MJTTOMB's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[String Trio no. 1]

First, woots!

I heard the first few measures and knew it was you. I love the uses of polyphony. It's absolutely brilliant how they flow together. I'm not a big fan of the part where they're playing in octaves. I can't really give any suggestions because this is just so far beyond my league in polyphony. It feel s like right after the last note, however, a stronger closure could have been reached if the cello went to D and octave down. Speaking of cellos, I love the countermelody at about 0:43. And the inverted cello line at 1:20.

Hell, the cello pwns. But meh. Great work, mate.

MusicalRocky responds:

Is my style that recognizable? :P
I'm glad you noticed the flow of the instruments, that was one of my main focuses while writing this :D
What part do they play in octaves? I think there's like 4 measures where they do lol. Anyway, it adds a strength to the theme when they all play it.

Yeah those parts you pulled out were cool :] The cello does own here, then again it's quite a sexy instrument.

I dunno I thought the ending was kind of fine the way it is, and the cello going down the octave would kind of just seem like a silly, show-offy flair on its part lol. It's fine to end together. They all worked together to get there.

Thanks, glad you like it!

-Rocky

[Piano Concerto, I]

How much theory do you have?

The other guy is right, most of your statements on classical music are completely false. Melody is the MOST important thing in ANY genre, ESPECIALLY classical. You do a good job with creating a dissonant harmonic line for the piano, but melody is required in classical forms. This should be a Sonata-allegro, as the first movement of a concerto, and with no melody, one cannot make out any sections.

I am tempted to respond either with an attempt to communicate how awful this review made me feel, or angry declamations againt you. But that won't help anything. I remind myself that Newgrounds is not a bastion of thoughtful reviewers. I cannot believe anyone writing a review like this has thought about it, or considered the emotions of the composer. I hesitate to ascribe it to jealousy, but I know this piece is far better than you have made it out to be.

True, he did not give any advice, but he still makes a good point.

To begin with, classical music is the least melodic of the general genres. Melody is not a concern of mine. That aside, there is not just one, but several melodies in this piece.

In the Classical and Romantic styles, songs should have one main theme, and a secondary theme.

"Just a bunch of arpeggios" was published in a review as a critique of one of Rachmaninoff's concertos, and I've always found those rather good. What do you make of the chordal section, the violin break, the string interlude, and the tutti chords, in light of your arpeggio-based view?

You are not Rachmaninoff. Regardless of whether you may be his successor in the future, Rachmaninoff still followed melodic rules, etc. and stayed true to the classical form.

A agree with your stand on piano concertos, however.

This is a nice little piece, but it could still use work. Just study classical form more and work on bringing out melodies a little stronger.

[_-={For My Lady}=-_]

mean review. xP

I'll give it a nine, because it's got a good sound. But you've got to start writing with melodies! This is good and all, but after listening to this, no one would be able to hum the "melody" (that's a good check, if after listening, you can have the melody). Remember what I've told you about motives, the little building blocks of melodies?
Just silence everything in the piece, have a track (like strings) with the chord progression, and just record yourself singing a melody over that. Evaluate it, and see that it keeps a bit of uniformity, so it's not just a constant stream of unplanned notes, it should sound planned, and similar to itself throughout. Have a lead instrument like violin take over your sung part, add ornamentation if you want, and then you can delete your voice.

In composition, the voice is one of the best compositional tools available. You don't have to be a good singer. Beethoven was renowned for being a terribly off-pitch singer, but that never stopped him, did it?

Anyway, I feel you could be taking your potential with classical a lot further if you began to write more like a classicist. I'm not asking you not to be Maestro, as a person's music will always be affected by their outlook on the world. I'm asking you to be Maestro the classicist, not Maestro the maestro-ist

Cheers, mate. I hope you read, and a response would be much appreciated, so i know you read it.

MaestroRage responds:

I always read reviews MJTTOMB. I just... havn't been all that great with responding to them recently >_>. I'll change that next week after midterm tests are over.

You're quite right in your points though I must say I am already quite aware of this. There is as you say, no real distinctive melody you can hum, and in retrospect though I did not plan it, I definitely let my head sleep out on this one and just put down what I feel. A direct consequence was the seemingly random woven fabric which is this song.

