TeknoAXE's Music Thread
 

Hello all!

I'm a song-writer/musician that loves to write songs and present i to people around here. I've read the forum guidelines and understand that I need to create a single thread for my music, so I will post my music here.

You'll find that my music is very diverse, from Rock, to Techno, to Symphonic, to stuff that I can't even classify.

So, without further ado, I shall post my stuff below this post.

Great to be here!

Royalty Free Song #1 (No Title)
Techno/House (I think)

My catalog starts earlier on youtube, but I'd like to start it here. If you want to start earlier, I have a playlist that goes further back.

http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=88FA766DD8996420

Royalty Free Song #4 -- Crisp Morning
Cinematic -- Symphonic

Royalty Free Music #5 -- Superhero
Cinematic -- Symphonic

Royalty Free Song #6 -- The Persecution of Tom
A remix of the wacky Pennsylvania Tax Commercial :P

Royalty Free Song #7 -- Under Cover of the Myst
Videogame-ish Soundtrack - Cinematic

Kate's Last Day in New York
Techno Song -- Remixed from my friends Youtube video -- contains samples of greetings cards, rapping and airport noises

Royalty Free Song #8 -- Transient
Funky Song

There's more, but I don't want to bludgeon you all to death with it all. :) Will post more later if you like.

Here's one of mine with actual lyrics! :D

Shooting Shotguns in the Outland:


Standing in the woodland,
breathing all the fresh aire
moisture in my sinus,
I can't seem to think about

the pressures of my real life
standing in this rural outback
where the dear are plenty
Shotgun in my pretty city hands!

I can load the muzzle!
I can aim my shotgun!
I can break some good glass!
I can drop a pheasant!

In the Army I shot!
An itty bitty rifle!
With nothing but a bee-bee!
A piece of lead with,

nothing not even this much
kick back
or
thundershot crack
barbaric and a nuisance!

I can load the muzzle!
I can aim my shotgun!
I can break some good glass!
I can drop a pheasant!

Teknoaxe,

A belated thank you for visiting my thread. I listened to your songs and decided to focus on the two symphonic pieces, since I like classical music and haven't heard many people on MB who are interested in composing it.

"Crisp Dawn," a short symphonic piece with heavy, militaristic drumming and slightly eerie synthesizer violin sounds, was my favorite of all the pieces you have posted so far. In "Crisp Dawn" you intentionally left the drum silent at times. I felt those silent spots were important because they created more contrast and excitement than I expected in such a short piece.

"Super Hero" definitely sounds heroic! I know you are limited in what you can do when making a short song like this, but one change I thought you might consider to give more variety in the piece is to cut out the snare drums for around 10 seconds during some portion.

Since you are composing short symphonic songs that I imagine you may lengthen someday, I want to share two compositional ideas that I've heard my orchestra conductor mention, in case they are as interesting to you as they are to me. I hear you using the first technique already:

(1) You can create emotion in a song by defying the listeners’ expectations. If people expect a loud note at the end of a crescendo, go soft, for example. So, having consistent drumming throughout a piece (as in "Super Hero") won’t have as much impact as having segments that lack drumming (as in "Crisp Dawn"). I think this is the reason I like "Crisp Dawn" the best...the drumming doesn't occur consistently through the song. The silences become important. Also, I just like eerie violin sounds! :D

(2) Two ways to create a feeling of climax within a song are these:
(A) make chaos turn into order.
(B) make order turn into chaos.

I’ve been meaning to play around with these composition ideas myself, and since you may be creating longer pieces than the ones you posted I thought you might enjoy thinking about them if you haven’t already.

I like it that you aren't limiting your compositions to one genre!



You may be surprised to hear that "Shooting Shotguns in the Outland" is the other song of yours that I especially liked. I like this song because your instrumentals are so lively, even though I'm sad for the pheasant who was "dropped."

On the negative side, the song reminds me of how hunters rarely seem to be able to get themselves to admit that they are actually *killing* an animal. They often use euphemisms such as "harvest," "drop," or "take," but rarely say kill. However, I relate to the thrill of using a gun, because when I shot one in some woods...it was some slick black gun...the kickback was very strong, and it did feel powerful.

