<Pony><Original><Easy Listening>Under My Wing

[Thunder Dash]

Here's a beautiful song I created a while back. It's about the new sister relationship between Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo.

Critique is wanted!



Lyrics

The night is calm
Nopony awake
All in their dreams
With Luna’s eye
I’ve always had a silent fear
But I, am afraid to say it to her

Prelude to chorus
I have always looked to her
From the time I first met her
I’m waitin’ for that moment
When she will take me…

Chorus
Under her wing
Safe and secure
A younger sister
Under her wing

Verse 2

Out in the darkness, ‘cause of my fear
(I can’t take it anymore)
I must confess, but I’m too scared
It’s all because of one thing:
I might lose a special friend
My role model

Second Prelude to Chorus
My fear took me too far
Risking my own life
Almost drowning then you
Came and rescued me and I was

Chorus
Under your wing
Safe and secure
My life was saved
Under your wing

Bridge
‘Cause I will never leave you
Nor forsake you
Kid it’s what I do
I am loyalty
Tell me what drove you
To do such a feat
Tell me why
Oh tell me why

Verse 3
You said you never had a sister before well,
Neither did I
In fact
Those scary stories that you heard back there,
I was scared of them once
But now I’m not

Prelude
So you’re lookin’ for an older sister
Someone to lead you, someone to be there for you
I can do that
It’s a deal; you’re now

Chorus(Reprise x2)
Under my wing
Safe and secure
I will always love you
Under my wing (x2, slow on last repeat)

[Lying Pink]

Nice! Not really my usual kind of thing, but it's well-done Getting serious Kenny G vibes from this. The little slowdowns really add character to it. The different parts really complement each other whilst retaining their own individuality, and the little touches, like the little bits of backing sax in the second verse, give it interest. You've put a lot into the details on this, which is awesome. The individual sections of the song - the choruses, compared with the verses, the bridge, the prelude, the outro - each have their own feel and they fit together well, giving the song a real sense of direction and flow - I get the impression you gave a lot of thought to how you were going to structure this, and it definitely paid off.

I'd say that for me, when the percussion kicks in, the bongos seem to stick out - possibly a little loud, or maybe panned a bit too far out? Not sure. Same with the shakers in the final verse.

In the bridge and the final chorus, the crashes seem to end a little abruptly, which I found made them stick out and distract from the other things that are going on. Personally, I'd probably either add a bit of reverb to the crashes, and/or just let them ring for longer; if you're worried the second option would be too obtrusive, maybe turn them down a little too?

It feels like a cruel thing to pick up on, since it's such a hard problem to overcome unless you play the instrument(s) in question, know someone who does, or have money to spend on huge sample libraries, but it's pretty obvious that the sax isn't actually a sax It's not bad, but I'd definitely recommend either finding someone willing to record a sax part for this, or else play around a bit more with individual note lengths and volume. For example, at around 1:08-1:09 when you have the two notes played one after the other at the same pitch, perhaps if you put more emphasis on the second than on the first, it'd give the individual notes more variation, and also slightly more accurately mimic what it'd sound like if a saxophonist was playing the piece. This is a slightly more in-depth and pain-in-the-ass one to implement, but when you've got long notes, like on the backing sax at 1:31-1:33, it might help to increase the length of the notes a little, and add variations across the length of the note: perhaps some subtle volume swells and a little vibrato/tremolo? A lot of the 'sound' many saxophonists go for - one that gives a lot of warm gooeyness to smooth sax parts especially - is provided by altering the pressure of their lips as they play longer notes, leading to vibrato and trem. Often players do little pitch-bends up at the start of notes/phrases using the same technique, so that might be worth considering. It's not a major problem really - more something I noticed initially before I really got into the song, and something that if you really wanted to add an extra layer of polish (and had far too much time on your hands!) you might want to consider.

The Scootaloo sample in the middle is sweet, but it feels a little less like it's part of the song, and more like it's been placed on top to me. It seems (I'm saying this about a lot of things here, and I might well be wrong - second opinion, anyone?) that it's a little too loud, and also a little too dry -- maybe if you added some gentle reverb to the sample, it'd fit in a bit better? Couldn't quite tell for sure but it sounded like you lifted the sample straight from the episode, with the episode's background music still present in the sample. It doesn't clash with the song, so it's not necessarily something I'd worry about, and this might be something you're already aware of, but if you wanted to replace it, vocal rips from the episodes without the other audio tracks are available here.

