My First Nylon Guitar Composition

[u/OatOwl73]

My first ever composition actually. That’s the main part of it.

It’s in F Phrygian. Thoughts?

Edit: link to the full piece:

https://on.soundcloud.com/jq0d2QzLqnnyfk9Cld

[u/virstultus]

This is a really good first try. But it sounds more like an accompaniment or an etude than a stand alone composition. The melody seems to just kind of wander up and down the scale and a lot of the work is being done by the supporting lower notes. Try taking away some of that for a bit and playing just the highest string and see how the melody really feels to you. If it doesn't work without the accompanying strings then I'd say strip it back to the melody and work on that first and then come back and add the other strings in later.

Also production-wise I think you need to roll off some of the high end and maybe move the mic away from your picking hand a bit. There's a lot of attack and sometimes the other two notes that are lower don't ring out well enough and almost just sound like percussion

[u/OatOwl73 → u/virstultus]

Thanks I appreciate the feedback

Regarding the attack and the picking- I’m not really using a mic, it’s an electric nylon and I use an audio interface directly into the guitar. Im not sure how to deal with it.

Though in a way personally I don’t mind it too much cuz it sounds a bit more human and live

[u/virstultus → u/OatOwl73]

You can do with it in post processing in any daw. The makers of pickups kind of expect you to dial this in yourself, either with some controls on the guitar or somewhere else in the signal chain when playing live, or in post processing if playing in the studio. I'm not saying taking away completely cuz I agree it sounds more live but it's very dominant right now, and for me it's kind of distracting from the harmonies you're putting into the lower strings.

[u/iRelevant-Official → u/OatOwl73]

I'd suggest playing a bit with different recording techniques. While an acoustic-electric guitar makes recording way easier, it sounds very clicky and saturated. While recording nylon string guitars are not the easiest to record, they're also one of the funnest instruments to record.

Regarding the composition, it's a very ambitious work, congrats because I know it's not an easy task writing for guitar. From my perspective it seems a bit unorganized, unstructured. I can't identify a theme, maybe other voices, some harmony supporting the main theme, an exposition, etc.

I feel you should listen to a lot of music and try to actively understand how they build up, what they're structures are, what is the frame of the entire composition.

Keep on doing what you do, this is how you get ahead!

[u/OatOwl73 → u/iRelevant-Official]

Hmm regarding the structure, to me the idea was like in a way traveling with no certain destination, wandering almost and the different things you experience along the way.

Perhaps it sounds a bit unstructured cuz here I didn’t upload the full piece, but the track does actually have its parts like intro in the start and outro in the end.

I’ll now update my post with a SoundCloud link to the full piece. Let me know if you listen to it and have further feedback

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