On the positive side, I like your instrumentals in "Shooting Shotguns" very much, actually. They feel a little gritty and punkish and playful, which I like, with the jangly guitar and solid drumming. I liked the brief, quieter, guitar interlude at 1:38, and I enjoyed the simple, quirky guitar solo around 2:18. In other words, I liked the variety in your song structure. Also, your voice is pleasant and more melodious than I expected for such a song. I didn't expect this song from someone who is making short symphonic pieces! I am extremely impressed by the recording quality, too. You've got cymbals panned left, for instance. The drum hits are clear and strong, with all the different drums sounding out very well. I wish I could get my drums to sound that "live." The balance of tracks is great.

The melody fit the song's mood well. The only change I'd recommend, if you were to ever record it again, would be to not have your voice sweep up at the end of a line, two or three lines in a row. For example, maybe when you sing, "breathing all the fresh aire," you could descend instead of rise on "air." That higher "air" grated on me a bit, since you also went up on the line before. Similarly, the first three lines of the second stanza all ended up on a rising note. I'd prefer a little more variety, such as have the first line end by going up, the second line go down, and the third line maintain the same note throughout.

My favorite line: "not even with this much kick back or thundershot crack barbaric." The repetition of the "k" sounds matches the staccato feel of the music and of a gunshot. (One tiny correction in your lyrics: the spelling of "deer.") I also like "pretty city hands." When I shot my gun, the kickback scraped some skin off my thumb of my pretty city hands! I learned very quickly where not to put my hands on the gun.

So, although I dislike the treatment of animals in your song, I still like the song. I feel you successfully capture in it some of that raw energy I felt when I held that gun and used it to blast an object far from me. Power and freedom. Exhilaration. I just wish the "object" in your song weren't a bird! :(

Hi Vegangelica,

Thank you for listening to my music and writing a critique to it! It was very well thought out!

That is actually really good advice! I will look more for that in my future compositions. I'm not really a professional composer, but I can pick out what I like in songs that I hear and try to apply that to my own songs. Interestingly enough, Superhero started out almost as a march with the bass drum hitting at every quarter note, but I had to tone that down because I felt that was too much.

That is a little surprising and I do understand your objections to the lyrics. You may be surprised to find out that a lot of my favorite songs I disagree with on political or philosophical grounds, but I find that conflict, paired with good music, tends to make me think more about the subject being discussed in the song.

This is one of the most favorite songs I've ever done because of the things you say about it. I want to try to capture some of its energy in a different way someday!

I'm glad you appreciated my feedback, teknoaxe! I thought you might, since your music interests span so many genres that I assumed you would welcome even more perspectives and ideas to consider when composing.

Your comment about feeling the bass drum hit too often in your original Superhero song interests me, because I sometimes question to what degree I should override my "intuitive" feelings about some song under construction.

The more that I listen to music, the more I appreciate the planned, intentional silences into which the sounds cut. They make a dense song breathe more and feel more playful while also showing a stronger intention and control on the part of the musician, which I appreciate.

For example, in your little quirky guitar solo in the shotgun song, I like the feeling of randomness in when the notes sound, especially contrasted with the heavy, repetitive rhythm guitar, because I think the feeling of randomness is actually intentional and not random at all.

I thought you'd be surprised! :D I like very much your perspective that you say in bold. I also appreciate the honesty of songs, even if I don't agree with the views.

I'm happy that what I said about your "shotgun" song matched what you like about it, because I think it must be nice for you to feel that your message or the feeling you placed in the song was heard. I was actually impressed enough by your song to send a link to it to someone on MB because I feared your song would be overlooked and I don't want it to be. I'd also like to hear that song's energy in other songs you make in the future. It's good energy.

Your shotgun song reminded me a bit of one of my favorite songs, "Time isn't on my side," by Polvo, probably because of the jangly feel and the quirky guitar solo. Here's that song, in case you haven't heard it. I think you may like it:

Polvo - "Time isn't on my side"



And now here's YOUR song, so listeners can compare and contrast if they wish! :D

TeknoAXE - "Shooting shotguns in the outland"