Looking for critiques...
ryepdx
I'm not sure if it's any good. How it can improve. Etc.
Let me know your thoughts. :-)
Thanks.
Here are the lyrics:
Billy will ride his bike in the clouds
His dragon wings take him where we're not allowed
But the canopy overhead ripens with rain
From the vapors that drift from our watery graves
Beyond the time we got I will be safe
Beyond the time we got I will be away
Beyond the time we got can you see?
Beyond the time we got uncertainty
Uncertainty
Karen will dance on the vents underwater
In life it was said she was Poseidon's daughter
She never knew bikes and she never knew clouds
But her fins will still take her where we're not allowed
Beyond the time we got I will be safe
Beyond the time we got I will be away
Beyond the time we got can you see?
Beyond the time we got uncertainty
Uncertainty
=z=
"ryepdx" <rye...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:146965c1-e2a9-4a78...@o21g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
> Hey, I wrote a song.
> Let me know your thoughts. :-)
> Thanks.
> it is very shitty...you can improve it by flushing it...now go smoke some
> more crack...
ryepdx
Your critique could use some work. What exactly makes this song shitty
and how can I write better songs in the future?
On the other hand, at least you tried. That's more than most people
here did. :-D
Sean
> Hey, I wrote a song. You can see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HQkyaK9jeo
> I'm not sure if it's any good. How it can improve. Etc.
> Let me know your thoughts. :-)
> Thanks.
>
There was a time when this newsgroup was all about songwriting. In fact,
when I first participated here, most people had no way to make their
songs available for listening, so all there was to critique was the lyrics.
Now critiques, on the rare occasions they happen, seem to have more to
do with recording quality or performance than anything else. That's
unfortunate, but that's what it's become.
Anyway, I think it's great that you post a real time performance of your
song, played simply on an acoustic guitar and sung with your real voice,
unmodified by software. For that I would give you an A+. You sing in key
and the tempo is good.
The song has a lot of potential and I think maybe it would be worth
going to the next level of recording: add some instrumentation,
background vocals, etc..
The chorus has a good lift; if I were producing it I'd add harmony
vocals there.
There's opportunity for interesting dynamics: The chorus could really
lift with the choir of angels thing, up up up, and then the band and
background vox all stops for the word "uncertainty." Then gradually
takes the listener up again.
The lyrics are pretty obscure, but hey, that never stopped Stairway to
Heaven. There are some interesting images.
Favorite rhyme: vents underwater/Poseidon's daughter.
Don't pay any attention to that =z= guy. He's generally just nasty for
the sake of it. He'll pretend that "I'm just telling it like it is," but
that's bullshit. He isn't telling anything. The odd thing is, I seem to
remember hearing some of his music once, and it was very good. A mystery.
Richard Heathfield
<snip>
> There was a time when this newsgroup was all about songwriting.
Sounds good to me, but...
> In
> fact, when I first participated here, most people had no way to
> make their songs available for listening, so all there was to
> critique was the lyrics.
...some points arise from this. Firstly, need it be critique? Why
not have discussions about how to go about writing songs in the
first place? Song structures, musical ideas, and so on. And as for
lyrics, well, lyrics without music normally just turns out to be
bad poetry. (I make no comment on the OP's lyrics - I'm talking
generally here; very few song lyrics "work" as poetry.)
There are textual ways to represent music (e.g. Lilypond format), so
there's nothing preventing the discussion of music here.
> Now critiques, on the rare occasions they happen, seem to have
> more to do with recording quality or performance than anything
> else. That's unfortunate, but that's what it's become.
I agree that it's unfortunate - such a discussion would be more
appropriate in a production newsgroup or a song/playing/ newsgroup.
Songwriting is a separate and distinct art.
<snip>
> Don't pay any attention to that =z= guy. He's generally just nasty
> for the sake of it. He'll pretend that "I'm just telling it like
> it is," but that's bullshit. He isn't telling anything.
Actually, he communicates very clearly, insofar as his natural
character shines through in everything he says. A pity, really.
> The odd thing is, I seem to remember hearing some of
> his music once, and it was very good. A mystery.
