streets of Venice (nf-stven.xm)

Overall Impression (5/10)

That's a tough one. Many people have rated this tune highly, but I find it to be weak.

It's a piece which starts out really impressive, but turns out to be confusing and unconvincing. This is what you get if you want to make jazz, but don't have a solid understanding of what jazz actually is.

I am also not that awed by the techniques employed either. A lot of work went into this, but I feel a lot of it is misguided and focuses on all the wrong things.

Technique, Arrangement, Composition (6/10)

It is clear that the musician is experienced with trackers. I found the use of ticks per row interesting, I have not seen people use F03 F02 F05 that way before.

Decent panning and volume work. Thoughtful volume envelopes. A clear intention to sound acoustically legit: around a 100 samples used in the tune, which is quite unusual, a lot of these samples are various trumpet tones and rhythm guitar licks.

Unfortunately, the leads in the tune don't sound very realistic, and this effort is entirely wasted, in my view. The composer seems to treat the trumpet a bit like a keyboard, for example. Anyone who has ever played a brass instrument would know that you don't play a trumpet like that.

Even the piano is a bit too whimsical to be taken seriously. It screams "this was written on a computer by someone who has never played a piano". Whether the composer actually plays keyboards or not I don't know, but that's the impression I get, specifically poor volume dynamics and pedal management. It's just not how an actual piano would sound.

And it's fine to write something that's not completely realistic. The problem here is the contrast between an obvious attempt to sound legit, but sounding so clearly fake.

To give a counter example, DRAX might use an electronic instrument that sounds sort of like a trumpet, but isn't really a trumpet. Yet, he makes it sound very much like a trumpet by handling it in a way that sounds natural. And he succeeds not by being pedantic about sampling, but by being accurate about how the instrument is played.

Development (7/10)

The mix is average. A bit too much of mids and highs in my opinion, I definitely miss the bass, and the piano notes really screw up the overall frequency range.

The overall production quality is alright, but not very consistent. Compare patterns 14 and 32, for instance. 14 has a nice overall panorama, whereas pattern 32 sounds strangely dull, and panning out a bassy rhodes piano feels like a wrong decision here.

Creativity (4/10)

As a piece of music, it completely falls apart.

First of all, there is no theme. It starts with a bunch of random notes, then changes instruments to play other random notes, then finishes with even more random notes.

Of course, you can have lick-based music, which has no "theme", like your typical boogie-woogie, but in these cases the licks are slightly more repetitive and provide at least something to hang your hat on. "Streets of Venice" offers no such thing and is entirely forgettable. In fact, it hurts its attempt at being groovy. It's difficult to relate to a series of random notes played to a simple chord sequence. It sounds like it should be fun, but it's not.

Second, the song lacks any dynamics. A fun and jovial piano backing just pushes forward, rarely stopping. The onslaught of non-stop groove offers little contrast, it's like you are faced with a wall of sound that ends up says nothing of consequence.

There is a break at pattern 29, but it's abrupt and feels like another song altogether. It has all the same problems as the main song - random notes, flat dynamics. And actually it is not even a break, since it then fades out, finishing the tune.

Third, there is an offensive key change at patterns 10-11. It is completely unnecessary and comes off as incredibly out of place. It's easy to abuse a key change in a tracker, because it's so easy to do, and this is a great example of when not to do it.

But this key change demonstrates this complete lack of compositional awareness. It's as if the composer has no idea how to develop a melody, so he sets up technical tricks instead: first he inserts a bunch of arbitrary instrument changes, then a key change, then a key change back, then another instrument change, then another key change at pattern 14, and then the tune kind of fades out into part two.

Again, compare this to works of Jeroen Tel or DRAX - and the contrast is going to be obvious. Improvisations are variations around a theme, but in order for them to work there must be a theme!

Enjoyment (5/10)

So, as already noted above, "Street of Venice" does not work as a piece of music for me.

It fails in its attempts to sound realistic by focusing on the technicalities, when what you really need to be focusing on is how the instruments you are trying to emulate are actually played.

It fails as a jazz piece, because this is not how jazz is written. It fails as a melodic piece in general, because there is no melody development or even a melody of any sort.

What it's great at is being superficially impressive. This works at demoparties and gets you places at compos, as well as free beers from your demoscene friends. But I am afraid that's all there is to it: a fun and shallow exercise at tracking something which sounds sophisticated and a bit like jazz, but is neither sophisticated nor jazz.

Additional Comment

I understand that this review stands in stark contrast with other people's comments. But I feel this track could be an important learning experience for many.

Also, I am absolutely not immune to this myself: as a composer, I never had the jazz touch. I would love to have a mind that can produce those incredible DRAX melodies, which he churns out with such ease. But I have no feel for this and, which would be an alternative to not having a knack for it, I have not educated myself on how to achieve this either. So, all my attempts at "jazz" sound as disoriented as "Streets of Venice". Believe me, I have a couple of very similar misguided tracks, which are trying to be jazz, but are mere demonstrations of my complete lack of skill as a jazz composer.