vocal take was devided in two, and what you hear is her second take of both verses. Comparing that to the fact that this young woman hasn't been singing in any choir or act before; it's further promising.
We are planning presenting this material for a recordcompany when we have 3-5 great ones.
Thanks.
And really glad you like it. Makes us want to make more and work harder.

[Emusic]

I've decided to remove the MP3 for now. The work with the piece continues for sure, and we are greatful for the feedbacks so far. You helped us decide that this is something to work on with.
Garry; I might (at a later stage) ask you for more personal feedback by sending you a direct link to a new version.
That way you don't have to pay for it either
Thanks guys for the feedback up to this point.

[Garry Sharp]

Well OK, happy to help if you like, but I'm not uniquely qualified - why not come back to the whole board?

Anyway, best of luck whichever way you go, I'm glad you're pursuing it.

Garry

[Rokket]

Originally Posted by Garry Sharp

Well OK, happy to help if you like, but I'm not uniquely qualified - why not come back to the whole board?

Anyway, best of luck whichever way you go, I'm glad you're pursuing it.

Garry

Yeah, I want to hear what you've done with it, too!

[Emusic]

Roger that. Let's see what it ends up with. Gonna work on it this weekend. Goes a tad slow as my PC is prehistoric. To now I have done realtime effects attached to the mixer tracks in Cubase SX. But my PC was laggin behind, and I had to edit the music part for itself, and then audio mixdown that to wav file and import it into the vocal arrangement file (also in Cubase SX) as a single audio track. Now the arrangement and effects is even to complex in both those setups so i'm getting timeouts and stuff like that.
Guess I'll have to go to indestructable editing of the tracks. I can still save the original tracks though and mute them.
Looking to upgrade early this summer. I really want a Mac G5 2.5 Dual but dont know if I can afford it.
So a power DAW PC might be the solution.
Thanks again.

[Garry Sharp]

Using the "Save Project to a New Folder" option and ticking all the boxes really cleans things up after a heavy editing session.

[Emusic]

Thanks Garry. That really helped.

[Emusic]

Think we cracked the code of the prechorus and chorus. Also have some lyrics that fits. She's coming over tomorrow to record it.
I will put the mp3 up as a streaming play from a website I have and protect it with a password (a claim from my fellow songwriter).
I will send the password by PM to Rokket and Garry as soon as the tune is up there; probably friday or saturday.
If anyone else wants to listen, please email me at emusic@emaker.no to get the password.
I hope this isn't too ackward for you guys, and I also hope that you will continue to give feedback on the composition.
Your feedbacks means a lot; good or bad.
Ciao then.

[Garry Sharp]

Emusic - I really think you should just post the music here and / or in the Clinic. That alone gives strong copyright support if that's an issue (which it never is despite what people think). It's hard enough to get people to listen to stuff anyway without putting barriers in the way. Cutting the inupt down to Rokket and me (no disrespect Rok ) is doing yourself no favours.

Cheers

Garry

[Emusic]

Ok thanks. I will keep that in mind and try to talk with my fellow co-writer
Will post later this weekend.
Thanks.

[Emusic]

We met today but had some sort of creative blockade. I had made a prechorus and chorus that sounded great when I sung it. But when she tried it just wasnt good. So we decided to leave the new ideas. We will be back posting a new version, but it probably wont be this weekend.

[Rokket]

Originally Posted by Garry Sharp

Emusic - I really think you should just post the music here and / or in the Clinic. That alone gives strong copyright support if that's an issue (which it never is despite what people think). It's hard enough to get people to listen to stuff anyway without putting barriers in the way. Cutting the inupt down to Rokket and me (no disrespect Rok ) is doing yourself no favours.

Cheers

Garry

None taken, and I agree. I just wish more people would comment and not just listen....

[Emusic]

This is a streaming MP3 that will start to play immediately. 56K users might need some time to get the whole file. But once there you can just refresh the page to hear it again.
Link to streaming MP3

I've decided to post the prechorus that we made. In this version I am the one singing it. I'm gonna transpose it to suit her voice better and add a chorus. Then we gonna record it and post again.
Like it? Is the prechorus following up the mood from the verses? Do you think the chorus can be a tad more uplifting? Or should it continue in the same dramatical style as the verses, but with a tad more hope in the lyrics?
As usual, feedbacks greatly appreciated.

And here is the lyrics:

tell me why, this dusk never ends
this darkest stage of twilight makes no sense
an everlasting winter in my soul
this past looks dark - black as coal

and fear is pumping through my veins
running from something without a face
every other day we leave
to where we cannot - cannot perceive

you will take your wealth for granted
and I wont make my words recanted
still we can fight the shadows from the past
but I am fragile, handle with care
my fairytale became a nightmare
Live each moment as if it were your last

chorus to come

[Garry Sharp]

Emusic - you have a good voice, have you considered keeping that prechorus for yourself? - might work well.

