MrMusicalLion's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Mountains Rest]

Relaxing, although, a bit repetitive.

The part that was a bit repetitive was that instrument melody/riff that begins in the intro.. it is very nice, yet when it's repeated so much I found myself getting bored/irritated by it.

Good parts to this.. the choice of instruments, the feel of the piece, the quality of the samples used, the clarity of sound etc.
Improvements that could be made.. the choir sample was a little off I think. I don't know, it might be worth experimenting with different ones to see what works best. It felt a little bit out of place compared to the rest of the instruments used.

Anyway, I like the calm nature to this piece. I think it would be worth going through it again and expanding that original riff so that it doesn't get so repetitive.

Good luck, well done :)

AndersKlint responds:

Thanks for your helpful advise. I agree with you that the main melody is a bit repetitive. I'll try to add some more progression to it. I'll also experiment with the vocals a little bit, I went lazy on them and used the same notes as the bass. I think I'm going to make the notes for them longer. We'll see.

[Piano:Song to an Unknown Lover]

Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside ^_^

Lol sarcasm aside, this piece is quite good. Actually, no it's better than that, it's somewhere between quite good and really good :)

Ok so first of all, good points.. the melody is soothing, suitable to the aim of the piece. You used dynamics well too. It reminds me a lot of the Harvest Moon music, and also some Asian based games that use similar piano music.

This piece reminds me a lot of Pachabel's Canon at the beginning, it's got a similar feel.

Okay, now for what I feel could be worked on. :)
The quality of the piano sample could be a little bit better. It sounds a little bit too artificial.. if you could work on that, this would easily be a 9.

Next up, I feel that the left hand could have been varied a bit more, a lot of the time it was a broken chord that was being played, and yes, you always used a chord that worked, but a useful thing I like to do is to incorporate a counter melody sometimes in the left hand. If you listen to Pachabel's canon and listen to the bass line for that, you'll see what I mean.

To summarize, you got the feel of the piece spot on, the playing is good, the dynamics are nice, the variety of structure is good too.
The samples could be better, and also the left hand accompanying the melody could have been improved, I feel.

Well done and keep them coming :)

Oozles responds:

Woopsie, I was meant to respond to this long ago... :s

Anyways, great review! I knew there was something missing from that middle section, and I will definetly try to make the sounds of the instruments more realistic sounding in further compositions.

I'm glad that you liked it. :D

[Turning Of The Tide]

Emotionally Rich Buildup & Release

Seeing as you reviewed my pieces, I thought it only common courtesy to return such kindness :)

First of all - I love the flute at the end. Oh it's gorgeous. I am speechlessly envious that you have one, and can play it. It has a very haunting feel to it, a brilliant way to end.

I gave a 9 out of 10 - so what can be improved, you might think? Well, when I listen to pieces like this, I sort of get a feel for what would give it more of a 'cutting edge' so-to-speak.

I think at the beginning, if you added in a low, 'wind-like' slightly distorted synth [that plays very low deep notes & fades in gradually] you would add this nice bass layer to the whole piece - it would add a very subtle feel that would work brilliantly I think. It would also set the tone of the piece nicely, since the beginning sort of feels like there is a 'gap' in the bed of sound.

In fact the sort of sound that I mean, is the one that you used from about 2:30 onwards :) [I just noticed that on the 3rd listen through.. xD]

All in all, well done. :)

Rottenbeard responds:

Hi MrMusicalLion, i'm glad that you enjoyed one of my older pieces of music. I do understand what you mean about the intro, this piece was made when I first got into stringing together some orchestral stuff, I basically knew nothing at all about what I was doing and kinda just went with it haha, there are many things i'd change and improve if I were to ever revisit this short track, it was a fun learning experience though, and I appreciate the feedback on it!

As for the flute? Get one! Seriously, Native Indian flutes are incredibly easy to play and are also comparably cheap as far as instruments go (paid $40 for mine I believe off ebay, hand made by a fellow there who makes them for a hobby). They're absolutely beautiful (or) haunting sounding depending on how you play it and what key you buy one in. I believe mine is in the key of D if I recall correctly.
I know absolutely nothing about playing flutes (being primarily a guitarist & drummer) and within the first day of owning one, I was able to play it with relative ease. They're fun, too! :)

Anyways, thanks for the review!

Cheers,
Daniel

[dilabor]

Worth a listen :)

Hey, this piece has some interesting stuff to it.
I really liked the change at about 00:53. From there, things got more interesting, definitely.

I think the intro should be worked on a bit, it's a bit sporadic and the piano would sound better if you varied the melody a bit more.

I gave you a 7 because I feel that this was worth listening too but at the same time there is a lot of room for improvement, I think. I don't make this specific style of music myself but I am a pianist and I make piano compositions/improvs and the piano in this would sound a lot better if you developed the melody more.
If you want any ideas how that can be done, message me and I'll try and record a few variations of what could have been done with the melody :) Or have a listen to some of my piano stuff and see how I develop melodies.