There's no actual rule that songwriting ability necessarily goes
hand in hand with being a decent kinda guy.
--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
Forged article? See
http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/usenet/comp.lang.c/msgauth.php
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sean
>> The odd thing is, I seem to remember hearing some of
>> his music once, and it was very good. A mystery.
>
> There's no actual rule that songwriting ability necessarily goes
> hand in hand with being a decent kinda guy.
>
There's no actual rules about anything. That isn't the point.
It's just interesting when music that is pleasant and not aggressive
comes from someone who is unpleasant and aggressive.
Sean
> Sean said:
>
> <snip>
>
>> There was a time when this newsgroup was all about songwriting.
>
> Sounds good to me, but...
>
>> In
>> fact, when I first participated here, most people had no way to
>> make their songs available for listening, so all there was to
>> critique was the lyrics.
>
> ...some points arise from this. Firstly, need it be critique?
No. Did I say it did? But when people ask for a critique, my guess is
that they want a critique. In the old days, before it was easy for
people to post their audio online, they would be just post lyrics and
explain what the genre was. A lot of it was country lyrics. Whether or
not one likes country music, there are certain conventions to the form
and there are good and not good lyrics within the conventions of the
form. If someone simply responded "All country lyrics are crap," then
they would be asked to butt out of the conversation. Some folks took
their lyric writing very seriously and worked hard at the craft.
Why
> not have discussions about how to go about writing songs in the
> first place? Song structures, musical ideas, and so on. And as for
> lyrics, well, lyrics without music normally just turns out to be
> bad poetry. (I make no comment on the OP's lyrics - I'm talking
> generally here; very few song lyrics "work" as poetry.)
>
> There are textual ways to represent music (e.g. Lilypond format), so
> there's nothing preventing the discussion of music here.
Well, you may not have heard, but people can easily post actual audio
online now. And I would hazard to guess that a great many songwriters
don't write their music in notation, nor do they read notation. There
are numerous examples of this among the most successful songwriters in
the world. So, given that it is trivial to record and post audio, and
many if not most participants in the NG don't use notation, I don't see
what you're getting at.
And even if folks did use notation, in a newsgroup where very few people
bother to listen to someone else's recording and comment on it, how many
would go to the trouble of learning the lilypond thing and playing the
music before commenting? And the lilypond system, from what I've seen of
it (this kind of thing: <<c4 d4 e4>>) doesn't convey much about the feel
someone is going for.
Traditionally, most songwriters who post in here have made up some song
on their guitar. They strum or pick away and sing their song. It's the
minstrel thing.
Richard Heathfield
> Richard Heathfield wrote:
>> Sean said:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> There was a time when this newsgroup was all about songwriting.
>>
>> Sounds good to me, but...
>>
>>> In
>>> fact, when I first participated here, most people had no way to
>>> make their songs available for listening, so all there was to
>>> critique was the lyrics.
>>
>> ...some points arise from this. Firstly, need it be critique?
>
>
> No. Did I say it did?
No, you didn't say it did. I said (or rather suggested) that it
doesn't - in the vain hope of stimulating more non-critique
discussion about songwriting here.
> Some folks took their lyric writing very
> seriously and worked hard at the craft.
I myself do, but unfortunately not to much avail.
<snip>
>> There are textual ways to represent music (e.g. Lilypond format),
>> so there's nothing preventing the discussion of music here.
>
> Well, you may not have heard, but people can easily post actual
> audio online now.
Perhaps you didn't intend "you may not have heard" as sarcasm, but
that's how it reads. I am going to pretend that I didn't read
sarcasm there, however, because doing so will make for the
possibility of a more pleasant discussion.
Yes, people can post actual audio online now, provided of course
that they have some way to record their song and provided that they
are happy to perform it and be judged on the performance. Not all
songwriters play musical instruments or have great voices; that
doesn't mean they can't write good songs. But you can make a great
song sound lousy through poor performance.
> And I would hazard to guess that a great many
> songwriters don't write their music in notation, nor do they read
> notation.
I know you're right... but on the other hand I would hazard to guess
that a great many songwriters /do/ write their music in notation...
and wouldn't it be a dull world if we were all alike?
