When Tears Cry….
Here is my next piece titled ‘When Tears Cry…..’ . Thanks to all who have been supportive and encouraged with their honest feedback on my first piece ‘Hello World’.
Also this time, I have written about how I made this piece, as a listener requested while commented on my previous piece. Here you can read it. But I prefer you reading it after listening to the piece so that you can listen to the piece without any pre-judgement or expectations.
To understand the opinion of the listeners better, if you care to comment, do add any of the rating mentioed below
*****- Want to Download the piece to listen to it again and again
**** – Will hum this piece even hours later
*** - Will come back to this page to listen to the track
** - Will listen to it only once
* - Wil stop in the middle even in the first listening
krishnakumar said,
November 19, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Hi Suresh:
This is my honest comment, please don’t feel otherwise.
This composition, I think, is better than the previous one, because it has a little bit more variety. So you are making improvements, keep going! Since the mood is sad (from the title), naturally, you have used “half-steps” or sharp/flat notes to accent the effect. Somewhere around 1:21, the music seemed to lose that sad ambience you created for a few seconds. Then, aurally, I struggled to enjoy the melody. It is also not as good as the beginning when you are around 2:16-2:29. My suggestion is to mke sure you give an identity to the music. Bring back some of the signs you used in the beginning or, hint at the tune in between…Keep some regularity or repeat some of the patterns or ratios between the notes (which is essentially the principle for a scale or a raaga). But keep going….good job overall…
Cheers,
KK
Vinayak said,
November 19, 2006 at 2:53 pm
Hi Suresh,
You know that I am no where near expert, forget expert, even beginner. But this is what I felt: Didnt like the end as much as I did the beginning. Appeared like started somehow and ended somehow …
Good to know that you are venturing more into compositions. Keep going …
-Vinayak
Madan said,
November 19, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Hi,
Somewhat of an improvement over the previous track. Again, I reiterate I don’t know how this software works so I don’t know how much it influences the direction your compositions take. Now, one important thing I noticed when I read your “Behind the music” blog after listening to this: you are talking of three violin melodies here. i am sorry, but frankly I didn’t notice three. This is probably bcoz they are not distinct enough. It sounded more like a rambling violin solo going round and round in the same place. It held my interest greatly in the beginning. Again, the development of the theme could have been better.
To put this in perspective, two and half minutes used to be enough for yesteryear composers to compose full songs. So, maybe, you should try to introduce several short themes and connect them or adopt a classic song-verse structure and substitute the instruments for vocal portions. When you take a single theme and try to expand on it, you need to make the composition really long to achieve truly satisfying results. Two and half minutes results in the theme not being memorable enough which I guess is most important in music.
This is not intended to discourage you in any way. There is definitely a spark here, but you should just boldly articulate your ideas without thinking of what anybody’s going to say. That was the main problem for me with this composition: last time a lot of people asked for more scope for violins in your composition and you’ve made a full-blown violin solo, so you seemingly played to the gallery. So, it was a little predictable in that sense. I would just love to see you expand on that opening spark of musical brilliance. It would be a most satisfying experience: truly the most an amatuer composer can hope to achieve: to create an original, fully-developed, well-rounded work of music. Keep persevering.
Whoopsie! Your invitation for honest opinions made me go overboard, I guess. I am saying all this coz as a kid, I used to try to compose tunes of my own. I easily developed a sort of jingle like tune, but developing a grand, bombastic symphony piece was so damn difficult. I can feel your frustrations and little triumphs when you record your own brainchildren. I’m waiting to watch them grow up into handsome young men!!!!
ursmusically said,
November 19, 2006 at 3:32 pm
Krishnakumar,
So you heard my first piece. I am not at all sad by getting such harsh comments. Infact, I am happy that you care to explain things to me. I understand what you mean by repeating some of the patterns from the begining, but i thought i could just go on with the flow of the melody instead of repeating the main melody which i thought may become repetitive. But i accept it from a listeners perspective.
ursmusically said,
November 19, 2006 at 3:33 pm
Vinayak
Thanks for listening and also commenting da. “Started somehow and ended somehow” and that is what i intended to do actually, but it seems it doesn’t sound good for listening.
ursmusically said,
November 19, 2006 at 3:33 pm
Madan
I know how busy a person you are and yet you cared for writing such a long comment on my piece. Thanks a ton for that and as i already said, i am not at all taking in any wrong sense, comments like these teach me a lot.
