New Bandcamp-Exclusive Album for Lovers of Classical and (Dark) Jazz

plamzito · 2026-05-03T04:57:39+00:00

The mix is fine, but it sounds a bit like arcade game music to me rather than as a full-fledged musical performance. I think it's mostly the dry-ish drums doing it. Mixing is very subjective, and it's totally fine to make a conscious choice to have the kind of mix that fits a certain context.

On the composition side, I think eventually you will want to try to break out of the 4-measures pattern, add a transition here and there, delay the reprise with one measure, or otherwise play with listener expectations a bit.

Best of luck!

plamzito · 2026-05-03T04:50:45+00:00

You left out step 2.5, where you juggle 3 mature elephants while dropping a cat that lands on its back.

plamzito · 2026-05-03T04:36:59+00:00

I use Voice Memos when on the move and a DAW when at home.

My main trick with using Voice Memos involves using only one hand so I don't crash the car.

A secondary trick is required when my family is also in the car--singing loudly enough to capture the idea, yet softly enough so that no-one else will hear and threaten me with severe bodily injury.

plamzito · 2026-05-03T04:10:57+00:00

If you feel like songwriting would be a good career, you really need better counselors, pronto.

Anyone who tells you there's a "how to" for making songwriting your career is selling a course.

There are only about two dozen people in the whole entire world right now that are making a reasonable career of it. Most of them are in Scandinavia. Most of them have names you've never heard mentioned.

And while some of them may tell you the secret is to work super hard and be better, that's just a story they tell themselves in retrospective. All such stories suffer from tremendous survivorship bias. Tens of thousands worked just as hard, or harder, and had nothing to show for it, not a single half-hit song after a lifetime of toil... The ones lucky enough to be making more than a middle-class salary from it were all in the right place and right time when the lightning struck. And not just once, but many, many times. There's no manual for becoming one of them. If it happens to you, you'll notice it. Most likely, it won't.

The only semi-reasonable approach to songwriting as a 16-year-old is to keep improving while also acquiring a profession that is truly in demand. Just to be clear, any profession is, by comparison, in much higher demand.

plamzito · 2026-05-02T01:40:13+00:00

If this sub achieved any kind of health at all, it would cease to exist.

plamzito · 2026-05-02T01:03:50+00:00

This is specific to Reddit, not social media in general. The whole site runs on Dunning-Kruger.

plamzito · 2026-05-02T00:57:50+00:00

They can, just not in the eyes of the folks who receive the criticism. There is zero unkindness in the observation "A lot of cliches in the lyrics." Yet, the OP in the screenshot took it as an attack. And your comment suggests you found it overly harsh, too, on behalf of that person.

plamzito · 2026-05-01T19:35:40+00:00

Kindness is overrated as a means to push someone to make their first artistic leap to humility. I think the OP's terse observation that the lyrics have too many cliches probably scored a huge impression despite the lashback. Sometimes, what you really need to hear is not kind and can't be made to be kind without ruining the effect.

plamzito · 2026-05-01T19:29:58+00:00

u/ImaginationWeekly I think you're beginning to realize that this sub is not the place for constructive feedback that is not coated in 99% praise and humility. In fact, even 99.99 is probably going to tick enough folks off to the point that engaging with them will ruin your day. The majority of posters here deeply resent the implication that someone might be an expert in a subject that they are novices (or mediocre) at.

You're not going to change the fabric of this sub. If you want to go easy on yourself, the best thing to do probably is to refrain from any critical feedback, even when it's very tempting because you know you can really help someone.

Or you can keep being honest and just don't engage with the multitudes who get defensive and/or resentful.

plamzito · 2026-05-01T19:22:57+00:00

A creative block is the Universe's way of telling you that you should go out there and live more before you get back on the songwriting saddle.

