General Music Chat

Many people asked me to put up a song.
Ill let ya know right now, its not mastered, and it was recorded in a computer mic. It turned out fairly well once you know that.
On top of that, its only a practice song of me mimicing a guitar for classical riffs i rol through in songs.

Cheeck it out if ya want.
Constructive critizism is very welcome.

http://www.bandmix.com/airviking/
http://www.bandmix.com/airviking/

Nice noodling. Lotsa squeeking.

Good to see you're still here, AV.

Too much treble..

Hey, Air Viking.
It doesn't really matter about the sound quality; you'll never please everyone here.
Your intent was to show that you are a musician.
And - you are.
.
Nice composition.
You asked for constructive criticism.
What do you think is the weakest part of your performance?
I think the bigest stength is the actual composition itself, and also your ability to play it.
Here's one thing you can do with it which will improve your performance 10-fold.
Play it note-for note, but slow it down to 3/4 speed.
There are huge tempo discrepancies that can slip by us when we practice a song a lot.
Use a metronome or a drum box.
.
Try to concentrate 90% on maintaining a perfect tempo, and 10% on the rest.
.
Aim high.
When the shot drops with distance, you'll hit the target dead-on.
.
If you were to attempt to play this song at this same speed, but in excellent tempo, then there are parts of it that you'd have to do twice as fast.
Seeing as it sounds like you're flat out already, you'll have to slow parts of the song down.
You can still play the fast parts at the same speed.
But that puts the slow parts out of tempo.
Play the fast parts in tempo, and slow down your playing on the slower parts to maintain an even tempo throughout the entire song, and it'll sound a lot better.
AND - as a side- benefit - it'll be easier to play.
Easier to play AND it sounds better? What more could you ask for, eh?

Hello all and Mr Viking,
I was a bit slow on the uptake that this was being played on the bass, and just thought it was a de tuned classical guitar till I caught on.

It is a hard task to play melody on the bass i think... I was a bass player for six years before I went back to the six string electric, but creativly it sucks as compared to the creative freedoms you get with a six string... in my opinion!
Bass players do not get proper appreciation for their contribution to the sound, and if they do try to achieve something original and ornate... like your piece perhaps... they are just thought to be trying to keep up with the front guys on guitar: "you stick to some nice punchy low notes that fuse with the bass drum, and leave the clever stuff to us!" is the feeling you get!

It was a pleasant piece of bass that circled round itself and had interesting harmonies poking their heads up here and there.
There was lots going for it... if there was a problem, it was of my rather conventional ear, that being bass I was expecting an example of metronomic timing, where it quite rightly did its own thing and steered itself creativly round the trickier phrases by adjusting its pace.

As I implied, I think bass playing is a bit of a straight jacket, like masturbating wearing gloves (try it some time!) you miss out on much of the pleasure!
But don't just take my word for it!
Mark D Phillips..............

Good job airviking...a little scratchy and a bit to fast, but your style brings it together...creative bass players a rare commonity (around here anyways) keep it man...we need more like you.

"You don't burn out from going too fast. You burn out from going too slow and getting bored."
Cliff Burton

Faster! Very progressive... very good. Well, apart from the stuff at 1:15.

lol yeah the weakest part of the song is the 1:15 part,
i got lost and couldnt pick it back up.
plus the mic sucked.
its 50/50 on why it wasnt too good.

Thanks for the comments i hope to get back 1 on 1 when i have time.

There's nothing bad about this IMO. The scratchiness and treble enhance it in some ways. If this were smooth as silk we wouldn't hear you working so hard on your instrument. The title of your song doesn't evoke somebody playing velvety smooth. It's a struggle to survive in the winter. A little struggle here or there on this piece is actually a beautiful thing. I enjoy listening to people wrench sound from their axe. I've never been fond of smooth jazz or soft rock. This is a WORK in progress, literally. Add a hardworking guitarist and drummer to this and you might have something special. As far as slowing down or speeding up, I agree with rhythmman (as usual). Actually slowing this down may allow you to speed up in the gaps and add some creativity. Really interesting to me as I like anything creative and inventive....

thanks fisherman bob.
as for slowing it down or speeding it up.
Its not a jazz or rock song. IMO it is fine the way it is. I might want to lose 6-10 bpm but thats it. Rythem man has a lot of good things to advise, and he is a pro bassist from what I see. however, we differ in that i dont know much about his playing style. I can do all of, Thats not the issue. I just dont get a flair our of it. Thank you guys, keep the comments coming.

Hello again Airviking,
Just had a second listen to your bass piece... and I heard more in it the second time.
I took the small stumble you mention as being an example of it being still at a creative stage, where you are half playing note for note, but half still looking for changes and developements.
I liked the man-made fade out at the end... it gives an almost spooky quality to a piece to hear it fade and become more distant, yet know the musician is still close.

A solo instrument piece is always very brave, and people need to remember just how out on a limb you are musically with nothing else there to back you up.
I try to do something similar in my song 'They Came', which is solo guitar with a vocal line telling the story, but each part can work to cover bad moments of the other, so it's not as lonely as a pure solo piece, and you don't feel the pressure to fill every second.
Cheers,
Mark D Phillips..................

Thanks Mark,
thats what I was going for actually.
It's supposed to be like a lonely dog-sled right on a dark winter night.
The "playful" part as I call it was a piece for a rough, bumpy part of the trail, and then it pans back out to open night sky. The slow staccato part is a theatrical piece about a wolf that follows the man and his dogs, not hunting but studying.
I write the story down for all my songs, if they have words or not.
A song is a story, it a tale, and this tale is about a man lost in the wonders of the snow and sky.

Hello AirViking,
One of the better things about this site are the snippets you get from time to time depicting the lives, or bits of lives from fellow musicians round the world, though mostly up around the north Atlantic and north Pacific of course.
When I saw on your profile about being on an Alaskan airforce base, I thought: I wonder what daily life is like up there and how it colours your creative life?
Over here in little old Sussex England everything is just that bit too cute for the wild romance of wolves etc, though the odd vixen (fox) does howl in the field behind my house some nights!
I go to the wild moors of Cornwall when I need that sort of inspiration, though mainly that was when I was still trying to write novels; now I just ride down there on my motorbike and sidecar to hang loose and drink beer, though I did write one of my songs there.

Your method of writing a musical piece, but with a physical story informing it is I think a strong basis for your future writing; I mean in that it will give a base of real substance to your work, that will help to stop you falling into the usual musical cliches of making this one bluesy and this one funky etc.

Have I got anything cold on my profile song list? Hmmm... I suppose 'Sailing To Alabat' which depicts a sea journey is a bit damp and chilly, but it's as close as I have got to the Alaskan wastes... though Alabat is an island in the Philippines near the equator!

Let's hear more Mr Viking!
Mark............

Hello again Mr Viking,
I completely forgot what songs were on my profile when I said I had nothing cold... 'Christmas at the Priory' was written for a friend of mine called Sister Stella who is as you can guess a nun; her priory was deep in snow for a while this winter and I wrote this song for her, with the intention that it should sound bleak and cold... a priory of nuns shrouded in a cloak of white.
Sister Stella is a young Indian nun, as is Sister keruba in the song; and further on Bincie and Helena are an Indian nurse and her baby who live and work at the priory.
As you can probably guess from the UK's long ties with India, we have an enormous Indian community here; they keep our services and hospitals running smoothly, and they feed us with lots of curry to keep us warm in the winter!
Cheers from across the pond,
Mark...............

For what ever one mans opinion is worth me likie. I'm with Bob on the scratchy, but not quite to the same degree.
Thanks for posting. Looking foreward to much more.