> There are numerous examples of this among the most
> successful songwriters in the world. So, given that it is trivial
> to record and post audio, and many if not most participants in the
> NG don't use notation, I don't see what you're getting at.
See above.
> And even if folks did use notation, in a newsgroup where very few
> people bother to listen to someone else's recording and comment on
> it, how many would go to the trouble of learning the lilypond
> thing and playing the music before commenting?
Click
Drag
Open a shell
Start an editor
Paste
Save
Run one easy command (or double click)
Play resulting MIDI file
Hardly difficult. Writing in Lilypond format is a bit harder - but
certainly not as hard as driving, which hundreds of millions of
people can do easily. As for taking one that is *already written*
and converting it into a MIDI file (given an existing installation
of Lilypond), any Usenaut not capable of learning this in under 30
seconds is probably dead from the neck up.
And the lilypond
> system, from what I've seen of it (this kind of thing: <<c4 d4
> e4>>) doesn't convey much about the feel someone is going for.
> Traditionally, most songwriters who post in here have made up some
> song on their guitar. They strum or pick away and sing their song.
> It's the minstrel thing.
Are you saying this newsgroup is off-limits to composers who prefer
piano, sax, strings, flute? Frankly I disagree. I'd like to see
this newsgroup become broader, and cater for a wider range of
songwriting styles and backgrounds and techniques. Seems some of us
are prepared to limit it just to music-illiterate guitarists who
can afford a home recording studio.
(Note: I am using the phrase "music-illiterate" non-pejoratively; as
the LSO conductor said to the orchestra during rehearsals with Deep
Purple, "there are five guys up there, only one of whom can read
music, and they're making you lot look like fools". My use of the
term is intended to be purely descriptive.)
<snip>
Sean
> Are you saying this newsgroup is off-limits to composers who prefer
> piano, sax, strings, flute?
Not at all. But it is a "song" writer group, not a string quartet
composition group. Still, I wouldn't give a hoot if Yanni or John Tesh
or anyone like that posted his stuff in here; I can choose whether to
listen. The point is, if people want reactions to/critiques of their
*songs*, they need to present the song in a manner accessible to the
people reading the group. If they want to post lilypond whatever, of
course they can do that. They can do whatever they want. But if they
want folks to listen to their songs, that route might not get them there
very effectively.
Frankly I disagree. I'd like to see
> this newsgroup become broader, and cater for a wider range of
> songwriting styles and backgrounds and techniques. Seems some of us
> are prepared to limit it just to music-illiterate guitarists who
> can afford a home recording studio.
Really? I wonder who those limiters are? I don't give a crap what anyone
does. I'm just offering advice to those who would like others to listen
to their songs.
Anyway, you don't need a "home studio." If you can afford a computer and
an internet connection, you can probably afford the very limited
amount of gear it would take to record a song. There is very good
freeware (Audacity comes to mind), super cheap interfaces (I see the
Behringer U-CONTROL UCA222 is under $50), and some folks get by with
just a microphone and whatever recording ability their computers come
equipped with. Sufficiently good microphones can be had dirt cheap. For
well under a hundred dollars, anyone with a computer could be set up to
record a song, and with a little care and attention the recording
quality could be good enough not to get in the way of the listener's
appreciation of the song.
It's not a moderated newsgroup. People can do what they please. I would
welcome any action at all if it made this group something more than a
place for that Dockery guy and his friends to insult each other.
Aluode (Antii) has pretty much single-handedly kept this group going
according to its originally intended purpose. He's posting songs. This
used to be a dynamic and creative group, with song challenges and lots
of people listening carefully and responding in detail to others' songs.
Anything that would get it back to something like that would be welcome.
I'll listen to my own admonitions and make an effort to start posting
songs again. (I posted a couple recently, but there was no reaction to
them.) Maybe with a unified effort we can restore life to this moribund
newsgroup.
Richard Heathfield
<snip>
> It's not a moderated newsgroup. People can do what they please. I
> would welcome any action at all if it made this group something
> more than a place for that Dockery guy and his friends to insult
> each other.