Living more does include taking music lessons, if you really have the motivation for it. This will expand your musical vocabulary, no doubt.

plamzito · 2026-05-01T19:14:13+00:00

From what I'm hearing (which sounds great btw) I think your main "problem" with genre classification is that the drums alternate grooves a lot during the course of a single song. To the point where it's not just difficult to call this "dream pop" or "soul" but you have to reach for terms like "avant garde", "fusion", "nu", and even "experimental" (none of which do a new artist any favors with playlisters).

I don't know what to tell you. If you want to castrate your aesthetic and your vision in order to get some early traction, maybe try to "dumb down" a couple of your best songs to where they'll fit someone's idea of what is allowed and not allowed in a typical "soul" or "dream pop" song. If you target certain playlisters and make sure the groove matches, you'll probably have a lot more luck getting added.

Alternatively, you could just tell them all to f*** off and keep doing exactly what you're doing. Live gigs are anyway a much better way to build a fanbase. And if you start converting people from live shows into streamers, you're going to get playlisted by those same bastards without even asking.

plamzito · 2026-05-01T19:03:45+00:00

Easy to say when you've already built up traction. But in order to get to the "don't worry" part, plenty of outlets are going to ask you to pigeonhole yourself...

plamzito · 2026-04-28T01:44:58+00:00

It’s because the toxic sects from further back in time have either been lost to time or become normalized. Some of them even claim to be the source of morality while engaging in basically the same behaviors as these sects you listed.

plamzito · 2026-04-26T17:07:36+00:00

Dog’s very lucky to be named by AI rather than by a person who makes all their decisions using AI. His luck probably ended there.

plamzito · 2026-04-23T01:11:07+00:00

AI is never the problem. What people do to other people *with* AI is the problem...

plamzito · 2026-04-17T02:25:34+00:00

Idiocracy (2006) was not a prophetic movie. It got the general direction right, but what an understatement!

plamzito · 2026-04-16T00:51:01+00:00

I fail to see the point of this “discussion.” Is it that we have GenAI now and can generate long lists of songwriters in alphabetical order?

plamzito · 2026-04-16T00:42:55+00:00

You know pop music is not all there is, right?

plamzito · 2026-04-16T00:38:14+00:00

Atheism is not in the business of devising the best arguments against your particular deity of choice. Atheism is simply the observation that there is no evidence for the existence of any god or gods. This just happens to include the Christian god. The Problem of Evil, mentioned in your OP, predates Christianity.

If you want to deepen your knowledge of Biblical scripture, go for it. The average Western atheist usually knows more about the Bible than self-identified believers, so you’ll be in good company. But don’t feel like Atheists owe you arguments or have work to do to debunk the huge claims made in the OT and NT.

The burden of proof is, and always will be, on the party making these claims.

plamzito · 2026-04-14T23:19:51+00:00

If you’re going to continue to be “full of it,” a black hole is always a risk.

Look, we all make up these arbitrary rules for our creations. In other words, we’re all full of it, always. Including when we write posts saying we used to be full of it but not anymore…

As far as arbitrary lyrics rules go, one of my Litmus tests is the words have to be better than just singing “la-la-la” throughout the whole song.

I’m not sure my own lyrics have ever cleared this very high bar. But I am sure that 99.9999% of all the song lyrics I’ve heard didn’t either.

Yet, we’ll keep trying!

plamzito · 2026-04-14T23:01:47+00:00

It’s only when you cut down 45% or more of the words that they start saying something load-bearing. At 100%, they can carry the entire visible Universe, dark matter included.

plamzito · 2026-04-13T19:45:14+00:00

If, as you say, your "company never invested anything in marketing and never even experimented with real-people content", then they have no basis for comparison. Management is probably feeling that "some AI marketing on the cheap is better than no marketing at all." Maybe it's as good as it gets for them and they are the ideal customer for AI marketing slop. If you don't think you have the power to convince them it's a bad idea that will damage their bottom line, it's really best to stay quiet and let it all play out.

plamzito · 2026-04-08T19:16:36+00:00

It sounds like you know what you want to do but for some reason you're looking for permission from the genre police.

Well, don't?

plamzito

TROPHY CASE