need your opinion on this song.want to remix it

[ocmtime]

http://www.myband.ro/play.php?mode=song_hifi&band_id=925&song_id=1609

 

problem is it is a sad song and I keep getting these stupidly happy remixing ideas which don't work with the lyrics.

[Eric VB]

Other than wanting your song to sound sad, how do you want it to sound? By that I mean what genre is it supposed to be? I hear a kind of New Age vibe, along the lines of Enya or Enigma. Or maybe ambient, like Jean Michel Jarre or Tangerine Dream. (Yes, the lines between those genres are blurred.)

 

Do you want to simply remix using the current tracks? Or do you want to re-track (re-record) certain parts? Or do you want to entirely re-arrange (re-write) the music?

 

As is, it's a mostly "happy" arrangement. There's only one minor ("sad") chord, and the other three chords (I IV V) are the basis for all the happy music in the world. That's why the piano runs sound so happy; they are from a major scale. The only way to imply sadness with this arrangement is exactly how you have proceeded: keep things soft and slow.

 

The problem with that approach is the climax, when things start to get loud. Now the song cannot help but sound happy and uplifting. Also, the climax is not being supported by the rhythm section (bass and drums), so it doesn't achieve the full emotional lift that it could.

 

The structure is also not your typical verse/chorus/bridge structure. Although there is a slight variation on the chord progression, it comes across as a vamp: a 4 measure phrase that is repeated over and over. This may be a good thing, since I seem to recall New Age/ambient music can be like that. To help build more excitement through tension, though, it may help to write a chorus with a different sounding chord progression. A bridge isn't necessary, but can be helpful.

 

The synths you have chosen also lie on the happy side. They are soft and cuddly, not ominous or threatening. There's nothing sorrowful about them at all. It's like trying to make a kazoo sound dark and sinister: it's difficult to impossible. I piano can be played in such a way to sound sad, but that is not the way the piano was played here.

 

When I think "sad song" I think of the blues. Part of the sadness comes from "blue" notes in the blues scales. Also bends and slides. Finally there is an organic way the music is played by musicians, slight variations in the beat, that are mostly lost in electronic music (especially if quantized).

 

Of course that's not the only way to achieve sad music. Classical composers (in the widest sense of the term "classical") have written sad music for centuries without any influence by the blues.

 

It seems you are more influenced by classical than the blues. Try to find a sad song by a classical composer you like and then analyze it to discover why it sounds sad. I think the first step is that the song is written in a minor key.

 

One of my favorites is "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight" by Elliot del Borgo. It is all instrumental, based on the Dylan Thomas poem of the same name. It's a song about dying; how much sadder can you get? Yet Thomas beseeches his dying father to "rage, rage against the dying of the light" and not just roll over and die. So there are other powerful emotions at play than just sadness.

 

Then again, there are songs purposely written such that the emotional content of the lyrics do not match the emotional content of the music. A sad lyric with happy music, as in your case. Sometimes this can be very effective.

 

So there are many ways to make your song sound more sad. You'll have to decide how to do that.

 

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.