But one thing i want to make sure is that, this piece is not made because of Narayanan’s comment on my Hello world piece about using a violin piece. Believe me, even before making Hello World, i had this tune in mind and have been thinking of giving it a final shape when i get a good quality violin soundfont.I will sure keep all that you said here and make my next composition. I am thinking of composing a full-fledged song with even vocal portions sung by a singer next time and please don’t think that i did it just because you said to do so.
Sindhuja said,
November 20, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Hi,
Thought it was better than the earlier one. Really appreciate some parts of this actually. Pretty deep.
My rating would be somewhere in between 2 and 3 stars.
Keep going!
mousumi said,
November 25, 2006 at 10:29 am
i dont understand instrumental music thouroghlly.but i liked ths piece musically.i think u ve a great potentiallity which needs to be expressed. keep posting more compositions.
ursmusically said,
November 27, 2006 at 3:27 am
Sindhuja,
Thanks for ur comments. Your rating tells assures what others said about the piece. Anyway, keep watching the space for more.
ursmusically said,
November 27, 2006 at 3:28 am
Mousumi,
Thanks for liking my piece. Will try to improve more in my next piece. Keep watching the space for more
Awatts said,
November 28, 2006 at 3:22 pm
***
Ramprabu said,
November 28, 2006 at 10:27 pm
*** – Will come back to this page to listen to the track
Great! I like the way you started
. It went well till 1:20. Whatever sadness I felt till then, have diluted a bit from 1:20 to 1:32. Then, ok range till 2:03. From 2:03 to 2:36, you came back to form. The mixing was too good in this region. Then the final 4 secs… I don’t know why you have finished abruptly. The finishing touch was not there 
ursmusically said,
November 29, 2006 at 7:20 am
Awatts:
Thanks for your rating.
ursmusically said,
November 29, 2006 at 7:24 am
Ramprabhu:
Thanks for ur comments and rating. I intentionally finished abruptly, to make it sound like the longing or the pathos remains as we remain unsatisfied with the ending of the piece and.. we long for more…
harish said,
November 30, 2006 at 5:43 am
Better than first one. Has a lot more Indian-music touch to it. The tamboora/veena piece at the beginning is very soothing. But I felt, it would have been better if the song had moved to a bit more energetic mode towards the end. Its just my view, that’s all.
ursmusically said,
November 30, 2006 at 6:21 am
Harish,
Thanks for listening to this piece. This piece is getting mixed opinions from listeners, I am working on a different version of the piece. Keep watching this space.
Kannan said,
December 2, 2006 at 5:31 pm
I thought this was a much better piece as a whole as compared to Hello World, mainly because I think the piece flows better. There were a few jarring moments in Hello World, perhaps because of imperfect mixing like you had mentioned. But this piece flows very well. It sounds like a movie background theme, and a fairly good one
The only problem is that it gets a bit monotonous after a while as the same theme repeats again and again. Maybe, as one of the comments mentioned, you could try to come up with a few themes and link them when orchestrating.
I have no experience in compostition and am only an avid music listener, so my above comments are just what occured to me when I heard it.
Btw, I like the quality of the violin and the opening tones, considering these are created with audiosampling.
