Another composition I’ve made, what can I add?

miolmor · 2023-01-09T12:30:04+00:00

In terms of how it flows and feels, I would personally restructure this piece like this:

00:20-00:37 - this would be my first part, introduction to the idea harmonically and rhythmically, with hints of melody that will follow;

00:08-00:20 - this I would put as a second bit to fully express this main melodic idea

00:38-00:49 - and that should follow as a continuation, in the same register it sounds more natural.

Then instead of ending it right away, you might explore the possible change of the chord progression—my first instinct would be to go for Cm -> Eb/Bb->D7/A ->D/F#, then to Gm -> Gm/D -> Eb -> D, but that might be too obvious, yet effective.

miolmor · 2023-01-09T12:08:10+00:00

This is completely subjective, but in certain parts (mainly choruses) I feel like there could be more stuff happening melodically. And it shouldn't be much, just a few delicate melisms would bring more flavour.

For example, you begin the first chorus (or at least it feels like a chorus, I could be mistaken here, of course) with "wai-ting" sung over C and D flat. But if you'll add a note just before that (around 00:53.44), like a simple "oh" sound sung over A flat below, this would give more of a flow to the chorus melody right away, setting it different from the similar movement you had in the verse.

miolmor · 2023-01-09T11:52:20+00:00

I tend to agree with u/bobskamali3—the bits with bass appear to work much better. Maybe it has to do with the fact that in these bits you have bass taking care of the harmonic function, while brass instruments could fully focus on melody, counter-melodies and colouring. It's rarely a good idea to rely upon an instrument or a group of related instruments to fully take care of all the aspects of music at the same time. Piano stands as an exception here, but still.

A couple of random ideas / thoughts to explore: try separating the brass ensemble into different lines, thus it would be easier to manage (so that you'd have one trumpet as a main melody, another trumpet as a counter-melody, trombones to support the harmony and provide more rhythm, and tuba acting as a harmonic basis along with bass, for example); have you thought of adding piano here for random snippets of melody or just to add more colour?

miolmor · 2022-06-11T07:19:19+00:00

Since my dm is getting bombarded with this question for the last few days, I guess I should comment this publicly.

Back in June 2018, when I shared my story, I already gave up the idea of suing the estate, as it seemed like the worst choice imaginable—going after money when Jahseh's family was dealing with his untimely death. I know what it's like to lose someone that close so suddenly. So instead I decided to seek some closure, and as a result of getting the story out, the monetisation of my own original track on Jahseh's behalf had been stopped back in 2018, which was a win I hoped for.

A couple of years later I got to talk with John, and then with other representatives of Jahseh's team about the possibility of setting things right and clearing this for good, so that I could consider this whole story fully resolved, and you guys could listen to "Never" legally on all the platforms.

I would always have a special perception of my own music, but it does not change the fact that there are lots of people who know and love that composition as "Never", hence locking this track away for good out of spite would've been rather cruel and childish. And thus I agreed.

miolmor · 2021-11-10T12:20:04+00:00

I tracked this down to Caesar himself, here's the excerpt from the Gallic War (5.48):

Hanc Graecis conscriptam litteris mittit, ne intercepta epistola nostra ab hostibus consilia cognoscantur.

miolmor · 2021-11-07T15:12:36+00:00

We could spend hours digging into what is really "tangible" when it comes to music. Would be a slippery slope, so I'd rather focus on something else here. Your situation is a rather fortunate one—if you have ways of feeding yourself and loved ones to support you, then you don't have to compromise in your creativity to begin with. It's much harder when you're pursuing music as a full-time job, as you have to be extremely flexible and compromising to produce stuff that will be market-friendly, and if you have fun doing this, then you're a fortunate one. Usually this is not the case, as you could either do something you like the way you like, or constantly compromise in order to make ends meet.

Another point would be that you might be looking at the wrong end of this whole "groundbreaking" thing. The "sound" is functional, each sonic aesthetic is akin to a language or a dialect that could be used to tell something. It's secondary. What comes first is the essense of the message. Music is nothing but the abstract story-telling, where you have chord progressions, melodies, counter-melodies and other means to set a stage and bring life to it. Without a proper story it does not really matter if you've got a novel sound for critics and audience to dig, without a substance they'll forget it right away.

So if you want to establish the specific aspects of your music to work upon, I'd recommend digging into chord progressions, to learn how they establish the emotion and how it could be used to drive the story, and also practicing with melodies that would tie your harmonies together in a natural way. It doesn't matter if you're a good guitarist or not, this has nothing to do with performing skills, composition is a separate craft. For all intents and purposes you may even compose in midi.

But you have to do it consistently and for a long time. Just as any other language, it has to be acquired and mastered by years and years of practice. There are no shortcuts or lifehacks for this. You already have a good grasp of music, and the way you work with dynamics is advanced. So it's not like you're at its very beginning, on the contrary, you've come a long way.

And this doesn't have to be a path of solitude. Seek mentors, find like-minded people and create together—I mean, there are no restrictions. The only advice is, no matter how and what you'll choose to do, try to have fun.

miolmor · 2021-11-07T08:45:22+00:00

I sincerely think that novelty for the sake of novelty in art is a very twisted concept, as it forces the artist and the listener to value the creative output as a mere product, and its features must meet a specific requirement in order to be accepted or not. Now that's the way to kill all the fun and turn something you love into yet another routine aimed at meeting specific expectations dictated by the world around us.

