She Seems to Be(flower)

THanks Quasiallegro for taking the time to listen to it...could you explain your self where in the song your talking about goin' crazy with vocal runs

by the way, I suspect that at measure 12 you mean that with every "petal" she's more beautiful?

measure 37, I'd have suggested making a melisma on the "flow..." part then adding the "-er" as the very final note. The syllable "-er" is a very ugly sound in English, and is also terribly difficult to sing out.

and a quicky correction, "lovely" is only 2 syllables (measure 40). (actually, correct it at measure 24 as well)

that piano left hand part at measure 41 seems a tad of a stretch. it won't be played without some rolling of the chord.

This isn't half-bad, but there are some things that I want to mention which no one here has yet mentioned.

Firstly, why do you need an 8va marking in measures four and six? They don't accomplish anything that writing the notes at the octave will not.

What about the lyrics? Did you write them? I won't get on your case about them (as I'm not much of a lyricist myself), but they don't have much of a line scheme, and sound a bit lost. This causes the melody to also sound a bit lost. Also, the word "flower" as two syllables should be written as "flow-er," as that is how the singer would pronounce it.

All dynamics for voice go above the staff.

You could use more material too. Musically, it isn't really long enough to make much of an impression, or be interesting. Personally, I probably wouldn't sing this because it isn't long enough. A second verse is all it would take to turn this into "Interesting" from "OK."

At measure 40 the Piano needs fermatas as well, not just the vocal part.

This has potential, though. You have some neat chord progressions, and you have a good idea of what the Piano should be doing. These are just some things that I think could use some work.

Not half bad!
Alan

Thanks A lot guys.. the lyrics were self written..Qc i don't intend for the singer to say flower but rather flowa not stressting the er

the octave sings were because i orrignally wrote it down the octave but later on i figured it would sound better up the octave.

Thanks a lot for allof your comments it will tremendously help me to polish my peice well

Yeah, the sentiment in the lyric is obviously there, but the lyric rambles. It's not quite polished yet. And, as others have stated, fix the scansion. Without scansion, it doesn't matter how nice the words are, because no one will understand them. Sing the song, and if a word doesn't sound the way you would normally sing it, then either re-write the melody or re-write the lyric.

yeah i'll make sure i'll sing the song over..thanks ..i'll make sure 2 ensure that the lyrics have direction. thanks aot comments help a lot

could you give me an idea of where the lyrics starts to ramble on

I typed out the lyrics and tried to put the line and stanza breaks where they seemed appropriate based on the music. Here's what I got:

Flower.
With every petal she’s more beautiful.
It’s almost a sin to compare her to a rose.
She’s exactly where I want to be,
She knows not of her immortal beauty.
I can even from a distance see
How sweet and lovely she seems to be.

Flower,
Please stay mine, flower.
And now that I am closer, see
How sweet and lovely she seems to be.

How come in both verses (as I've dissected it) does she only "seem to be" sweet and lovely. First you say that from a distance she seems to be sweet and lovely. Then you say that up close, she still seems to be sweet and lovely. Is she? The song doesn't tell us if she actually is, it only says she seems to be.

Maybe you would break up the verses differently, but still, it's difficult right now to say, "This is the function of this verse" and find how one verse creates a progression to the next. Also as far as strict "verses" go, you don't provide a real musical "hook," a home base to bring us back to. This is a short enough piece that it may not be a huge issue, but generally you want to at least have a musical hook so that the audience has something familiar every now and then, so that they are willing to go on the rest of the journey through the piece with you. And it's good to connect the musical hook with a lyrical hook. This will also help focus your lyric.

This is a very good first draft, and there's a lot there to work with, emotionally speaking. I'd almost say each line in the first stanza has the potential to be its own verse, if you flesh out the idea, and give it specifics. You present us with these beautiful sentiments that are purely ideas, and then you drop them and move on to the next. A friend of mine quoted someone today--and forgive me, but I don't know who she quoted--saying, "God is in the details." Ideas, we've heard them all before. The specific things that make that emotion ring true for you are what will provide the song with the power it needs.

"With every petal she's more beautiful."
What exactly does this line mean? It's very poetic, and elicits a lot of nice images, but it could also be very sexual. Is that your intention? And sexual isn't bad. It could be sensual and intimate and beautiful, if that's your intent. But you can go into detail. Maybe you want it to be completely innocent, and make the flow of her hair one petal, make her eyelashes another petal, her cheek another. Maybe it's something about the fold of her skirt in her lap. You open up so many possibilities that you don't then follow through with.

"It's almost a sin to compare her to a rose."
Wow. Beautiful line. Let me simmer in this one a bit. As Cunegonde says in Candide, "With the rose my only rival / I admit to some frustration / What a pity its survival /Is of limited duration." What is the sin? Is it a sin to say it even though it's true? Might the rose actually be jealous of her if her beauty is greater? You get so close to something specific there, but you don't let us ride it.

"She's exactly where I want to be."
Where is that? Does that mean wherever she is, you want to be there, or that she is in a place (spiritually? metaphorically? physically) that you want to get to?

"Please stay mine, flower."
Is she yours? This starts to bring in a quality of danger that could make it exciting. Are you in danger of losing her? Is it real danger, or is it only in the singer's head? Does he feel inadequate in comparison to her awesome beauty?

Take a look at this song by Joe Iconis called "Lisa": YouTube - Lisa
It's a very different kind of song than you're writing, musically speaking. But listen to the specificity of the lyric. Mention of something like, "I got ADD, I'm fucking ugly," and "She laughs and smiles, fingers through my hair." The whole song shows the awesomeness of the girl through the lens of a singer who feels inadequate. Part of what makes Lisa so wonderful is the singer's perceived inadequacy and Lisa's willingness to either look past that or just not notice it at all.

I'm not saying you should be writing that song instead, but I thought of it while reading your lyric. It's SO specific, rather than just saying, "She's awesome, she's awesome, she's awesome." You've got a lot of good kernels in there; find out what they mean.

THanks a whole lot man this makes me look at my peice in many diiferent ways. about the she seems to be..there's another song associated with this to explain that.

thank you for commenting this much you have helped me a lot sir and i'll be sure to listen to that song