First Ever post (would love feedback on this original song)

Community Recordings Audio-Video Of You Playing
21

Awww thankyou so much… really feeling the love on this thread!

22

Lovely guitar playing, song and singing, I hope you share your performances live🙂

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Hey, Ben - thanks for sharing this with us!
That guitar playing at the start was already captivating, and then singing and songwriting great too!

I sincerely hope you’ll come and visit us every now and then! :slight_smile:

PS. And don’t be so self critical!
I would like to write songs too and read quite a bit about it and everyone seems to tell me… “don’t be so critical and just write a lot, it’ll automatically get better along the way”
(And I certainly don’t want to compare where I am now and where you are atm. :slight_smile: )

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24

Beautiful song and melody my friend.

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25

Hi Ben,
Nice introduction :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

Welcome here and I wish you a lot of fun :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

Greetings,Rogier

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Hey Ben,
Nice way to introduce yourself. Just a great effort, performance in vox and play. Lots to like here. Sadly my own song writing, play and vox don’t come close, thus I try again… :slightly_smiling_face:

LBro

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27

Nice! Musically the song has an open chord/Nick Drake type of vibe. Your use of dynamics are off the charts --really well done, a cut above in that regard. Dynamics are easily overlooked on a lot of original songs.

Lyrically there are two ways to go when it comes to looking back at childhood. You chose to lament your present state. Interesting take. :slight_smile:

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28

Well done, Ben. That was awesome. Lovely open tuning and chords. Good technique too. :clap:

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Hey Ben
Nice to meet you :slight_smile:
Great song, very well played and sung! :smiley: You should do more of that!
Thank you for sharing and look forward to hearing more from you.
Next video I’d love to see both your hands in shot, just to watch your playing too :smiley: :sunflower:

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30

Thanks dude… yeah I try and do the quiet verse /loud chorus thing where possible and I love the Stephen Wilson Jr as he is amazing at those dynamics

Lyrically this one is pretty much as you said… I got thinking about how patient and chilled I was as a kid/teen and how im very different now due to being a busy Dad and Tattoo artist (also Adhd plays a big part in my songwriting as it effects me in a lot of ways… but at least it provides a constant source of lryical content!)

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31

Fantastic!! Loved it!!

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Whao Ben - that’s a fabulous original song - and unbelievable playing and singing​:clap::clap:

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I was getting a Cat Stevens (/Yusuf) vibe at the top, but it quickly became a Ben Horrocks vibe!
Looking forward to more…

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Nothing much to add from me on top of what’s been written already - I really enjoyed this! Cheers for sharing - please keep writing!

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Hi Ben, welcome here and thanks for sharing your song with us! Loved the music, the open tuning and instrumental parts in particular, your singing and also the lyrics! All great stuff and so well performed! But (you’ve asked for feedback) … for me there is a disconnect between the lyrics and the music. The verses are about your past version and how great and kind you were and all the good things, but then in the chorus this turns into the question “where is that nice version of myself - how did I turn into what I am now” - which I hear as a loss. The music during the verses is calmer and more mellow, but then for the chorus everything turns up a notch: melody, singing, strumming all are louder with more energy. But to me that does not square emotionally with the “loss” that is implied in the lyrics. And that leaves me confused. I get different signals from the music and the lyrics. What is the emotional message you want to communicate here?

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Thank you so much for the feedback!

I think emotionally I wrote this thinking on how chilled and kind i was as a kid/teen and how I’ve lost a lot of that patience within adulthood with the responsibility of being a parent, self employed business owner and the day to day rigours…

I do totally understand what you’re saying tho… Ive debated adding a pre-chorus part to kinda ramp up into the more emotive chorus… May play around a bit with that!

Thanks again!

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I’m always fascinated by how different interpretations come out of a creative piece (whether music, writing, visual arts).
I felt the different energy levels matched the vocals!
Ben’s “early self” was quiet and low key, and the music reflected that. And his frustration of wondering where that person is now is echoed in both his voice and playing

There’s no wrong answer here! What is true in both cases is we liked the song… : )

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38

That was beautiful, Ben! I especially loved the intro and the arpeggios. The song was put together very well in my opinion, and you have a great emotional voice.

We have a lot of live music venues in the small towns around me, like Gruene, TX (site of the historic Gruene Hall) where people go to shop in quaint stores, listen to live music, and drink a bit. You are every bit as good as many of the musicians I hear playing when walking around, and better than some! I look forward to hearing more from you! And I read another post where you were a bit self-conscious about putting stuff out on YouTube, but believe me when I say you have no reason to feel that way. Maybe if you watched some of what I put out there, you’d feel much more confident :wink:

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