I have a bad case of writer’s block for the end of this piece [2:45 onwards]
So, the vibe is a little on the dark side for my standards, and the drums are a placeholder (basically, a more sophisticated metronome for now 
)
If anyone has any ideas or advice on other ways in which I could end the piece, please let me know, thanks 
I would do it like you have but keeping the drums going and end i with the snare: ta ta ta kata (if that made any sense 
). I got more ideas but it takes me forever explaining them in text. 
Oh this was a lot of fun to listen to man! I was going to type up a bunch of stuff, but then I sort of got inspired to create ummm an “imaginary section” that could go into an ending of sorts.
First, let me begin with a 3 part apology - I am kind of old and recently realized that I don’t really know how to play guitar. I suck, and believe me I am well aware of my shortcomings as a player. With that said - I do enjoy creating music, talking about music, learning music etc etc so anyways - here it is; my imaginary Tommo moment. PS I think monsters are awesome.
Anyways, I know that you’re kind of playing around a Bbmaj over D tonality scalewise (D Phrygian) - and that’s cool but me personally I think that if you want to emphasize a certain mode, you need to not play it for a moment. So I imagine you doing one of your awesome CTC guitar solos so I made a section that goes Gmin7 Ebmaj7 F Maj7. And yes, if we wanted it to be exactly diatonic I’d have an F7 in there Buuuut I like the dissonance (I like things that sound bad) and of course, I imposed Bb maj7 scale over top of that - just whatever might sound OK. Let’s be honest, this guitar solo sounds like a pregnant yak. it’s kind of boopdebooopdeboopboopboop then it has some squeaky notes, and after that there’s kind of a howly bit. That’s pretty technical descriptions for what is actually quite horrendous. Just do the polar opposite of what I did here and you’ll be really doing quite good.
Then I stole/borrowed a Symphony of Destruction thing, but played a fingerpicked 3 string thing arpegulator (ancient greek style influence) over it. It was fairly horrendous as it was, but it got worse when I added a phaser. Continuous upstrokes, did indeed seem to make it more difficult, so I didn’t do that. Also, if you listen to it too many times you will likely experience indigestion - for this I recommend maybe eating some fruit and drinking some water.
OK, then there’s another section that I was inspired by listening to 3 guys today arguing about what they wanted for lunch. Basically it starts as a D 5/9 chord D A E And the D goes up in halfsteps, the A stays the same and the E descends in halfsteps. It reminds me of a braying sheep, that is - if sheep bray… Now that I think about it I don’t really know if that’s a thing sheep do - it’s more like bah-ing. But if they COULD bray… Anyways, sorry I was off topic there.
Umm I land on an exceptionally powerful ‘D’ powerchord. Basically the best part of anything I have ever played, ever. That much sounds pretty not too bad. If I were you, I would just steal that.
And then I end with THE most metal thing ever; Jolene by Dolly Parton. Not D Phrygian, but I simply don’t care. Dolly rules, end of story. Thank the gods I wasn’t feeling ‘9 to 5’ here, or it could have gotten really ugly.
Ok I hope you get a laugh out of both what I have written and what I played. I’m sure you’ll create some really cool thing regardless! hahaha
I recommend going down the Queen ‘The Hero’ ending route and sticking an explosion on the end.
There’s few songs that can’t be improved with this method.
Seriously though. Your track sounds great.
It starts softly and builds tension and then it ends softly. If you don’t like the ending you could do the opposite and instead of resolving the tension at the end, take it up a notch and then end with a dead stop.
Ahh, you have been fooled by a spell of illusion. Back in the ‘70’s I traded my soul, personality, last piece of chewing gum and some belly button lint for one of the strings off Blackmore’s lightning kissed Strat. Supposed to be enchanted. Anyways , I lost that after a couple of weeks - some Swede got ahold of it and did pretty all right… Still, despite no longer having the magic string I retain the ability to create the illusion of being almost all right for 30 seconds at a time.
Yeah, Tommo- I took a few more listens to your track man - sounds fantastic as is. An explosion at the end can’t hurt!