Having said that, the lyric is not as good as the verse; I am not sure how the opening line fits with the verse, and the second line "wealth recanted" is a little clumsy. For my taste "fight the shadows from the past", "handle with care" and "fairytale..nightmare" are all a little cliched, but beware I am unusually prejudiced in the cliche department and many will disagree.

I don't really want to make production comments, but that reverbey snare thing or whatever you have going on the backbeat in the verse is too heavy and the strings let it down a bit; I think the problem there is the quality of the samples and you could move the chord voicings around a little.

[Emusic]

Again, thanks for your input Garry.
The lyrics is just what came to me in a flash while trying to make something that firts into the tight rythm of the prechorus. Hard for me to know whats a cliche and not as this isn't my 1st language, but I'll keep your feedback in mind.
The snare is to high in the mix, agree. Actually there isnt much of a mix and an arrangement at this stage. Just something that is thrown together. Will work further on the mix.
What did u mean about the strings? Level them down a tad?
The samples all comes from a Korg Trinity, and should be good quality. But I have tweaked them a lot. Maybe too much.
But what do you think about the prechorus as a whole - looking away from the lyrics. Does it meet your expectations for a continuation from the verses that made such an impact on you earlier?
And what do you expect for the chorus? The same deep mood and rytmic pattern as in the verses? Or a more uplifted an melodious theme?
And finally; thanks for praising my voice If I sing it better it might work.
Thanks

[Garry Sharp]

Well you do better with English as a second language than many do with it as their first (Northern Europeans seem to take well to English though; I think I have a vague idea as to why that is, one day when I retire I can take the time to find out properly).

What I meant about the strings was partly their quality (the Trinity sound is pretty dated these days) but mostly that you need to do more work on the parts themselves, it sounds like they are descending root/3rd/5th parts, by voicing I meant moving things around so that the root is not the lowest note in every chord.

I thought that musically the prechorus (you could call it a bridge) fitted well but really I think you should go on your own convictions, as with the chorus when you write it. You clearly have the ability and you don't want to end up with a camel. (A camel is a horse designed by a committee )

Good stuff.

[Emusic]

I'm awaiting my Mac 2.5 Dual and Logic Pro in next week so the work on this tune is somewhat halted.
I have made a standard rythm pattern here that comes in verse two.
In your opinion, should the whole tune go with the rythmpattern from verse one, or does the new rythmpattern in verse 2 make sense/lift it somewhat?
I will remake the whole tune as soon as I get Logic Pro up and running.
Feedbacks greatly appreciated.

[Emusic]

We have picked up the work with this song. Working on a sketch now and the whole song is ready with chorus and bridge together with lyrics.
Will post a MP3 here very soon for some feedback.
Stay tuned.
Garry I hope you are still out there

[Emusic]

Ok the song is allmost finished. We are going to post the final mp3 here. Just need a final feedback on the lyrics.
The lyrics fits so nicely into the rythm and the melody line. Do you see any errors or any phrases etc that totally is bad or doesnt make sense?
Any input greatly appreciated - good or bad.
Thanks in advance

-----------------------------------------
Tell me why, this dusk never ends
this darkest stage of twilight makes no sense
an everlasting winter in our souls
this path looks dark - black as coal

(chorus)
When our days of wealth has stumbled I fear that you will see
that our days of faith has crumbled, nothing left for you and me
when our days of wealth has stumbled I´m hoping you will see
that the world we had went jumbled, from the best that it could be

And fear is pumping through our veins
running to something without a face
every other day we leave
to where we cannot - cannot perceive

(chorus)

(bridge)
i see us all falling
and the scaring part is we don´t care
it´s like we´re all crawling
so completely unaware

(background vocal lyrics refrain after bridge)
Take back now what we did
what we did - what we di-i-id
thats all that matters
all that matters to me

(chorus) x
-----------------------------

[Hugo H]

I really like your lyrics. Your descriptions are very impressionistic. There's are a few things that I can see that might be worth considering. For example, "days of wealth has" must be "days of wealth have" or "day of wealth has" to be grammatically correct. Not knowing if it was a typo, I thought I'd better point it out.

You might want to look at the "to where we cannot..." line. You know, all the words up to then are very well chosen. I just felt like it stumbled a bit on that last line. Maybe it's the repetition of "cannot" that's throwing me. The words sang very well for me up to that point.

I wasn't sure what you meant by "if see us...". I assume there's a word missing. Other than that the bridge is good; I like the internal rhyme of "scaring" and "care", plus the "unaware" goes so well with "crawling" and "care". Good wordplay.

Now, overall I'm not sure what the plot line of the lyrics is. Like I said, the lyric's very impressionistic. But it'd perhaps be interesting to thank about the actions within the song. Think about how you'd do a video of this, is what I'm saying. Does the sequence flow as well as you'd like?

This is just a critique, don't take the tone as being negative. You've really done well.

I like the words. When's the music coming?