timaeus222

Nooooooooo I won't stand for this I'll sit, though.

Okay, so the differences I notice: - 0:21 has a new chord movement in the tubular bells - 0:27 has a little trill and then a little ascent in the melody - New notes at 0:29 - Octave shift soon after, followed by bells, and this is done again later - Other subdivisions and soaring movement in the melody 'n stuff Yeah, I like the new melodic direction. I couldn't tell what changed at first on full consecutive listens, but when I compared them side-by-side, the changes are pretty clearly differentiating. This is well on its way. You might wanna have a judge take another look at it to be sure, but I think it's got a much better shot now.

That's awesome. I mean... thats awesome. funniest thing i r haz seen all week.

What did it sound like before? It'd help to hear what you did to it. It looks like there may have been the lofi-but-fitting orchestral elements added? Lead melody variation? Anyways, I think the judges are right, and I agree, that the swing section and on are where the interpretation was greatest. I'd estimate that it's about 70% similar or so to Giant's Rage. Something like that. The arp tone and the lead's melodic contour are rather similar, but you had some good flourishes and portamento on the lead that differentiates some. Perhaps you could try changing the harmonic direction too; instead of following the original chord progression, maybe change the second half of a bar's chord progression and do a key modulation out, and back in later. Or maybe go down to a minor third below the root and ascend to the root in the bass.

I'm slightly curious, are your caps lock / shift keys broken (I'm kind of joking)?

So to summarize my interpretation of what you've been saying/thinking: - Atonal music does not return to a particular tonic which marks the tonal center of a key. Atonality is defined in the context of the whole, not in fragments, isolation, or sections of a song because it's not enough context. - Dissonant music is still tonal, though perhaps unconventional. - Music theory only describes what you want to write or have written, and ideally shouldn't be something that gives you rules on how to write music. - Ear training is a practical, common way to learn how to write music, and if you do it long enough you might do things you can't explain with theory, but it means you do 'know' theory enough to write music that can still be explained with theory by someone else that understands it better. (I'm assuming that if you know how to hum a bass line that just works, it still counts as 'knowing' theory?) Seem to jive with you?

Yeahhhhh, there we go. That kick and bass are punching through! This is really coming along! Definitely a fresh take, unique, and with plenty of flair to it. Just a note, the bass instrument seems to have its lowest frequency at 50 Hz or so (not that there's anything wrong with that). That plucky arp at 0:30 seems rather quiet; I think the pad might be covering it up. The arp that plays the intro arpeggiated source hook (from the first few seconds) there seems to be washy in reverb; I can kinda hear it, but these headphones are my driest. I would try automating the wet mix down some for the parts where it's hard to hear, and raise its volume in general. Also, I seem to be hearing a piano in the background too... sorta. Everything sounds great arrangement-wise IMO. I just think the reverb could be toned down to hear things more distinctly, and some arp levels can be raised (and consequently your lead guitar) to hear everything at a normal volume. Mostly the reverb. No worries though, I used to have lots of trouble with using too much reverb.

Yeah, I agree, the kick is a little light on the low end thump. In contrast, the lead guitar at 0:37 hits a low note that shows it has lower frequencies than about 300Hz, so it might clash with the bass occasionally but I can't check at the moment. The bass instrument is a little quiet as well (maybe about 1.2 dB), but I wouldn't say for sure whether it's hollow or not since I can't check yet.

lol 1 month no replies suspiiiiiiicious ¬_¬

How aware are people that you are doing a kickstarter in the first place? I feel like you've been just here, gone for a long time, and back here again. I don't really know you that well, for instance. Didn't you just start it yesterday?

The important part of my sentence was, "with respect to [the song's] key". Again, I'm not explicitly considering atonality defined for the stance of an entire piece of music, but in an isolated section of it, in comparison to the overall. Semantics... I have other things to do. >_>

No dude, I said your solo was atonal with respect to its key, i.e. within the confines of its section/timestamp, in isolation. I didn't say your remix was atonal as a whole. Also, even though you didn't actually say that, I got that implication from other things you said. Again, not something I would really need to go into in omgsupersrs detail. It's not the most important thing in the world that I know how to identify atonal music, only that some music sounds tonally conventional, some not so conventional.

Basically you just said that music is more often rationally written in a tonally unconventional way than in an atonal way. Yeah, that's fine, but I don't often talk about that kind of detail-oriented debateworthy content. I think of atonality in the confines (i.e. timestamps) of a section of a song I'm examining. Yeah, you can't say a whole song is atonal from one section being as such, but atonal sections are entirely logical to identify even when the song is mostly tonal.

To clarify, I meant that accidentals are atonal with respect to the actual key, so in the confines of the ground they cover, they are out of the key that acts as their original context.

My point was that it kind of derailed into whether or not I know definitions of musical terms. I'm not the focus, music theory is. Also, like I said (twice), I've heard plenty of atonal music, namely Webern and Schoenberg, amongst others. Wouldn't you consider this atonal at times (besides the apparent Middle-Eastern influence, which of course is not atonal)? Especially at 1:06 - 1:19.

lol The ample/plentiful ear training sounds like it makes it difficult. Anyways... getting rather tangential here.

yeah dude no need to keep posting definitions. It's just less clear what key you're actually in if you have to listen for the tonal center to realize it's still a particular key. So yes, I do know what atonal music is. Schoenberg and Webern and such wrote it. I learned that last semester. And no, it doesn't imply I'm calling much of classical music atonal, just tonally unconventional.

uh https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=atonal unless Google is wrong

Yeah, it means not in an explicitly definable key or mode. Someone like Schoenberg writes/wrote that stuff. You basically said it yourself that you think it's smart when people write music that has notes outside of the key, which under that definition is temporarily atonal during that outside-the-key excursion (besides, in that remix, you had a piano solo that went out of the main key).

Sure you have. In other words, you wrote that remix while recognizing the music theory concepts you had learned about [in your musical studies] that happened to be applicable in this context, and so you see that you wrote something atonal [within that remix] that was technically correct, i.e. valid under the concepts of music theory.

Just like you don't need to know that the normal force of the ground pushes back at the force your feet apply at an angle to the ground, allowing you to move forward when you walk! #nerdcore

Yeah, it's weird to think of it as if intuition about theory can work just as satisfactorily as reason about theory can work, eh? If I get stuck, however, I don't go look up the theory on how I can write this in a technically correct way; I hum the bass line that works with the melodic contour I'm writing at the time (usually in one or two tries) and from there I just hear the chords in my head that work, and I write it out. Yeah, it takes a bit more time, but in my case I don't feel hindered. Freaky!

Okay. All I'm saying is that going out and outright learning music theory and taking it ermahgerdsupersrs could work, but if it seems like a bit much to take in at the time, it could be better to just either wait on it, or try learning the ideas more by intuition than by straight reading and applying and just "do" music theory. I don't find it a bad thing that I'm trying to be humble, but thanks.

dat oscilloscope I've totally used that exact model before omg

You said "How can you possibly bring out the best of something if you don't understand what makes it tick?" Well, it's true, I can't explain what I did there, but I did it anyway. That's my point. I get that it works and I know how to tweak it so that it works, but I can't write out in words why. All I can say is that it sounds good, and if it sounds good, that's what matters for me. Maybe I ought to be back at ya.