Now *that* I can agree to unreservedly.
> Aluode (Antii) has pretty much single-handedly kept this group
> going according to its originally intended purpose. He's posting
> songs. This used to be a dynamic and creative group, with song
> challenges and lots of people listening carefully and responding
> in detail to others' songs. Anything that would get it back to
> something like that would be welcome.
Aye.
> I'll listen to my own admonitions and make an effort to start
> posting songs again. (I posted a couple recently, but there was no
> reaction to them.) Maybe with a unified effort we can restore life
> to this moribund newsgroup.
Maybe so.
To that end, I'm going to (start to) do my bit right away, but I'll
start a new thread to do it. Not a song, as such, but something
that I nevertheless hope will interest song-writers.
ryepdx
I gotta' admit that the only instruments I have are an acoustic guitar
and an electric guitar and zero recording equipment (at the moment)
so... the production quality's gonna' be a little bad for a while, I'm
afraid. I'm stuck with the MacBook my school's loaning me for the
research project I'm supposed to be working on...
Mostly what I'm looking for are simply critiques on the strength of
the song itself. I think a strong song should be able to carry
interest and draw the listener in regardless of how heavily produced
it is. On top of that, I'm mostly just writing music for my band at
this moment and we're a ways off from getting together a full-on album
or anything like that. This means writing for live shows, which means
that for instrumentation I'm limited to guitar, keyboard (or
accordion), and *sometimes* drums. Which means my songs need to be
strong... not that I wouldn't want them to be anyway, but it's more
imperative at this stage. I'm not backed by Virgin or Warner Brothers
or anything. ;-)
Yeah, I was hoping to make them a little obscure, though not so
obscure that a little analysis couldn't unveil the meaning. It's
supposed to be about agnosticism and not knowing "what dreams may come
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil." So I made up a couple
afterlife myths to stand in for whatever your favorite one is. In all
my conversations with people about religion and spirituality, the one
thing that has really stuck with me is the uncertainty at the core of
it all. No matter what they believe (or don't believe), there's always
that little doubt in the back of their head.
So there you go. Exposition. What more could you want? :-3
David F. Cox
"Sean" <se...@fakemail.con> wrote in message
news:7bx%l.31721$Db2.20339@edtnps83...
> Richard Heathfield wrote:
>
SNIP
> Anyway, you don't need a "home studio." If you can afford a computer and
> an internet connection, you can probably afford the very limited amount of
> gear it would take to record a song. There is very good freeware (Audacity
> comes to mind), super cheap interfaces (I see the Behringer U-CONTROL
> UCA222 is under $50), and some folks get by with just a microphone and
> whatever recording ability their computers come equipped with.
> Sufficiently good microphones can be had dirt cheap. For well under a
> hundred dollars, anyone with a computer could be set up to record a song,
> and with a little care and attention the recording quality could be good
> enough not to get in the way of the listener's appreciation of the song.
>
> It's not a moderated newsgroup. People can do what they please. I would
> welcome any action at all if it made this group something more than a
> place for that Dockery guy and his friends to insult each other.
>
> Aluode (Antii) has pretty much single-handedly kept this group going
> according to its originally intended purpose. He's posting songs. This
> used to be a dynamic and creative group, with song challenges and lots of
> people listening carefully and responding in detail to others' songs.
> Anything that would get it back to something like that would be welcome.
>
> I'll listen to my own admonitions and make an effort to start posting
> songs again. (I posted a couple recently, but there was no reaction to
> them.) Maybe with a unified effort we can restore life to this moribund
> newsgroup.
Apologies, I thought I had posted a reaction to the songs Sean put up. I
drove myself to distraction trying to write some lyrics that reflected
Chaucer's reaction to seing a helicopter, only to find it was an
instrumental.
My life is chaos at the moment. Despite that I am tring to get a
collaborator cartoonist to get our song "SeasideMan" up on Youtube.
That goes for the group star Antii too. I started a draft response to his
latest postings, but that too got swept aside by events.
