Feedback needed

[Bell Green]

Towards the end of last year, sometime in October I think I was asking people here to help with ideas for an album project. Well I still feel I'm at square one with the idea for a theme or concept, something that will run through it all. So what I've done is to put together some past works into an album of sorts. Some of them are songfight songs, but then that's the main thing I've done musically for the last couple of years. I've put these songs onto cd's and given them to friends for some feedback. What I'm trying to ascertain is an idea of where I've been in order to see where I'm going next. What I've been asking my friends to do is to give me comments on what they think of my works as a whole rather than individual tracks. So if anyone here has the time and patience to have a listen to my recent works and give me some feedback, I'd much appreciate it. Please shoot from the hip and say what you really think, as I'm sure you will, but tell me what you think of my sound in general, whatever seems to run through all of the songs.

here is the link:

http://www.yogarup.com/album.html

I hope that asking this does not go against any songfight conventions, I don't know why but I have a feeling it does. Please delete the post if it does. Thanks all.

[Kamakura]

I hope that asking this does not go against any songfight conventions.

Unless your music has broken the Geneva convention on torture probably not.

[jb]

I can't see why anyone would be upset about this, Bell.

[roymond]

I've put these songs onto cd's and given them to friends for some feedback.

Well, there's your first mistake. If I've learned anything from the last 20 years, it's never ask friends for feedback about my music. That's what SF is great for

I'll listen tonight.

[king_arthur]

Bell -

"Half A Stone" on your artist page cuts off at 1:24, but the version you put on songfight is 3:37 or so. Did something get messed up, or is this really a new, shorter version that just happens to be the same length as "Shaving in the Dark?"

Charles

[Bell Green]

Charles, the "Half a Stone" on my download page is a different version. It was my original idea for the song where I read from Jack Kerouac's "On the Road". It doesn't have the bridge that was used in the songfight version.

The reason I thought that this might not be kosher was that it might be seen as a lame excuse to get people to listen to my songs and that I might not be taken seriously. Some form of stagefright I imagine. Thanks for being supportive.

[Mostess]

Well, there's your first mistake. If I've learned anything from the last 20 years, it's never ask friends for feedback about my music. That's what SF is great for :)

:)

[king_arthur]

Bell - a couple of general comments.

The impression I get from listening is that the songs are on there in the order they were written / recorded (except Half A Stone), they definitely get better as the album progresses. The flip side of that is that the first song is almost unlistenable for me... on the first verse, it sounds like the snare drum is on the "1" rather than "2" and "4" and everything is just really messy. If nothing else, I would suggest re-recording "Falling Apart" from scratch. If you're not going to write new songs for this project, I would suggest re-recording most of it... and consider re-ordering the songs based on some criteria other than when they were recorded...

Something I noticed on a lot of the songs is that each "section" of each song is almost always some set of four chords repeated four times. The chorus is different from the verse, and each song has its own chord patterns, but almost every chorus is some set of four chords, four times. I'd like to hear more varied chord progressions in the different sections. It also felt like most of the songs are in the same key, but I didn't sit down with a guitar and confirm this...

I didn't hear any common themes that would tie the songs together into a concept musical, but that's not surprising given that a lot of it was written to songfight titles. If you want to do a concept album with songfight titles, you probably need to pick your concept first, then each week, look at the titles and see if any of them fit into your story line. For instance, maybe you decide you're going to do a musical version of the life of Pablo Picasso. Based on his apparently rather abusive personality and the fact that he was a painter, write a song for "Bitter Orange" that fits into your story somewhere. Submit it to songfight and get some critiques and polish the song into its final version.

Of course, you don't HAVE to do a "concept album," but my recollection is that, originally, you said you wanted to go in that direction...

Overall... for me, there were some interesting songs later on in the collection, but the performances throughout could use more work. If this was a CD I'd bought somewhere, it would probably not be a "keeper" in my collection in its current state. In particular, that first song doesn't make a good first impression and re-recording that one would probably be the single most valuable improvement right now.

Charles