I am getting really frustrated in editing it myself, so I guess I'll post it for criticism and suggestion, and hopefully I still have time to make some final changes before the 31st.

background:
it is a piece designed to be played in the end of my unfished/given up RPG game called "Naku". "Naku" is also the name of the heroine. The piano part symbolize her, while all other strings symbolize our hero's paradoxical and confused feelings.
It's a tragic ending...,
(I don't want to babble about it here. If you're still interested in the background info for this piece, see my second post's attachment)

here's a brief introduction of "Naku" - the game.

wow! very nice song ^_^ the song fits perfect to the background story imo ^^
you can really hear the emotions of the song :) sorry for not giving you any constructive criticm for your song -_-

:EDIT:

forgot to mention the good chord progression ^_^

thanks Matt Chan,
by the way, how's the volume?
my sound card tends to output sounds that are quieter than the norm.

the volume is fine, don't worry about that :)

I really liked it, can't think of any real musical criticism for it. I would say that the colume should be upped at the beginning because it seemed to be a bit of a shock when the instrumentation went broader and the volume increased but that's a very minor complaint. By the way, when are you submitting the piece?

Originally posted by Elite666@Aug 30 2004, 09:20 PM
I really liked it, can't think of any real musical criticism for it. I would say that the colume should be upped at the beginning because it seemed to be a bit of a shock when the instrumentation went broader and the volume increased but that's a very minor complaint. By the way, when are you submitting the piece?
I see. Thanks for your advise. I will make some final tweakings (increase volume in the beginning) tonight and probably will submit by then. but even after submtting it, I will continue to make changes to it if anyone find out any significant errors. ^_^
therefore please continue to make criticism on this piece, and Noir, where are you? you used to have lots of criticism on others' pieces. ;)

I just listened to the newer version in the CMA thread. The volume's perfect now, it still has contrast but isn't a shock. Great piece Darren, I'm looking forward to hearing future stuff.

oh yeah it's better now ^.^

I like the piano part. But I felt that the ending should ended in a softer way. If you get what i mean. -_-' I kept feeling that there is something missing after the ending.

Overall, it is a sad sounding song. Confusing feeling... well ... quite mild I think.

it was so sad sounding, i wanted to cry, :cry: but i loved it[COLOR=green]

Originally posted by sukino@Sep 1 2004, 02:34 AM
I like the piano part. But I felt that the ending should ended in a softer way. If you get what i mean. -_-' I kept feeling that there is something missing after the ending.

Overall, it is a sad sounding song. Confusing feeling... well ... quite mild I think.
thanks everyone for your comments.
in addition to sadness, I also want to express the hero's desperation and agony towards destiny during his emotional climax. so I used the word "confuse" to describe his mixture of thoughts. I guess that doesn't quite work out. but since the main theme is sadness, I think I will just leave it like that.

however, I also feel like the ending is missing something, I had tried to add a small piano solo to end the piece, but that sounded really bad, so I gave up. recently I am thinking of adding a copy of the 1st measure viola solo to the ending, or some other melodies of viola (without piano). So that it brings the audience (as well as the hero) back to the reality - Naku is dead, and our hero is alone.

what do you think of that, Sukino? any other suggestions for the ending, everyone?

Edit:
le_ciel_noir:
just in case you didn't know, "Naku" means crying in Japanese, therefore the game title actually has double meanings. and I am glad that you can hear that feeling in this piece.

I really think the ending is pretty effective as is but if you want to elongate it maybe instead of a piano solo try a duet with either the piano and violin or violin and cello and just restate four or eight bars of the main melody that came at the beginning. It would make the ending very obvious and bring the emotions of the listener back down instead of leaving them hanging at full throttle (That sentence doesn't make sense to me but I can't think a better way of saying what I mean).

Crying feeling is difficult for me. :/ I seldom cry myself. In movie, I had only cry (with a few drops of tears) once. I think that the movie is called Phenomenon. Once for one of the tv drama show.

Don't call me heartless. I know that already. :D


what do you think of that, Sukino? any other suggestions for the ending, everyone?

I think that from 3:14, it should be more slower, and then fading to nothing.

It would make the ending very obvious and bring the emotions of the listener back down instead of leaving them hanging at full throttle (That sentence doesn't make sense to me but I can't think a better way of saying what I mean). I know what you mean and it makes very much sense what you say :)
It would let the listener know that the song is ending after the fill in at ~2:53 and the sad feeling of the first bars would be good ending in my opinion.

thanks guys, I will experiment with all those ideas.
but currently I am having a little trouble with making the fading/slowing effect with Finale. -- some tweaking works need to be done... -_-

Finale sucks when it comes to dynamics. It has them, but they often screw up.

cant open it it says its corrupt.

Originally posted by JAPPO@Sep 9 2004, 10:22 PM
cant open it it says its corrupt.
mnn, don't know what happened, I'll try to upload another one later. but I think you can download it from the August CMA thread (it's pinned).

Edit: the links and the files are fine, probably it was just something wrong happend to it that day.