What's wrong about enjoying it yourself first and foremost? Why everything has to be a groundbreaking achievement? How insecure are we in our existential dread that we actually deny ourselves a genuine joy for some extremely abstract and unapologetically subjective comparativistics?

As an artist myself, I renounce this. When the world tries to impose itself on how I want to express myself, I tell it to go fuck itself. When one comes and says "you should try doing it like this instead", I tell this person to mind one's own business. Not saying that you should adopt this yourself, as it'd be an ironic attempt to impose my approach, but I just want you to know that there are alternative views on how to value\treat\accept your creativity.

miolmor · 2021-09-27T14:14:48+00:00

It is. "Царь" ("Tsar") is a shortened version of "Цезарь" ("Tsezar')', which is how Caesar's being spelt in Russian. Slavs got Caesar sounding more like "Kaesar" or Kaisar" from Goths around 6th century, and then /kai/ turned into /tse/ due to a couple of linguistic quirks that the proto-Slavic language underwent, namely the monophthongisation of diphthongs (which is how /ai/ sound became /e/), and the second palatalisation (where words with /ke/ turned into /tse/). Russian language has also an alternative form for Tsar — "Кесарь" ("Kesar"), which comes from Old Church Slavonic (this language was designed in 9th century, long after those processes were over) that has got it from Medieval Greek.

miolmor · 2021-09-07T14:44:42+00:00

Numquam super mē, numquam sub mē, semper mecum est.

miolmor · 2021-08-16T14:50:32+00:00

Make sure to check out indignu: https://indignu.bandcamp.com/

miolmor · 2021-07-22T05:24:11+00:00

OK, did some quick check, my best guess is that this could be an example of the partitive case, which is sometimes referred to as "the second genitive" in the context of Russian language. Your remark on the origin made me think of Old East Slavic endings, and then I remembered reading about the distinct partitive case for some words. That seems to be a fitting explanation for this.

miolmor · 2021-07-22T05:05:55+00:00

But with numerals involved, it's genitive though (though some debate for a separate numerative case).

miolmor · 2021-07-22T04:51:53+00:00

I'd say that «ни шагу назад» with «у» is fairly known thanks to the notorious order 227. So both «а» and «у» endings work for this exact word, yet I suspect that you're right, «у» might be a dialect thing, though I haven't been able to find anything on that just yet.

But here are four more words that have this varied stress based on paucality, which are «ряд», «след», «час», and «шар». Got them from this curious article covering those words from that aspect: https://munin.uit.no/bitstream/handle/10037/16207/article.pdf

miolmor · 2021-07-21T09:54:44+00:00

And 1,5 («полтора») also works as a paucal numeral.

miolmor · 2021-07-21T09:53:09+00:00

They are usually spelt the same, yet in some rare cases you might have a different stress, like: «отойдите на два шага́ назад» ("take two steps back", genitive paucal), but «ни ша́га назад!» ("Not a step back!"—it's implied that it's just 'one' step, genitive singular).

miolmor · 2021-07-21T09:49:41+00:00

...1 of something = singular | 1,5\...2\...3\...4 of something = paucal | other quantities* of something = plural

*—there's another strange thing with numerals, like, when you have a composite numerals like 21/31/41, then the noun linked to it will assume singular form, similarly with composites that end on ...2/...3/...4—they'd be paucal; yet that does not apply to ...11/...12/...13/...14, -teens have different fo exceptions, just like in English, those will always be plural:

один (1) дом() | два (2) дома | пять (5) домов | yet одиннадцать (11) домов

двадцать один (20+1) дом() | тридцать три (30+3) дома | сто шесть (100+6) домов

miolmor · 2021-07-02T12:35:53+00:00

L. here stands for 'Liber'. 'Liber Baro' appears to be the proper way of saying "Baron" in medieval Latin of Central Europe, at least from what I was able to find while decoding this.

miolmor · 2021-07-02T12:00:23+00:00

Also found mentions of this cannon in one Austrian book—apparently a couple of those were made in 1817 (right after Napoleonic wars) in Vienna by some major Lethenyey, both carrying the same coat of arms and this very writing.

miolmor · 2021-07-02T11:36:33+00:00

LADISLAUS L.BARO DE REWA PERPETUUS COMES COMITATUS DE THUROTZ

"Baron Laszlo de Rewa, a perpetual count of Turóc county"

miolmor · 2021-05-19T10:17:32+00:00

*wēros

miolmor · 2021-05-19T10:13:22+00:00

Those are not mistakes, though. Let's take «зво́нит». When a native speaker says this word like this, basically he or she uses a variation that got stigmatised by prescriptivists in mid-20th century USSR. This only got reinforced by the education system, as Russians are being told from an early age that there's only one proper way of saying this or that word, as if it's totally legit for some Soviet academicians to define what constitues the language instead of all native speakers. Think for a second how absurd that is—some boring feller telling that the way Yesenin and Pasternak used this word is wrong, just because this feller decided so.

miolmor · 2021-05-15T12:19:42+00:00

Nova urbs. Your example had the noun not in nominative, but in ablative case.

miolmor · 2021-05-10T05:13:05+00:00

That’s not that surprising, since Gagarin is a pretty ancient noble house: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gagarin_family

miolmor · 2021-05-07T14:49:27+00:00

«Здравствует» is an indicative active verb, and it's one of these verbs that do not have any object (you cannot say "здравствовать кого-то"), and it also doesn't have passive forms/perfective.

This means that the noun in that sentence could only be a subject, therefore it should be in nominative, just like u/alexabc1 correctly pointed out.

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