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Hello Taxi Forum Friends,

I'm Brenda K, Chi's music partner and alter ego, and this is our (or MY) first attempt at getting some objectivity on our music with a view to increasing our placements.

I would be most grateful if you would give me your opinion about our track, "Majesty", available on Chi's profile, that we are about to record as the "anchor track" for our upcoming album.

At this point, all we have is the audio track stripped out of the video of our debut performance in the U.S. in April 2008 (We're from Tokyo), so of course the recording quality is not good, and it's just a "bare bones" live acoustic violin/guitar duo, and for that matter, that was the first time we had ever performed the piece and I had barely learned it at that point. We have since varied the "A-theme" slightly so it doesn't keep repeating exactly the same each time too.

We are working on further developing it substantially, and I have the following questions:

1. Genre-wise, we think it is a pop-rock instrumental. Do you agree/disagree? Any more appropriate genre match, or other genres that would fit? (Perhaps this question should be at the end since my description of what we are planning on doing with it will likely impact the answer.

2. In order to maximize its syncability, how should we "dress" it production-wise? Being a dyed-in-the-wool orchestra player, my natural inclination is to doll it up in a lush string arrangement that would be staged in throughout the duration of the piece, and in fact am even learning to play the cello so I can record those tracks as well as violin/viola. There will also be electric bass and drums (Chi plays both very well), the intro will be doubled on 12-string acoustic guitar, and I'm trying to sweet-talk him into doubling some of the violin leads w/electric guitar at the end. One "exotic guest instrument" that may make an appearance is the bouzouki, and we are contemplating featuring a solo by a virtuoso domra player during the coda, which will give it a "world" spin and add some collaborative capital.

I plan on having a "working draft" available to post within the next couple weeks as I blunder my way through figuring out how to operate our recording gear and do some test tracking before we go into the "real" studio with it. I really appreciate the opportunity to get some peer feedback, and please, if you think the proposed idea(s) for this piece is/are fatally flawed, by all means tell me so, as it would really suck to go to an infinite amount of time and trouble and expense to record something that has no viability.

Oh, and of course your general thoughts about the track as it is are most welcome, as well as suggestions for improving it.

At the Rally this year, I will be homing in on engineering and production-related panels since that is the logical next step for us. Last year it was promotion and PR.

Thanks for listening!

Brenda K
http://www.panacheorchestra (apologies in advance, as our site is undergoing a massive overhaul and presently in an embarrassing state of disarray!)

Hi Brenda...your link needs a dot something or other on the end of it....this leads nowwhere

Here is a link to "Majesty" hosted on SoundCloud:

http://soundcloud.com/thepanacheorchest ... ra/majesty

Brenda
http://www.panacheorchestra.com
www.taxi.com/thepanacheorchestra

Hi again Brenda...I listened to your track. It has a certain folky charm to it as it is recorded right now. The melody is very pretty and your playing is by and large very attractive with very few pitchy moments - so for a live recording this is pretty good.

I would cut out the C-section (sorry about that unfortunate choice of terms) you know the part that goes
D D7/c G/b G-/Bb. It is such a cliche and you don't really have anything new to say about it plus it really doesn't have anything to do with the opening theme or it's 'B' section. Not sure about the outro - with the sustained 'd' in the violin. I suppose it could work as a coda but I'm not convinced it has anything to do with the theme either.

My advice would be to make a high quality guitar, violin, and maybe bass recording of a succinct arrangement (something well under 4 minutes) of your basic A+b ideas...maybe run thru them twice with some variation the second time + an outro. Then sit down and work with it at home. You can always go back into the studio and add more tracks if you figure out where you're going with it.

Best of luck,

Hi Richard,

Thank you very much! I really appreciate your taking the time to listen to the track and give me such thoughtful and informed feedback. (I took a peek at your sites and couldn't think of any better qualified person to critique this piece and approach. It's also reassuring to meet another player who has worked with names I recognize, for what it's worth!)

Lots of good food for thought. Not sure how I'm going to "sell" the idea to Chi about paring down his piece in order to improve its viability, but perhaps we could do a few alternate versions: the Chi edit, the Brenda K edit, and the vetted edit, perhaps?

Many thanks again for the direction, and very best wishes,

Brenda
http://www.taxi.com/thepanacheorchestra

I have no informed feedback, but I will say I listened to the entire track, and enjoyed it very much.
Ott

Hi there Ott,

Thank you so much for your kind remarks! I especially appreciate it because I've been reluctant to comment on other people's music here since I'm so new at music placements and know so little about what screeners and music supervisors are looking for, and even less still about critiquing music with vocals...all I've ever done (musically) up until quite recently is work as an orchestra player/sideman/session player with a little composing and arranging here and there.

Very best,

Brenda

P.S. always delighted to meet other "cat people".

Brenda:
Even though it doesn't reference your song, I have to ask: was your reference to "cat people" in your p.s. to my latest tune?
Ott
p.s. meow

Yes it was =^^= (and also on your profile you noted that you have two ragdolls.

you listened and looked, I appreciate it. As far as it is in my kharma to do so, I send you the sweetest of wishes. May all of your dreams come true.
Ott