GoodLuck =]

aboynamedearth responds:

Thank you for the review! I never really gave the intro much thought. I've always had a difficult time introducing pieces, because I have so much fun with the meat of the songs, you know? I would definitely love to hear what you'd change as well.

[Corruption - Adam Doan]

If this is what hell sounds like..

THEN I WANT TO BE THERE!!!
What can I say, there's so much here that is worthy of praise.
The parts where the music pauses, and when it snaps back in, it's perfect.
The SFX used, the instruments, everything, it's really mindblowingly awesome.
I do think there were parts that could have been added to a little bit - at 1:50 I think some stuff could have been put in.. however, I'd say it's 99% 'there' and that's good enough for me. Well done!

Herdunculus responds:

Thanks a lot for the great review! I will try to make sure it's 100% there next time!

["Bliss"]

Not really a classical piano piece but nice music.

Most if not all my music was for my Ex so I can see where you're coming from. Don't be ashamed of the explanation, it is not ridiculous, it's genuine, and brave of you to speak up about it really. I liked the music, It's soothing in a sense, but also energizing. Make more, I guess all I can say is you made the best of a bad situation by making music for your ex etc, I find my best music is made whenever I feel awful and want to turn it all around.

Good luck.

montehawks responds:

I wasn't sure on what category this piece belonged to; so, I chose classical. I apologize if that wasn't entirely correct.

However, I have found that I do write best when I have the inspiration to write. When I'm upset, happy, or whatever else, the music just flows from my thoughts and is easily transferred into beautiful notes and chords on screen. Without inspiration, I am encumbered with writers block and the lack of willingness to want to write.

Thank you for your review :)

[Piano Improvisation 01]

Here's some constructive criticism... :)

Right I will break this down into sections to help give you an idea of what I felt from it. Please understand I am not trying to put you down, my critique is honest, and also I understand you are not a trained pianist etc :) First of all I will point out the overall good points -> It flowed well, you kept to the tempo, you played with dynamic sensitivity, it would have been better if you had widened the contrast a bit more by incorporating lower bass notes.

0:00 - 1:00
Ok so you've got this melody in the right hand, a slow sad sounding one. It repeats a few times, truthfully speaking, I find myself really struggling to carry on listening at this point. It isn't until the 1 minute mark that I felt like I wanted to carry on listening.
Suggestions that I would say, to make this part better - have more variety in the left hand, the broken chords you use in the left hand all linger around the same sort of notes, it gets very monotonous. I understand you're not a well trained pianist, so perhaps it's hard for you to jump to those lower notes, I don't know.

1:00 - 2:25
This part, at the start, I was kinda annoyed that you didn't immediately use the new 'motif' you'd come up with [I.e when you hit the high note, it should have developed into a new version of the melody, this would have worked very nicely and in fact you did do this later on, which I will come to.] This part got a bit faster, but again, the left hand was very repetitive, and left much to be desired.

2:25- End
This is where you did the first part that I really liked. The way you took the melody up an octave, the increase of contrast gave a nice feeling. It would have been even better, if you had made the left hand go an octave lower. That would have increased the contrast even more, and yielded an even more expressive shift in texture.

Overall suggestions:
1. Vary the speed at which you play. The left hand could have been made to go doubly faster for instance. Or it could have been made slower.
2. Try using a wider contrast/range of notes. This makes the music more vivid/expressive.
3. At times, when it comes to a part of the music that is most expressive, really emphasize it by making it significantly louder/quieter. I know you did this to some extent, just ... do it even more. :)

Basically it's a nice effort, you have great sense of dynamics, study melody/harmony a bit more, and if you have any questions etc how to do that then ask me whenever - have a listen to some of my music even, I won't ask you to trust my advice without backing it up with solid work. Hope this helps in some way! :) Keep it up.

madboss responds:

Wow... now this is a kind of review when I say: awesome and a huge thank you for taking your time to write all this down and give constructive ideas. You are absolutely right in all your points. The left hand is a big struggle for me and it is difficult to make drastical variations in the melody with it without loosing focus on the right hand... need more practice I gues...

But the velocity. speed and the octave shift idea is really good I'll keep that in mind for sure! Thanks for your comment (also for the other song)!

[Piano Improvisation 02]

Sweet, Delicate...

I like the carefree innocence conveyed in this piece. I feel that this would work well as very quiet, subtle looping background music for somewhere like a library, or a garden - in a game or a flash animation, this is.

I like the dynamic variety in this piece. I know that this is an improv, yet I feel that this piece does not have as much strength as an individual piece of work i.e if I were to listen to it on my own without an accompanying clip/game etc, I would get bored quickly because it repeats itself a lot. Perhaps also it would have been worth trying to include some deeper bass notes? To give the piece a more rich and varied texture. For example, prelude in C major by Bach, is an example of how a few bass notes can be used to really bring a piece to life.

Overall, well done. Keep exploring the music & practicing :)

madboss responds:

Ah great comment thank you! Yes indeed this is just an improvisation and yes I know it is quite repetitive - as I mentioned I'm not a piano player at all, just exploring around. But your suggestions are really good I'll definitely keep them in mind!