Ballade for alto and piano (singer Len Kagamine)

mp3 here: => Ballade for alto and piano

I recently discovered how realistically vocal sound can be produced with Vocaloid2. So I immediately wanted to hear this in a "ballade" created by myself.

I knew singers don't have the tessitura of instruments like pianos, violins, flutes, or basically all instruments out there. That was a bit of a problem for me, having to take that in account while writing.

Then I noticed songs always have two themes: one that is not so catchy and the recurring theme that is extremely catchy, just to have a contrast.

The first theme introduced in the beginning is just a basic chord progression, the second theme is a bit more emotional using sequences and modal chords like III and VI and septime chords.

Pop songs always have simple melodies unlike piano sonatas, toccatas, symphonies and all. I notice that pop songs usually use repeated notes and counter rhythms.

To keep the song interesting I made special modulation, harmony progressions. I'm not too sure if the modulation from C to bes right in the beginning of the song poses any problems to the ear, it sounds really odd to say the least.

Vocalists are really difficult to mix, that I'm sure of.

And the lyrics, don't try to translate them because I just randomly inputted a bunch of unexisting words.

PS: beware: this is kawaii anime music.

Len Kagamine.mid

Hi,

I just joined YC. Please let the newbie comment :)

Interesting approach! Vocaloid2 has definitely become quite good, and I was always interested in playing around with it (but never got around to it). So it was interesting to see someone using it.

I like the complex yet beautiful chord progression, and the style of accompaniment works well with the character of the piano. However, while I agree that the diverse harmony progression keeps things interesting, as a song for vocal + piano, it also made it a bit "hard to follow". The structure of one theme is so complex that I lost track and didn't quite remember the beginning of it. So it happened to me that I didn't realize when the song entered the second verse ;). After listening to it about 3 times I can see the structure better, but it did take a couple of playbacks to understand. (Maybe just me).

I guess the reason why vocal dominated songs are kept simple is because the main feature should be the voice and the words. Adding complex chord progressions can be overkill (even if it's nice sounding), and that's what I felt a bit while listening to it. Maybe it works better as a purely instrumental piece?

Anyways, it's beautiful nontheless, and I enjoyed it a lot! And thanks for mentioning the lyrics are random words. I was about to start deciphering haha!