I am also trying to get it on my website. It is on my HD. I am waiting for
my ISP to fix my web space, which is readonly at the moment. I got a test
version up successfully, but cannot update it.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davidfcox/index.html
the group virginmedia.support.webspace shows I am not alone. (They remove
most messages) I will try again tomorrow
David
Bob
of structure - you must learn about song structure then apply this as you
write. What you have is a thought, not a message, that thought is translated
through snippets or pulses nothing I call coherent song writting.
You must go back and figure out what message you are trying to relay to the
listener, then apply a structure to the lines you choose. In the end, it
will be you who elimates much of this in favor of newer more applicable
lines, is what I think will happen.
Just keep this thought in mind, if no body likes it then why continue. If it
don't sell then what is the point, it is like forming a band that nobody
hires to play - - what is the point.
You have to go back and rewrite a more focused song or scratch it altogether
and start anew.
Again, this is merely my opinion... take it or not and do with it as you
will
"ryepdx" <rye...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:146965c1-e2a9-4a78...@o21g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
David F. Cox
"Bob" <rham...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:ReidnUJVxZynVNnX...@giganews.com...
> First and Foremost I have to say that I think your " Song" lacks any kind
> of structure - you must learn about song structure then apply this as you
> write. What you have is a thought, not a message, that thought is
> translated through snippets or pulses nothing I call coherent song
> writting.
> You must go back and figure out what message you are trying to relay to
> the listener, then apply a structure to the lines you choose. In the end,
> it will be you who elimates much of this in favor of newer more applicable
> lines, is what I think will happen.
> Just keep this thought in mind, if no body likes it then why continue. If
> it don't sell then what is the point, it is like forming a band that
> nobody hires to play - - what is the point.
> You have to go back and rewrite a more focused song or scratch it
> altogether and start anew.
> Again, this is merely my opinion... take it or not and do with it as you
> will
>
We can't say "nobody likes it" there are billions we have not asked.
Sometimes songs are written for just one pair of ears.
"The first time ever I saw your face ..."
ryepdx
though? I'm pretty sure it follows a simple ABAB structure... I did
cut one of the chorus chords short accidentally in the version I
posted, so that might've made it feel a little unbalanced. Is this
what you were referring to...?
At any rate, I guess I've been getting into suggesting meaning a
little too much as opposed to simply stating it. I do think it's a
valid approach to songwriting (obviously! :-D) but I suppose I can see
why it might lack universal appeal. It's just a style that has become
popular among my particular group of friends. (Have you ever read the
lyrics to Mars Volta or Nirvana songs?)
At any rate, I'll try to be a write a little more coherently in the
future. :-)
aluode
wrote:
> "Sean" <s...@fakemail.con> wrote in message
Usenet is a dying flame.. A lot of ISPs no longer even offer a news
server service and most
people have begun posting on different web forums. I find it rather
sad because Usenet
groups would always have a more varied group of people than web forums
since they used
to be the only forums out there.
I remember back in.. Ahem. 1988 when I first called to my local VAX
server
with 2400 bbs supra modem to read the newsgroups. It blew my mind that
I -
a Finnish person, could read the weird ramblings of Americans talking
about varied
subjects.
Back then you used to have very esteemed folk posting. It was not
rare
to see doctors, scientists and other famous people posting. I guess
you still do,
but the little Usenet I read these days it seems like most of those
folks have left.
When it comes to RMMS. Maybe I scared everyone away.. :D
Rick Paul had this to say about rmms back in 2007:
He said on that post:
"I'm not so sure, at least in terms of the "old RMMS" that I
remember. Not
many from that crowd were into loops, softsynths, etc. The bulk
seemed to
be either traditional songwriters, who might, for example, write songs
for
other artists to do in genres like country and pop, or folkie-style
singer-songwriters, and probably a bit of rock thrown in here and
there, as
well as the odd other genre or two. There were also some publishers.
I
originally met several of my songwriting collaborators here, but that
was
back in the mid-to-late 90's, especially 1996-1998. After that, it
was
increasingly through mailing lists, especially the old Orbison list,
which
has since more or less split into Talk2Songwriters and SongSource, and
perhaps also AdvancedLyricWriters -- all now at Yahoogroups. (Of
course,
some also just approached me through my web site, but I'm talking
about the
songwriter hangout-type places.) "
He said that he feels that a lot of it was due to the masses coming
online
and diluting the pre existing professional folk. (it used to be
mostly
academics and super geeks who got online back in the day.) And once
the masses got online the pros left.