I will however keep your points higher up on my priority list. Good advice, is after all, good advice :D!

Thank you for the review, and your honesty. They are both very appreciated! I am glad you liked it, despite it's lack of melody :)

[TAA--Piano Etude in Cm]

It's decent.

Pros:
It's in Cm, best key of all. Cm for world domination. It had an ok mood. Sorry for having so few upsides as opposed to downsides, the downsides are mostly small theoretical things i feel you may want to work on to improve.

Cons:
The part at 1:30 makes me want to kill someone, it's unplayable, annoying, and just... bad. Sorry, it's just not my kind of thing. The bassline got very annoying, as it repeated for the entire song with almost no variation. The strings were ok, but they were unrealistic, and no strings player would want to play that. They would die from boredom, you should give them more motion than one note per every 4 measures. It doesn't seem to singable, as there is no real melody to memorize the song just seems to go randomly, which isn't really in the classical style. Also, old songs are given titles like symphony no. 3 because that is indeed what they are.

Anyways, best of luck to you, I feel you could get pretty far with classical if you put a little more theory and knowledge of what is humanly possible and likely.

Good job, I'll give it a 5 for the effort.

TheAmateurAnimator responds:

About the strings, they were supposed to be synthesizer pads, not strings.
As for the bassline, yes. Yes it is.
As for the title, I really couldn't think of anything. Titles hate me.

[Valse Espagnol]

Fifened.

Damned zerovoters. Very brilliant work here. It did sound very spanish at times. I feel that a lute or guitar at points would help excentuate the spanish feel. I like the little trills at the end of each phrase, that really helps.

Very well orchestrated. I love the woodwinds, and the cello. But mainly the woodwinds. All it really needs is a rather romantic percussion part (castanets and shakers and the like would probably be your main percussion parts in a spanish piece.)

Brilliant job.

MusicalRocky responds:

Yeah zerovoters...oh well.
Lute or guitar, eh? Maybe, maybe... Yeah I liked those too.

Winds were cool, indeed. I didn't really think about adding Spanish percussion or whatever--I just tried to let the Spanish melody give the song the feel alone :P

Glad you liked it,

Thanks,
Rocky

[Techno-Guitar-thing]

Nice.

it's a cute little piece, it's a very good beginning piece. the fact that you used no loops is impressive. Exponentially better than my first piece, which will never be heard by anyone other than me, as I deleted it from the face of the earth.

You've got potential. Best of luck in future endeavors, mate. :P

But you should take theory, it's very helpful. I had no idea how much it would improve my music until I took it.

RadioactiveRhino responds:

Thanks, MJTTOMB!
You have noo idea how hard it is to compose without piano :P
And I am taking theory at the moment, so I hope it does.

["The Moon's Lullaby" and More]

Damn you two!

Sooooo... perfect. Not nice.

<3

MusicalRocky responds:

Haha
Sorry :P

-Rocky

[Moonlight's Last Dance]

Nice.

Very haunting, has a very nice language. The strings remind me of some of Setu-Firestorm's early work. My only problem was the solo instrument, with which I had two quarrels. The melody was very difficult to make out, whereas the melody is often terribly outspoken in deeply classical styles. The other was simply the fact that it was a guitar. Personally, a piano is a very moving and haunting instrument in the night. Perhaps this is because of my preconceived notions of an ideal piano song because of Beethoven's Sonata 14, "Moonlight". But it was certainly a very enjoyable piece.

The final chord is the dominant chord, no? It sounds like it should be a fifth down, most songs generally end on the tonic. (just jotting down little things as I notice them.)

But a great job, 5.

Regards,
MJTTOMB

LadyArsenic responds:

^ ^ Thank you very much for your kind words and generous scoring. I know this isn't exactly the way classical music should sound, but it's the way I like to write. I like to give the people out here a taste of something completely and utterly new. No melody needed to be established to emit the passion in this song, and I chose a guitar because it sounds more like the moon for me in that riff. Anyway, glad you enjoyed!

- Lady Arsenic<3