Justin Crowell
Comments
8
Numi Who
Sep 12, 2008
give me two hundred of these, and I'll pick the best 12 to make an album... and I'll edit if I have to, if there are a dearth of quality moments! I'm not one to create harmony or dissonance for their own sake, they are tools to serve a higher purpose, which is missing in this piece...
Numi Who
Sep 12, 2008
Song: Vibrations!
I hear heart and career determination and persistence in the soprano's voice; the rest I don't hear much, no story, no feeling, it seems like rote performing to elitist avant-garde ghosts of the past... on the other hand, if you had to master this style to to become an 'accomplished composer', you can be satisfied... at around 6:10, when the piano is hitting steady quarter notes, I envisioned that the keyboard could have been written to really taken off gymnastically there (to give the piece technical credibility)
Numi Who
Sep 12, 2008
Song: Guitar Piece 2
For something like this, I'd recommend improvising while recording for at least a hour, eight hours if you can manage it (owing to your rusty playing!) then editing together the best passages... for I find that the best passages are those where the performer's mind is elsewhere, and that cannot be done on que, but must be captured...
Numi Who
Sep 12, 2008
Song: Tahitian Terror
by your titles, age, and background I anticipate a variety of fare- this time it was a difficult choice as what to listen to next- the Tahiti piece, the brass quintet, vibrations, or guitar piece... this one is interesting, not much yet, but a good base for future elaboration... I think you should add to your influences contemporary Hollywood composers in general- there have been a lot of great scores in the last 10 years, and I detect their influence in your works...
Numi Who
Sep 12, 2008
Song: Sonnet 3
nice modern poem of painted vagaries and elusive emotions of displaced souls; the music is proficient, but emotionless and academic- it is a 'sounds like' piece, like, "write something that sounds like..." for an atonal piece to "work", it must transmit something magical (as with any art); perhaps more dynamics in this one would help bring out the human theme of the poem (and obviously romantic- see what I mean about 'girl' and 'guy' art?)... personally, I think an artist need his/her heart broken a dozen times before their art can be imbued with that ultimate component- human triumph and tragedy...
Numi Who
Sep 12, 2008
Song: Panned Ghosts
definitely minimalist; I'd work on part 1- in keeping the listener's interest- the intro is a bit stretched and will lose a lot of listeners; if you want to put your best foot forward, start the piece with the passage beginning at 4:10, and keep it going somewhere- a mistake of many who try minimalism is not offering any nuances in the repetition, where the listener will fast-forward to see where it is going... keep in mind a listener will 'listen through' what you are doing, no matter how technically gymnastic or not it is, trying and find the heart and mind of the composer/performer, searching for something human to latch on to... if there is nothing, they will assume you have nothing to offer, and might as well be listening to a stamping machine in a machine shop... don't forget there is 'girl' music and 'guy' music- your piece here is heavily 'guy' music (as is most of the 20th century classical/experimental fare, and which is the reason it failed to capture general audiences); in
Numi Who
Sep 12, 2008
Song: FEED THE BIRDS
quite a line-up for fans of- everyone from Beethoven to Debussy to Schoenberg, I haven't heard of Andriessen, I'll have to look him up (the best place I've found is Amazon.com, they usually have samples of the album)...
you have some good s*$& in your zombie piece here, sounds like quality equipment; you've gone beyond your line-up into the 21st century, with music beyond orchestra; a lot of us try to weave the orchestra and choir back into things, but now we have a lot of tools from the electronic world to integrate with them... I don't know if you've tried it yet, but it's clear you could do something greater than a zombie jingle!
Why all my comments? You were next to me in the charts; beyond that I don't know! But I do know that commenting helps us reason through things, verbalize notions, and come to understand ourselves; so my comments are for me as much as they are for you... besides, I'm not new to commenting- I've 6500 or so on the writing site I'm at...!