One thing that I personally find - and this is just me - When I am putting together a tune, I start with the drum groove, and I really play off of that. “Placeholder” drums or bass or whatever doesn’t work for me at all. The groove I create to is a core part of the music I end up creating whether it’s actual drumming, sequenced drums or AI drums like Logic’s drums etc etc. Everyone is different of course and mileage varies! Good luck!
I think both your playing and songwriting here are great, so I hereby forbid you from saying you suck ever again 
I don’t have the authority to forbid anyone from anything but I have to agree with the sentiment 
Very hilarious post @Scottulus! Entertaining, and the songwriting you supplied and the playing are fantastic and creative. My only criticism is you should have kept going with Jolene lol! And yes, Dolly is awesome. I’d bet a lot of people don’t realize what a talented songwriter she is.
Back to sucking, I know how you feel, because I always feel like I suck too, but if we say that enough, someone else who comes along that’s less experienced than us might think “wow if this guy sucks I’d better just hang it all up”. Sure there are always better players around, and it’s frustrating to work as hard as we can and still have plenty of things we don’t have full command over, but we’ve climbed a lot of mountains too There are thousands of players who love to ‘suck’ as bad as we do. Trust me, I taught guitar full time for a living for over a decade lol! Plus, thanks to all Troy’s work, I feel like each year that goes by I suck less than I did the previous year. Either way, it’s always a blast to play and push our limits, and I know you massively enjoy yourself during the ride tool.
Anyway, well done!
I agree, I think @Scottulus is unfairly hard on himself and that his playing is cool. Great sense of rhythm and melody, great phrasing.
Copy. By “suck” I suppose I mean “Not very good at picking” (Getting better, though!) but apologies for hijacking your thread my man! But thanks to everyone for the kind words! heh Trying hard to contribute music that kind of illustrates any points I try to make without being a jerk I guess. Faaaaail
I’d be curious to hear what you do with your piece, what direction it takes! I really think it rocks hard so far and to be honest - you could button it up and call it done as-is and I think it would be just fine! Great sense of melody, it flows from section to section, perfectly placed technical passages, 4 on the floor rock - yeah it’s cool, dude.
Some things I might do if ‘I’ were the composer/arranger of this and were ‘plagued’ with a sort of 'writer’s block for a section;
Create a new section whereI take all of my main melody lines and move them over an 8th note. By move over, I mean insert an 8th note rest on the first beat; Even if you abandon it in it’s entirety it will be enough of a musical shock to the system to allow for a fresh perspective.
Harmonically change a chorus type section’s backing to all major triads or even better Dominant 7ths. These chords like to resolve one way or another and that way you can have a section that is pretty “different” but still sounds the same, ie same melody will work over it.
Do a chorus with all different instrumentation. ie a string section, or all voices, or banjo duet, or mandolins or tapping guitars or a chord solo classical arrangement of your main melody. All pretty and super sensitive - could even repeat and fade out with it, ending achieved! (Explosion optional lol)
Do a variation of the chorus part in a different time signature. 5/4 or 7/4 or even 3/4 or 6/8. something weird. Then after that do another chorus in it’s original time signature. Could be cool.
Maybe, just maybe - the tune is ‘finished’ and my creative output in respects to doing ‘new parts’ is complete and my writers block is simply a signal that “that” time has passed, it’s now time to move into the “production phase” of the piece.
You know what would be interesting? If you took your peice of music and gave the basic tracks as they are to like 10 people and said “Here’s the tracks, this is the tempo - do whatever, fellas!” I bet you’d get 10 radically different pieces of music back. Some you might find more or less appealing than others - but think of the ideas and the discussion that might springboard from that?
Anyways - I hope that some of this is helpful, Tommo! I do love talking/writing about music!
Personally, I liked the way it ended. Fade out and then the superimposed clean guitar to conclude.
It’s interesting and refreshing in a way that the double-bass wasn’t utilized on this. I like double-bass and all but I don’t have to hear it every metal tune. Good job!
I would probably do something different with the distorted rhythm guitar, like what Reb Beach is doing here, he is kind of jamming on the riff of the song. (about 3:10 onwards)
