Critique for a new song from a newbie

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JoyD
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Critique for a new song from a newbie

Post by JoyD » Tue Jun 17, 2014 2:27 pm

Hi Everyone
I am a newbie here and am posting one of my songs for feedback.
I mostly write melodies. The lyric for this song is my second lyric that I have ever written.
To me, writing lyric is much harder than writing melodies. But I just gave it a try :)

Any suggestions and critiques for melodies & lyrics would be greatly appreciated. The demo was made using Boss Br1180 multitrack record, acoustic guitar and mic. The demo quality is far from being professional. Any suggestion for the production of this type of song would be also greatly helpful.

Best
Jiho
Last edited by JoyD on Thu Jul 23, 2015 11:01 am, edited 3 times in total.

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funsongs
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Re: Critique for a new song from a newbie

Post by funsongs » Tue Jun 17, 2014 3:02 pm

From these ears and a first read/listen: one man's opinion:
Nice voice, and a nice complement to the low tuning of your guitar.
Would have liked a little more volume in the vocal.

One lyric:
"Like a breeze, you slipped away" does a breeze "slip"?... or, how about:

"Like a breeze... whisked you away...." or, some other word of your choosing that is a better description of the results of a breeze moving something away and out of its place.

Nice song; decent demo; holds promise.

I'll leave the techy stuff to others... for now I'll conclude and encourage:
"well done."
Cheers,
Peter
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JoyD
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Re: Critique for a new song from a newbie

Post by JoyD » Tue Jun 17, 2014 8:29 pm

Hi Peter
Thanks for the suggestion :)
I will think about better description for that lyric part. As I am not a lyric guy, it is so difficult to come up with good words though.
Best
Jiho

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Re: Critique for a new song from a newbie

Post by nylyrics » Thu Jun 19, 2014 8:04 pm

I must tell you the melodic hook and chords- to my ears, "come back to me - Im waiting here for you" is very good.

I don't know that the lyric elements are quite there yet - not sure a "waiting for years" sort of thing is cool - would hope to move on by then sort of thing....

But I personally would think about what else you could say in that two line hook and then build an emotional story around it.

I mean overall this is a good effort and I hear potential for sure in you the same way I hear it in myself as i struggle to find my way.

I wish you All the best and moments of bliss in your writing efforts.

Andy

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Re: Critique for a new song from a newbie

Post by denalihighway » Fri Jun 20, 2014 5:10 am

Nice song Jiho.

Take anything that sounds technical from me with a grain of salt as that's not be strong point...

there's a very touching quality to your voice. Very comforting. Really like the vocal. the vocal levels seem a bit uneven, bit quiet at the start - perhaps look at the dynamics / compression etc to even the performance out and boost the quiet bits maybe....maybe :)

the lyrics are nice but could do with something a bit more imaginative if you're looking to grab someone lyrically - but to be honest this sounds very 'marketable' to me. I hate that word. I've been using it a lot lately :)

good luck
Gar

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Re: Critique for a new song from a newbie

Post by songmaster » Fri Jun 20, 2014 6:51 am

Hey Jiho

I really enjoyed listening to this one. I found the beginning of the song very moving melody wise. I,m not sure about the lyrics, they do seem to fit. I would try to stick to more conversational lyrics when telling such a personal story. The first line in a song is really important " You shined on my way, like a star when I stumbled " might be written more ugent and make things a little more clear.
An example would be " You left without a word, when I thought we had something special " I know there are too many syllables but I just wanted to show you that people need to know from the get go, what the song is about in the first line. I really like the verse melody but when the chorus came, it almost felt too upbeat for a song that is so emotionally longing for someone, even though it is a great melody, but that's just me.

This song reminds me of Andrew Bells song " You're In My Viens ". You should listen to it and hear how subtle the chorus is and how he sticks to the emotion ( which you capture in your very first verse ).

I would keep working on this song and maybe listen to a lot of other emotional songs like it, especially the lyrics and try to keep it as conversational as possible because Honesty equals Emotion. I have to alway catch myself when I find I am writing too poetic and get back to plain conversation.

Anyways, great song, keep up the good work :)

Tom.

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Re: Critique for a new song from a newbie

Post by JoyD » Fri Jun 20, 2014 9:54 am

Hi, Andy, Gareth, and Tom
Thank you all so much for such helpful suggestions :)
I totally agree that the lyric needs some revision. I will work on the lyric considering all your comments. Of course, I need to listen to many other good songs to get more familiar with how to craft lyrics.

I have just listened to You're in my vein. Tom, I got what you mean. I appreciate you for pointing out that. I think that in current demo of "Come back to me", the textures of verse and chorus are too different. I actually did it on purpose but I think the change was too drastic. In final demo, I will try to smooth that out.

I have one more question for you guys. Is the tempo of the song a bit too slow?

Cheers,
Jiho

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