Antti
Gill Smith
news:dbb70436-b2d5-4a96...@k26g2000vbp.googlegroups.com...
Truth to tell, I like Usenet for the flames. I hate all that nicy, nicey on
Yahoo forums etc, Yuk
--
http://www.gillsmith999.plus.com/
Rick Paul
or 1983 (I don't recall if it was before or after I came back from my One
Year On Campus program). At that time, Usenet mostly was full of
scientists, engineers, and the like, as well as universities, and generally
the scientific and technical students there, as well as military
installations. That is basically the environment where you found the kinds
of computers and networking facilities that were running it. It really
wasn't until the mid-90's, when the web was starting to take off, that the
Internet in general started to become much more prevalent in other types of
environments, especially in terms of offering end-users direct access to
facilities like Usenet. I remember at that time that AOL was offering a
kind of filtered version, where the messages ultimately got out to Usenet
and/or came from there, while their users saw some kind of AOL interface.
Trying that out (with one of those AOL "try AOL free for a month" disks) was
one of the things that convinced me not to use AOL! ;-) Now I've been on
Earthlink since early 1996, if I remember correctly (or maybe it was even
1995?).
I think the thing is that when "the great horde of unwashed masses" came to
the net, with no grounding in how to use any of the actual tooks, and
sometimes even being computer phobic since it wasn't mostly young people at
that point and computers for consumers were still, while not new, nowhere
near as omnipresent as they are now, Usenet started to become one of those
obscure tools that most people didn't even know was there, no less how to
use it. While AOL was going strong, their filtered access helped lots of
people get on Usenet, but the pure internet providers didn't have an
equivalent, so their users mostly saw an e-mail program and a web browser,
and largely didn't venture beyond that.
These days, I doubt if many young people even know Usenet exists (if it even
does on their ISP's servers since many have now discontinued it), and, if
theyr'e using Outlook Express at all, probably are just using it for e-mail.
But many aren't even using external e-mail programs, just their web browser
and their ISP's (or Google's or Hotmail's or Yahoo Mail's) web-based e-mail
clients. And some young people are mostly avoiding e-mail altogether in
favor of the social networks and instant messenger programs.
That leaves mostly older people on Usenet, and attrition sets in. It's too
bad, though, because even the best web forum interfaces are horribly
inefficient compared to most newsreaders. I personally just don't have time
to deal with web forums, whereas I can get through even fairly busy
newsgroups pretty quickly thanks to the much more efficient setups.
Rick
--
=======================================
Rick Paul
Closet Cowboy Music (ASCAP)
Web: www.RickPaul.info
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic
=======================================
"Gill Smith" <gill.sm...@googlemail.com> wrote in message
news:n9KdncgphaeMaNjX...@brightview.co.uk...
aluode
> These days, I doubt if many young people even know Usenet exists (if it even
> does on their ISP's servers since many have now discontinued it), and, if
> theyr'e using Outlook Express at all, probably are just using it for e-mail.
> But many aren't even using external e-mail programs, just their web browser
> and their ISP's (or Google's or Hotmail's or Yahoo Mail's) web-based e-mail
> clients. And some young people are mostly avoiding e-mail altogether in
> favor of the social networks and instant messenger programs.
The problem with Usenet is that it is in no ones interest to advertise
it, to sell it. To develop it further.
No one owns it. If Usenet was started today by a start up, it probably
would be worth a billion dollars,
it would be a big thing. But since it has been around since the early
days of internet,
it has lost its luster, it has become uncool.
It makes me wonder if it would be possible to revive Usenet with some
new applications and
new innovation..
Antti
David F. Cox
relaunch usenet as twitter without the limits?
Gill Smith
If only Usenet could emulate a couple of other mature technologies that are
still holding their own viz. books and radio.
--
http://www.gillsmith999.plus.com/