*NO* Final Fantasy 6 'Terra Darko'

[Liontamer]

Don't mind the filesize, just hop to it - LT

Ahoy there, deary!

I'd like to submit a little somethin' somethin' here.

ReMixer name: Brandon Strader (It's also my real name.)
Email: oinknessx@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.livejournal.com/~boostrader
UserID: 15151

Game: Final Fantasy VI
Song: Terra's Theme

I created this song about 6 months ago, or around there. I was continuing my piano lessons, which I had to quit after about a year because I entered college and really did not have time for them anymore. I produced a couple straight-up recreations of Aeris's Theme, and To Zanarkand, which I learned with sheet music. With Terra's Theme, however, I learned it by ear. It's not a piano song, so naturally, I sort of conformed what I heard into piano... with a twist! I was also quite into Donnie Darko at the time, by which I mean the movie. I love the spooky soundtrack to that movie, and it is mostly piano as well. So, I took some influence from that, and combined it with what I knew of the Terra's Theme song, and created the perfect combination between the two.

I record with Adobe Audition 1.5.

As far as the process goes, there's really not too much to say. I learned and practiced the song on the family's piano located in the living room, yet I used my own keyboard to record this song into my laptop. That's it - it's a dark piano performance that should send a chill down your bone. I personally enjoy listening to the atmosphere behind a performance... the slow smear of reverb contrasted by the bright tap of a note.

About me: I'm a college student. I spend most of my time listening to music, doing homework, or watching TV. My birthday is on September 28th, also known as this coming Friday, and I will be 20 years old. I have a baby named Zut who loves me, and that's that. I play guitar (electric and acoustic), bass (electric), keyboards, lap harp, and I sing clean and heavy vocals. I'm interested in acquiring a flute this year.

If you need any more information, feel free to contact me. I'm also on myspace, http://www.myspace.com/oinkness

I'm interested in collaborations and guest appearances.

Thanks!

Brandon

[DarkeSword]

This is boring. Left hand part is the same thing over and over again, and there's hardly any arrangement to speak of. And this is nearly six minutes long? Why? You could listen to 2 minutes of it an be done.

You need to actually arrange the piece and do some part-writing that doesn't rely on the same fifth-jumping eighth-note pattern throughout the entire piece.

And the bells at the end are nothing but an afterthought.

NO

[JJT]

it's a dark piano performance that should send a chill down your bone.

un huh.

this is frighteningly dull. look, i know what you're aiming for, but we're looking for something more sophisticated in terms of arrangement, performance, songwriting, and mood.

so, in order:

arrangement: from a harmonic and melodic perspective there is no interpretation of the original going on here. adapting it for piano isn't nearly enough.

performance: a 3rd grader could play this without any trouble

songwriting: the left hand pattern goes FOR THE ENTIRE SONG. Basically, you could cut it down from 6 minutes to 45 seconds and still keep all the musical ideas that are being presented. you're going for something minimalist, but in practice it's just boring.

mood: minor chords + reverb do not automatically make something creepy.

NO

[Liontamer]

Not much to add to this level of carnage. :-)

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff6 - "Tina" (ff6-201.spc)

I see what you're going for, but Jon, in his uh...charming way...pretty much gave the breakdown of how the execution is lacking on the various levels. The piece definitely doesn't sound creepy/moody/dark/etc enough.

The left hand stuff was boring and droning and didn't make the composition interesting. The Terra melody sounded nice enough adapted for piano, but there wasn't much interpretation beyond that. The performance was decent, but even a moody piece needs to sound more smoothly performed. You're gonna have to refine this a lot in post production.

The bells at the end were a perfectly fine idea, don't sweat what DarkeSword is saying. Yeah, I can see how they come as an afterthought due to this being a marginal execution of the arrangement, but if the bells had come at the end of the much more solid/sophisticated arrangement, I doubt the complaint would have been as strong. Thematically, it pieces together reasonably well with the previous piano material. Sounds like a perfectly fine way to close it.

If you're going for a Donnie Darko feel, and there are some similar pieces in the score to the approach you were going for, I would definitely study those a lot more closely to get a better idea of the execution, especially for the left hand piano part. You have a good base here, but it's REALLY undeveloped.

Don't be discouraged, Brandon, just keep trying to step up your game and approach improvement piece by piece. Look at what was criticized as lacking and play with ways to achieve more complexity and sophistication.

NO