Tailgunner said,
December 3, 2006 at 6:06 am
hi dude..first time here…okie frank opinion, i’m a bit lost…what i felt was there was lack of expression or maybe it is just me….at some points i felt that the key was off (again this could be my lack of knowledge totally)…i dont want to rate the song coz i dont think i’m eligible to do that but would surely look forward to more stuff here…thanks
ursmusically said,
December 4, 2006 at 2:50 am
Kannan,
Thanks for your frank opinion. I think the major mistake in the track is the emotion gets diluted as it proceeds while i tried to connect three violin pieces, i had in my library. A lesson learnt, follow the feel of the main theme and don’t try to introduce a music cue deliberaterly into a piece. And about the quality of sounds, it is really very hard for me to find good samples, and that is one of my biggest problems as of now. If any one could help me in gettting high quality soundfonts, it would be great.
ursmusically said,
December 4, 2006 at 2:52 am
Tailgunner,
Anyone who has ears can rate music and that is what i feel. Anyway thanks for putting in your commets here. I would try better next time. Working on another version of the theme.
Shrikanth kumar said,
January 10, 2007 at 6:22 pm
The song starts very well with a pathos feeling but later I feel that the feeling or the emotion is lost . A honest comment is that the song has gone out of the normal track but would also like to comment that this would come very well with good orchestration by artist.
ursmusically said,
January 11, 2007 at 3:06 am
Srikanth,
Thanks for ur comments. I will try to improve on this track. Actually I am working on a new version of this track.
Meera said,
January 21, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Hi,
I just stumbled upon site through your review of “Pachakili Muthucharam.”
Great work!
I might be one of the few who actually liked your first piece better. It seemed to be bold, as it reached some sort of crescendo. Though there were a couple of places where the instruments seemed to stop or start abruptly, it seemed like a fuller piece in one sense.
In the second piece, I loved the main theme of the strings. A great piece to building around, but it might have gotten a bit repetitive.
I know many Indians are fans of melody, but I think the second piece sounds repetitive after a while, as our ears long for something different from the strings.
Not every tune requires a climax as it were, but this tune seemed to be too dominated by the string instrument. I would love to hear more percussion in your work.
I look forward to hearing more of your stuff in the future. Keep up the great work!
Disclaimer: Just a casual listener of music.
Meera
Rating: ****
ursmusically said,
January 22, 2007 at 12:59 am
Meera,
Thanks for ur comments and opinions. Actually it is almost my thoughts on my own compositions. I will keep ur comments in my mind. My next song is almost over and will be out in one week. Keep watching this space. Also I am working on the new version of the theme in ‘When tears Cry’.
Praveena said,
February 9, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Hi there, I’ll guess I’m a lil late. Anyway, i’ll get to the point. In certain parts, the main motif, the theme, comes across just right and thereby achieving the sad, longing effect you want. But sometimes, the repetition is just too much and towards the end the violins sing out so well that it goes from being sad to being more powerful than sad and then, the title seems a wee bit incongrous in the sense that it’s just too spiritual and powerful to be sad enough. I really loved it up to 01:21-ish although i don’t feel the higher pitch goes hand in hand with longing sadness. But after that, i found it a bit random somewhat, sounds queasy and has an atmosphere of, well, dread. The melody wasn’t accented enough after that, it rambled a little until the main motif returned in the end. More tempo variation would be appreciated too. I liked it that you ended with the theme, that’s nice but the last two notes – it just didn’t work for me. Too irregular, i too liked your 1st piece better.
I’ve been really frank, and i hope you don’t take it the wrong way! I just spoke from my perception of it, and now i’m off to see your 3rd composition!
ursmusically said,
February 15, 2007 at 4:16 am
Praveena – Thanks for such detailed feedback. Actually it is the comments like these are those i am longing for. Having plans to work on this piece again. Will keep you updated when i publish it. And did you see(listen) my 3rd?
Inspiration « Yours Musically said,
August 14, 2007 at 5:23 am
[...] but what made it even worse is that it sounds sad though not as sad as one of my previous works ‘When Tears Cry..’. But I just went on with my flow and decided to complete it fast and I [...]