Russia loves you.

[The March Hare]

Just wanted to let the fam know that last week I uploaded a brand new song to my MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/oliverthomasmusic). It's called "Natasha" and is a really laid back piano joint. Sip some fine wine while you chill with your girl and relax to the vibe.

Okay, some of y'all might call this shameless promotion, but that's not the goal here. I'm not selling anything on my page so I get nothing out of this. Just wanted to let y'all know what I've been up to recently. If you feel like I'm being a jerk, slap my wrist and write me off as a rebel. :)

Why do I feel the need to apologize for sharing my music? Oh, well...

Peace!

-The March Hare-

[nakke]

Nice stuff. :)

[Doubble Dutch]

I concurr, promote away!

[Xobim]

Very smooth song.
But now I'm all emo...

[Fawriel]

Hmm, quite nice indeed. Is criticism accepted, though?

[The March Hare]

Of course criticism is welcome. Give as much as you want! I'd love it.

Thanks for the compliments!

-The March Hare-

[Fawriel]

Right, then!
Unfortunately, my technical knowledge of music is very restricted, so my descriptions will be rather.. unprofessional.
It's truly a pretty song, it gradually gets better, too.
My points of criticism are that it could, mostly in the beginning, use some more flow... there are many instants in which you have a series of notes, a little break, and then another single note, whatever you may call that.. it's even in the leitmotif from what I can see.. I think using that technique too often through a song makes it become a little stale and takes away from the tempo, although that might be intended, I don't know. If possible, I'd try to bring more flow into such instances, though I admit I don't know how much is possible with a single piano...
Second point is that I kind of miss a curve of "suspense" ( emotion in this case, rather ). It starts out rather.. calm and quiet, then turns more emotional, but it kind of rests on the same level of emotionality for a while from what I felt...
And finally, a suggestion. The strong emotion in the later part of the song was expressed mostly by powerful notes ( or several notes at the same time? I'm not sure ). Another pretty good means of making music more powerful is to give it more depth by employing high as well as low notes. The contrast of the bass makes the higher notes sound even stronger.

Of course, these are only suggestions and ideas that I would have used, I don't know what your idea for the song was and what you want to express, soooo... yeah.

[Strato]

Hmm, to me the song seemed to lack structure. From what I could tell, it obviously has an intro, but the body of the song seems to be Brian Wilson'd, meaning that it's different sections strung together, which all sound very complete in their own right. However, unlike a Wilson peice, they don't lead into eachother, instead sounding like each section is seperate from the other. A simple lietmotif would help, but for a full effect, leading tones and chords can bridge the sections. An example of a song which seems to feel like what the song could be that comes to my mind is "On My Own" from the opera Les Miserables. Although it's vocal and fully orchestrated, it's a sad song that's comprised of different sections strung together, but makes effective use of chord progression to give it a direction.

Consistent use of arpeggios as the foundation of the song, although popular and common, is something I hate. A composer could use the pianist's left hand to contribute much more to the peice.

Finally, as Faw said about a lack of contrast, a simple way to acheive that would be to have the left hand drive with greater bass ranges.

Good points I noted :
The use of C-Sharp Diminished to resolve to F-Major was very nice. It stuck out greatly from Major and Minor chords, and was one of those leading chords I referred to earlier. Also useful would be things like Major-Minor 7ths, and although weakly, Dominant chords. Of course, I'm sure that's not really anything new to you.