Rock-ballad: comments on song structure needed!

Hi guys!

Appreciate it if you guys can give me some feedback on this song Angel.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~acichope/thanestandrew.com/Angel_www.thanestandrew.com.mp3

I'm interested more from a song structure point of view. Does the chorus work for you guys? Does the song seem to have dynamic movement? Is the structure an effective vehicle to convey the emotion of the lyrics.

Any suggestions, feedback and input will be greatly appreciated.

Point me to your song and I will give you my 2 cents worth of critical feedback.

thanks
ari

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~acichope/thanestandrew.com/Angel_www.thanestandrew.com.mp3

Hey Opaque!

thanks for the review... hmmm I think I know what you mean. Will get it together with the vocalist and see what we can come up with. The idea was to give it that haunting/plaintive kinda quality at the end of the chorus but it might not be coming across.

cant wait to hear your post-sonar and still NASTY tracks! like the musicianship on what I heard... keep it up!

lwb

I loved the soft guitars to start. When the vocal came in it sounded too dry, but great vocalist. I liked the song a lot. It has the cool soul vibe to it. The only thing is I think the vocals are too dry.

Hi,

I thought the dry vocal worked well for the song, nice and intimate. I didn't hear the problem with the chorus, sounded fine to me.

Good song, well thought through, interesting production.

James

Thanks James and rbowser,

Thats definitely some stuff to think about. The singer (Thane) does tend to have a very nuanced vocal delivery and we will have to go through it pretty carefully and make sure the chords reflected the vocal accurately. Though sometimes its hard to do that while retaining a stark harmonic structure which is effective in this sort of ballad....

The problem now being that I have heard it so often it all sounds right to me!

Could perhaps use a little more instrumentation and maybe a more controlled and consistent direction throughout the song. Thanks for pointing that out and we will try and work through it.

You guys are a terrific sounding board.

Thanks again!

lwb

Hello again, Lwb

"...The problem now being that I have heard it so often it all sounds right to me!..."

And we're here to validate that what you're hearing really Does sound "right."

Music emanates from a very personal place. It's possible to create music which nobody else can actually relate to, but if we kept coming up with pieces like that, we probably wouldn't continue writing music because the lack of feedback and an audience would be discouraging. Obviously, we want to come up with music that nourishes ourselves as well as our listeners.

So we put out aural records of our music with hopes that we've done it in such a way that an audience, however small that audience may be, will find and relate to what we're doing.

One thing we do to help get our musical messages across, is to pay some respect to established musical methods, so our listeners have a understandable context in which to hear our messages. The musician who breaks the most rules has the most difficult time in communicating with his potential audience, because he has to prove that what he's doing is worth breaking the rules for. If he doesn't establish that his unique method is effective, then his work will be consigned to the "experimental" heap--not necessarily a bad heap to be placed in, but not the niche many people really don't want to be in, when they're hoping to reach as broad an audience as possible.

Now, getting around to your specific project--I'm thinking that it's not the vocalist's unique (and wonderful, I should add) technique that needs to be changed in order to make your recording more effective--it's the musical arrangement that should be augmented. I think you already understood my earlier post, but I'm carefully going through my thoughts again to make myself as clear as possible.

What I would like to hear is the guitar chords incorporating the notes established by the singer as the melody of the song. A "G" chord becomes a more complex "G + 5 augmented +diminished +9th"--WHatever--it doesn't matter what the chord is named. The chords should just be analyzed to the point where it's established where melody notes are missing, and unsupported by the accompaniment, so adjustments can be made.---Often the melody line can be suggested by a spare accompaniment---other times it's a matter of an arrangement being under developed as compared to the melody line. There's no science involved in figuring out the difference between those two points.

I suggest you just go through the song and feel out where a more complex chord would better support what the singer is doing. Meantime, I don't think the singer and his melody line should be changed at all--That's the essence of the piece, and what you want to support as best as possible with the recording.

I really like what you're doing. --Looking back over this long-winded reply, I realize that's why I've typed so much!

Randy
rbowser

Hi ari,I heard the song.Overall it sounded nice to my ears.There were some abrupt chord changes.The bass was sounding good.Very expressive singing with parts.I have no enough knowledge to say anything about the lyrics.
R.Chandrasekhar

I definitely agree with rbowser's well thought out and effectively articulated comments.

In my opinion, as a producer, a careful balance needs to be struck between showcasing an artist's unique sensibilites and vision and providing the audience with something fresh yet accessible.

In the light of our valuable discussion here,

-I am excited to rework some of the changes with Thane, at the very least for our live showcases, where its just vocal and guitar.
(rbowser,fep)
fep. The chord Dbsus2 (Db add 9) chord is there. The guitar player touches on it in the intro and during the verse. Perhaps it could stand to be brought out a little more


-I bemoan the fact that in these years of computer/multitrack recording, sometimes precious feel is lost by having each instrument record by itself... its really difficult to capture a shared vibe that this sort of a song (or any song) demands.
(ToneCarver)

- I resolve to hang out more here!

thanks!

Background vocals were great, the only thing I heard was maybe the ending was too abrupt. I liked the Hammond B3 sound also.