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A song that I'm working on for my band. It doesn't have drums or vocals, but it will. There's a guitar in there.

http://files.me.com/greendogrock/gq6bef

Otherwise CnC.
Thanks!

You have some good ideas in there but I think the overall flow could be improved. I notice that most of the song consists of a sequence of short themes of 1-4 measures each of which is repeated two or four times. I think the song would be much better if you could start with just one or two of the short themes and develop them into longer segments so that the song becomes more unified.

I agree with Chris G. A lot of the middle seems to be unrelated sections juxtaposed incongruously with the main riff, so hopefully that gets tied together better when the vocals are added. To me it sounds as good as anything else you hear on the radio these days, which is sort of damning with faint praise, but if that's what you're going for, then you're good. I don't hear anything really original or exciting (to me), but if you're just looking to sound legit and attract groupies, you don't need that.

If you listen to 10 random current pop songs on the radio, you'll find that 9 of them follow the basic 4 chord format that pretty much repeats ad nauseum (I don't mean that they all use the same 4 chords, but each has no more than 4 chords). After listening to that stuff for a couple days recently, I turned to another station that happened to be playing an Elton John song and I don't even like Elton John particularly but it was just so refreshing to hear a *song* with an actual chord progression instead of just a repeating riff.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of songs that follow the 4-chord model that I enjoy (Coldplay's Viva la Vida and Jason Mraz's I'm Yours for example) but to me it's become tiresome that noone writes anything out of this format anymore (in the pop music world). I never thought I'd look back on the music of the 80's longingly but at least there was variety there.

So, actually, I give you props for writing something that *isn't* just 4 chords over and over, but on the other hand all you've really done is patch together a few disparate 2 or 4 chord riffs. Again, what you wrote is pleasing to the ear and has a good driving feel to it, but nothing about it makes me think "I gotta hear more from this guy" or even "this guy has a unique sound". I think you should at least strive to bring something unique to the table - why should anyone hire your band as opposed to another (besides that you bite the heads off of live bats during your shows, of course :)).

Again, your song really is well-executed and not bad at all. This was more a chance for me to vent about the state of popular music today. I'm really embracing the role of crotchety old man as I get older! It's fun!

-FB

fingerbreaker, good point. I don't think I want to be like the typical pop star. I'm trying to get an authentic feel that grooves, but It's hard. My (very awesome) classical piano teacher, who got lessons from some crazy pianist, said I need some chorus, and frankly so did my friends. I had some even more random sections, with no chorus, but that didn't go far. I'm new to piano? (14 years old) And I want to get some good ideas, but I need some inspiration. I play mostly by ear, and can play Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, ect. from what I've heard from other pianists. But I'm stuck on basic transitions, and my left hand plays 8th's all the time. Benmont Tench from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is my aspired fame. He played classical music when he was a kid, and I think that most good musicians in the Pop/Rock industry did. What is going to get me far? I wanna rock.

I could hear the Tom Petty in the opening riffs the first time I listened to the song, it reminded me a bit of Free Falling. You said you were new to the piano and you are definitely on the right track and doing the right things - listening, playing and taking lessons from a teacher who inspires you.

You might want to spend some time working on your left hand, for example by singing a song (even if you are not a singer) and trying different ideas in the left hand to see how they sound underneath the melody. Knowledge of chords and scales helps a lot here, if you think of a chord as a pallete of notes to use when creating an accompaniment you can experiment with different variations of those notes and see how they sound with the melody.

Hey thanks Chris, that's good advice. I'll get to it!