DanFessler's Collection
 

I've been trying to find a forum community for singer/songwriters for a while now. I've stumbled across this website recently. Looking around, it seems that its mostly lyrically based, but I thought I'd post my audio here and see how well the community here receives it. Critique and constructive criticism is highly welcomed.

I'm still new to things musically, so a lot of my older work is admittedly utter crap. I'll post my two latest songs and go from there...

Living Proof: danfessler.com/music/untitled2.mp3
unwanted: danfessler.com/music/unwanted.mp3

EDIT: actually it appears that I need to make 15 posts before I can link them. I'll edit this thread later with the recordings

Hi Dan,
Welcome to MB! If you introduce yourself down in the Introduction section (which I missed for several weeks after I first posted in June), then everyone will have a chance to "meet" you.

I listened to your songs "Living Proof" and "Unwanted." Your guitar playing is beautiful! Your songs are a good reminder that acoustic guitar by itself is ample musical background for a song. After listening to both songs, the words I wrote down to describe them were these: "You are singing emotion." The emotion comes through very strongly for me.

The first song, I feel, may be about the singer's father...I only wish I knew what the father regretted so deeply! I liked the details, such as his car being old, just barely running, but "he deals with what's dealt." You are trying to paint enough details to give the feeling that the person described is a specific person, yet you still describe the individual in general enough terms that it feels as if he could represent people as a whole.

Your song "Unwanted" has very nice harmony in the vocals...flawless, really, I felt. You are providing all the vocals, correct? Musically, I especially liked the tempo change that accompanied the word "cry," which used note variation to prevent the long word from sounding monotonous. Again, thinking about the lyrics, I liked the details: the tilt of her head, pushing back of her hair, that show physically that she feels unwanted, unneeded. The whisper of the word "love" is a tender way to brush up against the feeling that you are singing.

Your songs have sweetness and intensity; they do not shy away from saying and describing the strong emotions that people sometimes feel are a weakness but which, I feel, it takes great strength to put into words and say, let alone sing!

The one issue I thought about, as I listened to the lyrics, was whether so openly and frequently mentioning words such as tears running down his cheeks, or "I cry" in the song "Unwanted," causes the song to feel melodramatic or real...the answer depending on the listener, of course. I probably tend to feel more comfortable when a song has more reserve in the expression of the emotion...that is, the rawness of the emotion is somewhat hidden or buried somehow in the lyrics and in the sound, rather than stated openly in the words. However, I also felt the music and the lyrics work very well together as they are, Dan.

Listening to your two songs makes me want to hear more (even the ones you feel are crap...and now I'm curious what you feel makes them crap!).

--Erica