long time away, been making music

[kennyken]

is doan out of college yet? It's been awhile

anyway, I've been writing and producing my own music, and I would love some feedback from the creative folk around here. www.youtube.com/watch?v=umVzhFIi7E4
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cYolB5R98k
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GduzmphjPa8
www.youtube.com/watch?v=q84qcZVUqAM
www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=861895
The youtube links lead to some cheesy videos, but I just wanted to get some songs up on there. If your a registered user feel free to comment and rate.

the soundclick link takes you right to my soundclick page, where you'll find the songs in cd quality.

thanks to anyone who takes the time to check it out, sincerely, I'm dying for some good feedback. If you like what you hear, there are a lot more coming.

Kennyken

[The Smurf]

Good to see you back! I really like the professional sound of the music. The tempo change at the beginning of 'Blind' was really cool, too.

Are you playing with a band or by yourself?


-the smurf

[kennyken]

man, i finally got another computer, been getting online with the ps3, somethings are glitchy as hell with it. Now I can finally do what I want.

I did everything by myself with a boss br 600 digital recorder, it's nice for the price.

So, you liked the songs, did you listen to them all already?


thanks for taking the time, I appreciate it.

[Drew]

Very very nice music, I didn't know you could sing, religious songs aren't my cup of tea, but I like what you did with your music, keep it up. Who knows maybe one day you might be a famous religious singer? Anyway, just thought Id tell you personally how much I enjoy the lyrics, vocal, and the rhythm for your songs.

[kennyken]

the songs are hardly explicitly religious though, you were probably thrown off by my love of religious artwork:)

thanks for the kind words though, It's a lot easier to finish a song than a rpgm2 game!

[Doan the Nado]

I'm checking them out right now. Here are my comments as I go:

Don't Let Go

I liked what you were doing in the first harmony part, but I do agree that it needs a little bit of work. One thing to keep in mind is that usually when you're harmonizing with yourself, it's a good idea to have a different sound to your voice in each part, such as having the harmony part sound a little more mellow or subdued.

At about 1:15 or so the note scooping got kind of bad... it's OK occasionally, but in general you don't want to scoop (slide up or down) into so many notes. Interestingly, one thing that might help with this is to do the singing on Rock Band or another karaoke-style game. It wasn't until I tried singing those that I realized how much I scoop up to higher notes instead of just hitting them straight out.

The second and subsequent harmony parts sounded much better.

"Don't let go..." was repeated about one too many times for my taste at the end.

In the last chorus I was really focusing on the drum part, and I think it was a bit too regular, it could have used a few more fills or rat-tatta-tatta snare action between choral phrases.

I really like the duh-duh, duh-duh distorted electric part that starts at 2:36. At about 3:02, instead of singing the chorus again, I would have liked to hear a basic guitar solo, a high-pitched louder not-too-distorted electric part that just followed the melody of the chorus; it could just go from 3:02 to 3:16 and play the part that you sing. Then it could repeat, but a little quieter, and this time you're singing over it... heck, you could play the harmony parts on the lead guitar here instead of actually singing the harmony. After that, at about 3:40, I think it would be best if it got quiet and the guitar parts kind of dropped out, the drum got real basic and the tempo slowed down. Then just one vocal part singing the "Don't let go...." part quiet and mellow for the last time.

That's it for the critical feedback. It's a good song with good lyrics, and it really has a lot of potential. You have a great voice as well, it just feels like you could use a little more singing practice to avoid the scooping and the occasionally parts where you sound slightly nasally (not annoyingly so, just a little more "shallow" than what I'm sure you're capable of singing). I hope my criticisms don't seem too bad, and that it doesn't feel like I'm trying to rewrite your song. I'm just trying to give you some ideas to change it up a little bit and to improve on what you've done. Again, I really do like the song, it's a good one. I definitely gave the video a 5-star rating.


Hmm.... judging by the length of that post, maybe I should save the others for later, and I'll just do one per post, maybe one a day or something. Unless you'd like me to not continue...


Edit: Oh, and I did get my Bachelor of Science in Computer & Information Science in April of 2007, but I had funding (a project I was working on and then a one-year graduate fellowship) for 5 quarters (Spring & Fall '07 and Winter, Spring, & Summer '08), so I continued with my Master's in Computer Science & Engineering. After that, though, I was pretty much burnt out on school, so I'm taking a break this quarter. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to continue in the Winter, take another quarter off, or what. A lot depends on what happens between now and the end of the year, I guess.

[kennyken]

damn doan, thats some serious feedbaack!! I know exactly what you mean by scooping in the first verse, I didn't really do it in the second verse. It's sort of a habit, I do want to take singing lessons, though. I notice it everytime I listen to the song and it's always bothered me. I think though that it is a really good song otherwise, I didn't want to add that much into this song as I felt it was best as a simple and sincere love song, thus not much lead play.

The funny thing is I hate the drum fills at the end, your the only one whoever picked up on that.

I do want to resing the song as I feel it can really be very good.

Please continue, did you think I'd be mad at you? This is the best feedback I've gotten. I'm insecure, but not that much so. I believe it's a really well written song, but at the same time I know I can improve greatly as a musician, It's hard when so many around you just say "it's awesome". It's like the line in that song"eye of the tiger" about trading your passion for glory", I feel encouraged by your critique and your ideas. especially if you really meant that you liked the song.

thanks for your in depth analysis and I'd be honored if you continued.

[Deleted]

Haha, I was going to post something generic like "I like them" or "They're really good." I do like them and think they're good though.

That reminds me too: now that I have speakers hooked up to my computer I want to check out The Smurf's music. Smurfman, do you remember where you posted those?

[kennyken]

I want to hear some of his music too. post the links smurf.
thanks poopiness, I'm glad you liked them. Which one did you like the best?

[Deleted]

I liked "Blind" the best, but they're all really good. I'm especially impressed by the singing.

I noticed your page said, "not much action on this page yet, it's damn depressing." One way you can get more action is by posting your music at various music forums and asking for feedback. There are lots of them, so just try googling "composer forum" or something. gl

Another thing I think could help is saying your music is country/rock or rock/country. I think it's the vocals that give it a country feel, but your music made me think of Keith Urban (who borders between being rock and roll and country). I'm certainly no expert on music genres, but I think other Soundclick people probably stick to their favorite genre(s) when searching for music, so perhaps specifying more than just Rock and Roll: Rock might help. Once again, I'm no expert on music genres: I only use the big umbrella genre names too, but apparently there are lots of them (for say, recently I learned there are about 5 subset genres within "Trance," a subset genre of Techno - who knew?).

Oh, and a good keyboard synthesizer could help. You don't have to get good, but you can use lots of different synthesized sounds to make each song more different from each other. That's just an idea I had.

[kennyken]

A friend of mine just gave me a keyboard wednesday, it's not the fanciest, but it should provide some nice string sounds or just weirdness to my stuff. I generally dislike country, but the Keith Urban reference didn't bother me, some of his stuff does rock, but I don't hear much of a country sound outside of "don't let go". Did you listen to "Livewire"? not too country:)

the composer forum is a good idea and I will definitely do that.

thanks poop

[Deleted]

Haha, yeah. I suppose your songs range from mellow rock to rock and aren't too countryish. I'm actually not a big fan of country either and only know some of Keith Urban's stuff, but what I do know was good.

And yeah, you should try adding some different keyboard sounds into them for some different instrumentation.

Regardless, keep us posted!