YorkeDaddy

A Short Reflection

So the album's done and released. Is it the masterpiece we sought to create? Well, we have no idea...

And that's because it's harder than I previously thought to get people to actually listen to our album. Nothing against this community, but we've gotten I think two comments on the actual music we made, and the number of downloads we've gotten on Bandcamp are disappointing to say the least. I don't want to sound like I'm desperate for listeners, but frankly.......I'm desperate for listeners.

I'm not sure where I went wrong, to be frank. I guess the primary, traditional method of getting fans is a route we should have taken (as in, actually playing lots of shows at local venues), but given our current life situation where we both attend different colleges and don't have any other band members to perform live with us, I'd say it's a difficult proposition to make come true.

Maybe we're not actually any good. That's something I'd be okay with accepting, but some criticisms would be nice. Music is something I love doing as a sort-of 'hobby-yet-more-than-a-hobby" type of thing. It's not something I want to do as a career, but it's one of the most important aspects of my life and I want my created works to be listened to by people, but making that happen is hard.

Where do we go from here? Well, it's going to become increasingly difficult to see my bandmate for extended periods of time from here on out, so I'm not sure if the two of us will ever collaborate on an album again. We'll just have to see where life takes us.

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Anteater

I heard Frownland and liked it amigo. At the same time though, if your serious about your music, you also need to think more like a businessperson about it in regards to reaching out: ask yourself - "what audience am I aiming for and where can I get ahold of them?"

I know artists hate to be categorized by genre or whatnot, but your casual listener is going to be searching for music online based on those categorizations unless they already know who you are. I really can't stress it enough: identify your audience and market to them once you've got a good grasp on who and where they are.

Some starting point advice: submit your stuff to places like Spin, PopMatters, etc. and also to bloggers who specialize in writing about Indie stuff. All you need is just ONE person with an audience to fall in love with your material and that'll be the spark you need.

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Trollheart

Whatever you do, don't fall into the trap of thinking you're no good. This is one AMAZING album and I am listening to it constantly now. I will say of course a hell of a lot more when I review it, which I hope won't be too long now.

For anyone else all I can say is this is, without hype, as good as or better than a lot of the commercial music being released at the moment, so do yourselves a favour and download. You won't be disappointed. I mean it.

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DriveYourCarDownToTheSea

OK I've listened to the first several songs. I'll listen to the whole thing tomorrow at work (unless I get stuck doing something away from my desk most of the day). My initial impression is ... it sounds promising, but it needs work. A few initial thoughts:

1) If you want the album to succeed, you've got to have at least one song (preferably the first or second cut) which has "commercial hit" written all over it. I'd say this is especially true of a new band just starting up. If there aren't any songs that really jump out at you, it's not going to get anyone's attention. So far, there are some decent songs, but nothing that really jumps out at me. It may bother some purists to deliberately write a "commercial" song, but it's the reality if you want to get noticed.

2) I like the way you've got a variety of songs, but I think you should develop that a little more. There's nothing more boring than an album where all the songs sound roughly the same (even if it's a good sound). Most good albums will have a variety of fast songs, slow songs, loud songs, soft songs, songs emphasizing different instrumental arrangements, songs in minor keys, songs in major keys, etc. You've got a decent start there, but it would be nice to expand on it a bit more.

3) Melodic patterns. This is one of my biggest beefs about a lot of bands. Especially in bands with just one main songwriter, that songwriter often writes his/her songs which tend to follow similar melodic patterns, and this can lead to a bit of monotony. You've got *some* variety, but there's still a lot of sameness in the melodic patterns (though I've definitely heard worse). I see you've got two songwriters - I'm going to presume either: both of you sit down and write the songs together, or one of you writes the music and the other writes the words. I would suggest you might want to have each of you two write their own songs separately, without input from the other (at least at first). The reason for this is because each of you, writing separately, are bound to have your own individual styles. If Guy A tends to write bouncy melodies in major keys with long, wordy phrases that don't repeat for half a minute, while Guy B tends to write more somber tunes whose vocals meander around a narrow range and is very minimalist with his words, then you've got a *great* combination which will give the album some really nice variety. This is why bands such as the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and Animal Collective were/are so great: Each of those bands had at least 2-3 songwriters with wildly different styles. When you play the album, you never know what to expect from the next song.

That criticism is by no means true of all one-songwriter bands, but it's definitely true of a lot of them. Also, if you already write songs the way I suggested above, then I think each of you two might want to individually practice "writing songs in ways you wouldn't normally write a song." Start some songs out by patterning the song around a guitar riff, write other songs by writing the words first and then fitting a melody to it, write yet other songs by humming out a pure melody at first and the writing the words/arrangement around that melody, etc.