Out of curiosity - you posted some lyrics for this, is this something that you're hoping to find someone to sing for?

But yes. I really enjoyed this, and the criticisms I gave were mostly pretty minor I think. Good work anyway

[Thunder Dash]

Nice! Not really my usual kind of thing, but it's well-done Getting serious Kenny G vibes from this. The little slowdowns really add character to it. The different parts really complement each other whilst retaining their own individuality, and the little touches, like the little bits of backing sax in the second verse, give it interest. You've put a lot into the details on this, which is awesome. The individual sections of the song - the choruses, compared with the verses, the bridge, the prelude, the outro - each have their own feel and they fit together well, giving the song a real sense of direction and flow - I get the impression you gave a lot of thought to how you were going to structure this, and it definitely paid off.

I'd say that for me, when the percussion kicks in, the bongos seem to stick out - possibly a little loud, or maybe panned a bit too far out? Not sure. Same with the shakers in the final verse.

In the bridge and the final chorus, the crashes seem to end a little abruptly, which I found made them stick out and distract from the other things that are going on. Personally, I'd probably either add a bit of reverb to the crashes, and/or just let them ring for longer; if you're worried the second option would be too obtrusive, maybe turn them down a little too?

It feels like a cruel thing to pick up on, since it's such a hard problem to overcome unless you play the instrument(s) in question, know someone who does, or have money to spend on huge sample libraries, but it's pretty obvious that the sax isn't actually a sax It's not bad, but I'd definitely recommend either finding someone willing to record a sax part for this, or else play around a bit more with individual note lengths and volume. For example, at around 1:08-1:09 when you have the two notes played one after the other at the same pitch, perhaps if you put more emphasis on the second than on the first, it'd give the individual notes more variation, and also slightly more accurately mimic what it'd sound like if a saxophonist was playing the piece. This is a slightly more in-depth and pain-in-the-ass one to implement, but when you've got long notes, like on the backing sax at 1:31-1:33, it might help to increase the length of the notes a little, and add variations across the length of the note: perhaps some subtle volume swells and a little vibrato/tremolo? A lot of the 'sound' many saxophonists go for - one that gives a lot of warm gooeyness to smooth sax parts especially - is provided by altering the pressure of their lips as they play longer notes, leading to vibrato and trem. Often players do little pitch-bends up at the start of notes/phrases using the same technique, so that might be worth considering. It's not a major problem really - more something I noticed initially before I really got into the song, and something that if you really wanted to add an extra layer of polish (and had far too much time on your hands!) you might want to consider.

The Scootaloo sample in the middle is sweet, but it feels a little less like it's part of the song, and more like it's been placed on top to me. It seems (I'm saying this about a lot of things here, and I might well be wrong - second opinion, anyone?) that it's a little too loud, and also a little too dry -- maybe if you added some gentle reverb to the sample, it'd fit in a bit better? Couldn't quite tell for sure but it sounded like you lifted the sample straight from the episode, with the episode's background music still present in the sample. It doesn't clash with the song, so it's not necessarily something I'd worry about, and this might be something you're already aware of, but if you wanted to replace it, vocal rips from the episodes without the other audio tracks are available here.

Out of curiosity - you posted some lyrics for this, is this something that you're hoping to find someone to sing for?

But yes. I really enjoyed this, and the criticisms I gave were mostly pretty minor I think. Good work anyway

Hey thanks for critique. Unfortunately, the issue with the abruptly ending crash cymbals is unfixable. Somehow, the program can't handle a certain amount of sound activity, which is a nuisance, for the crashes and splashes are a vital part to the piece.

And yes, what I did to put the Scootaloo sample in, was take a clip from youtube, convert it to mp3, then put it in the desired place I wanted using audacity. I used finale printmusic to make this piece, which is why the crashes can end abruptly sometimes because finale uses MIDI.

And yes, I'm trying to find some time, so I could perform this one live with vocals and everything else.