Nostalgia

For those of you who are wondering (probably no one), I'm still composing, just rather slowly. I've had a few ideas but I'm pretty much burned out from my last piece. This piece that I am posting now is the only piece I've finished in the last two weeks which is abnormally slow for me.

Anyway, I'm reasonably satisfied with this piece. I've been trying to focus more on melodies lately and slightly less tonal music. This piece has both of those things, at least. This piece is more modal than tonal actually and it will be the first piece that I've wrote in a mode as opposed to a scale. I'm also rather proud of the somewhat unusual time signature in the main part of this piece with three measures of 6/4 followed by two measures in 5/4.

I had a particular scene in mind with this piece. I have a nice little story worked out in my head and I'm attempting to create music to go along with it. In this particular scene, the main character is reminiscing on playful childhood memories of him and his old best friend. I intended for this piece to be sort of light and breezy, but at the same time, have a sense of longing and nostalgia (hence the name). I'm not sure if I've achieved that mood so that's where you guys come in. Any feedback you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

SoundClick artist: Guitarplayer52 - I'm not so much a band as just a guy who composes songs intended for videogames.

A pretty decent tune, but I don't like the bits with electric guitar. I think it makes your tune a bit too "muddy" or 80s or something. Do you know what it sounds like if you take out the guitar track?

The melody is quite fine and the mood of nostalgia is well created.

There is a blurring in the middle from a "drone" which may be the effect you want but seems overdone and it overlaps the pitch range of the melody - possibly you could move the steady drone down an octave to make space for the melody, I'm not sure. A little tweaking might give a better sound.

Quite a good piece nonetheless.

Tyler

Nice work!!

This is a very introspective piece. Minimalistic in nature with a very comforting melody. Herb (Eulor) made a good suggestion for the piece and I agree. You sort of mask the melody there.

Other than that a very good piece.

Keep in mind that excellence is not something that comes fast. Always take your time and you will not only have better pieces, but more satisfaction with them as well.

Remember that the turtle beat the rabbit.

Ron

Hey Tyler.

Nice job for the most part. At about 1:30 it starts to lose its way a little bit, I think you should just cut 15-20 seconds out of it there so it loops that bit earlier. One or two more notes that didn't quite sit well with me but that may be personal taste, for the most part I think this piece is very effective for what you want from it, as well as being damn pleasant to listen to.

Keep it up!

Wow, thank you for the all the comments so soon. I would have responded sooner but I've been sorta busy lately. Unfortunately, that means that I don't have as much time to devote to this site and as much time to compose in general. Anyway, I'll try to respond as best I can now.

Finrod

I'm a guitarist and as much as I try not to let that influence my work, it still is going to a little. Almost all my songs have a bass guitar in them. It's a bad habbit that I have to rely on it but none the less, it's just part of my composing style. I've listened to it without a bass guitar track and I think it sounds worse in my opinion. Anyway, thank you for the listen.

Euler

Yeah, I agree. After re-listening to the recording, the drone kinda drowns out the melody. I never noticed it until now but you're right. I blame part of it on the subpar string sound I use but it can't be entirely the sound qualities fault. I should revise it. Thank you for the feedback.

Ron

Thank you for the advice. Yeah, I've tried to take my time on my pieces lately. Believe it or not, I spent nearly a week on this one but it was mostly to work on the piano. Everything else was done in maybe an hour. Right now, I have a nice little story worked out in my head and I'm going to attempt to write music for awhile to go along with that story. Expect a main title theme in the near future as it's near done.

Fox

Yeah, I agree. Some of the note choices are kinda off and detracts from the overall mood of the piece. I guess I'll have to change that around too. I plan on reusing parts of the melody in this piece in some later pieces so I guess I really should make sure that the melody is nice and solid.

Thank you everyone for your comments.

Originally Posted by Nirvana69

Finrod

I'm a guitarist and as much as I try not to let that influence my work, it still is going to a little. Almost all my songs have a bass guitar in them. It's a bad habbit that I have to rely on it but none the less, it's just part of my composing style. I've listened to it without a bass guitar track and I think it sounds worse in my opinion. Anyway, thank you for the listen.

I didn't actually notice bass-guitar in the track. Isn't there a standard electric in there too?? That is what I was referring too.

Originally Posted by finrod

I didn't actually notice bass-guitar in the track. Isn't there a standard electric in there too?? That is what I was referring too.

Actually, no. There is not a standard electric guitar anywhere in this piece. Though the bass guitar does play several notes that are in an octave high enough that a standard guitar could play them as well. I'm still debating about whether to change it or not. I can't simply take it out, the piece feels empty without it. But I agree that some of the note choices are questionable, so maybe I'll rewrite it. Anyway, thank you for your interest in my piece.

I really love those synths. Sounds vintage, which conveys the term "Nostalgia" perfectly. The piano part was also quite amazing at the beginning, but it started to lose its charm midway through the piece, that's because I felt the melody lost direction. Maybe you could try removing the 15 seconds starting from 1:30, I felt that it offered nothing to the overall music. For the bass guitar, don't remove it, just let it play a little lower, right now it's conflicting with the left hand part of the piano.

PS: Use a better soundfont/vst for the piano. I like the melody it plays, but the sound isn't great. What soundfont/vst are you using for it now? There are some nice and free piano samples on the web, if you're interested.

Originally Posted by Nigel

I really love those synths. Sounds vintage, which conveys the term "Nostalgia" perfectly. The piano part was also quite amazing at the beginning, but it started to lose its charm midway through the piece, that's because I felt the melody lost direction. Maybe you could try removing the 15 seconds starting from 1:30, I felt that it offered nothing to the overall music. For the bass guitar, don't remove it, just let it play a little lower, right now it's conflicting with the left hand part of the piano.

PS: Use a better soundfont/vst for the piano. I like the melody it plays, but the sound isn't great. What soundfont/vst are you using for it now? There are some nice and free piano samples on the web, if you're interested.

Damn, can't beleive I missed this comment. I guess I've just been preoccupied the last few days. Anyway, I agree the piano quality is somewhat low. It doesn't actually sound quite this bad on my speakers but once I record it and play the recording back, the sound quality gets worse. Also I do agree that around 1:30, the music loses direction. I need to rework the melody a bit. Thank you for the listen.