Anyway I got through song #5, I'll listen to the whole thing tomorrow.

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DriveYourCarDownToTheSea

BTW, I just glanced through your first page (sorry for not seeing it until late). My 2 cents is, it's nifty you've got some philosophic story/theme you want to craft the album around, but don't get too hung up on it. The purpose of music is, well, the music. Focus more on writing good songs, and following your theme should be secondary. Words that are vague and/or open to interpretation are OK, because sometimes you end up doing that just to get lines that rhyme. If a song doesn't state a message as strongly as you would have liked, because you were trying to fit some lyrics into these short melodic phrases you wrote, don't worry about it. The listeners won't notice, and even if they do, they won't really care very much.

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Trollheart

Seriously? You don't see "Welcome to the party" as a chart-smasher? Or "One private moment" as a good single???

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DriveYourCarDownToTheSea

OK, I'll analyse those two songs in depth ...

One Private Moment
This song has potential to be successful, but I think you "develop" it too slow and too sparsely. It's got a good-enough melody to be a hit, but I think the arrangement needs work. Details:

-- The opening guitar riff. This is a decent opener, but my feeling is that it could be better. For starters, I think it would be better played with an electric guitar rather than an Ovation (or whatever similar amplified-acoustic you're using). Either that or use a "pure" acoustic guitar (though I think electric would be better). It might even work better on a keyboard, maybe. Also, you start out with the short synthesizer segment, but then it slowly disappears after the guitar kicks in. I would suggest to not do that - instead *overlay* the guitar on top of the synthesizer - this builds up drama for the listener (and do something else with the synthesizer after the guitar kicks in). And speaking of "layering", around the 10-11 second mark when the riff switches to a different chord, it would be nice to add yet another layer - either a counter-riff, bass line, some drums or even just a rhythm guitar part. Study Tame Impala's It's Not Meant to Be. This is a great example of (an extended,) layered introduction. The bass line is particularly catchy. Notice how the song builds up. I can tell Kevin Parker has *really* done his homework and studied a lot of pop/rock music just by listening to that one song - he presses all the right buttons and clearly knows what he's doing.
-- Around the 38 second mark there is a vocal pause of empty space which seems to come out of nowhere and is not filled with anything. I think it would sound better with either: 1) a complete, 100% pause in the music, or 2) fill it with yet another new layer of ... something. You're about to introduce a new verse - set up the listener for that by either pausing altogether or introducing something new. Or both.
-- Second verse. Follow through with what I suggested just above. Don't just repeat the first verse, add something to it. New instrumental layers, a harmony, maybe even change keys.
-- The verse starting with "Pressure." Here you *finally* introduce a new layer. This is what you should have done at least 1 verse prior, if not somewhere in the introduction. But by now you should be taking the listener into some whole new realm. It's nicer here than in the introduction, but by now the listener should be surrounded by sound, with at least a couple guitars, bass, maybe a keyboard and maybe some harmonies. Then, maybe later in the song, drop *all* of that as a pause and start all over again.
-- Basically, the arrangement you've got near the end of the song is similar to what you should have somewhere about halfway through the song. Then, maybe 2/3 through the song, throw the listener a wrench by either blowing them out with sound overload at the end, or by completely dropping an already-developed overload by going back to the original sparse arrangement.
-- As one final comment, I realize you might not have had the equipment to do it, but I think your voice (or your band-mate's) voice would sound better double-tracked.

Welcome to the Party
Not quite sure what to say about this one. It seems a little more developed than the first song, but it still seems to need something else. A bit disco-esque. I like the synthesizer solo, but I think if you worked on the refrain/chorus and gave it a "zippier" melody you'd have a better song. Interesting end, though. That works pretty good.

A good way to learn how to be a good songwriter is to study how other good songwriters went about it. Here's an interview I always liked where Paul Simon is talking with Dick Cavett about his approach to songwriting. Notice how he's interested in what the listener is expecting (especially the part starting around 3:30 or so):



Anyway, don't take all this to be critical, I'm just giving what I hope are helpful suggestions.

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YorkeDaddy

No no, I love any and all criticism, especially from someone that clearly knows a LOT about music like you!

Every suggestion you gave has merit to it and is something we should and will keep in mind when we continue to write more music. I won't address every point you made in detail, but I promise that both Schuyler and I read over all of it carefully and greatly appreciate the time you devoted to us.

Also, sorry for taking a month to respond to your post that you took time to make. Life, you know?

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http://cloudcover1.bandcamp.com/
http://daydreamsociety.bandcamp.com/

9-Time Winner of MusicBanter's "Most Qualified to be a Moderator" Award