Greetings all, 'hope you’re doing well,
I haven’t been 'round in a while, due to some serious family events…
Anyway, I’ve managed to put together a new ‘prog rock’ suite of music, ‘Slowburn’ which is in video/photo format on The Tube here: https://youtu.be/NzL2KB9No3I
Please take a look when you have time, I would really appreciate some feedback which is always useful.
I’ll be back later and have a listen to some of the new music here.
Best regards,
Mauri.
Anyone home… 
Hi Mauri,
I’ll jump in on this, and sorry that something so obviously personal for you has languished here without anyone commenting for this long. This forum isn’t really seeming to be a place where we listen to each other and comment as much as it once was.
First of all, it is all very personal to you and your life, so it clearly meant a lot to you to get this done. Very nice job with it all. Musically, it is obviously very guitar driven, and you played it all really well with a nice sound. That said, it was a lot to get through, and given modern attention spans…
All I can suggest in a general way about the music would be to consider varying it up a little bit with either other instruments, or other guitar sounds (acoustic possibly at times). You definitely don’t need to do that, but it might make the piece of music a bit more varied in a possibly good way.
As for the history, WOW!. I was a World History high school teacher for many years, and Finland has been in the middle of a lot. My own family is Swede-Finn on my mother’s side, and my grandfather, Gideon Bjork, came to the US over a hundred years ago on a Russian passport. I’ve watched a series here on a streaming network that was set in post WW2 Finland. Here it was called Shadow Lines. It was a great show that kind of picked up the story after what we saw in your video.
Nice work, and good luck with your music.
John
Thank you very much for taking the time to listen and comment.
I’ll also take on board your advice and you are quite right about using other sounds/instruments in my compositions, this has occurred to me as well, so I’ll see what I can do with the next one.
The Finns indeed have a bit of history with the Russians (and Swedes ) but did manage to gain, and keep, their independence. They have done well and are an integral part of the ‘Scandinavian family’ which is one of the most enlightened and egalitarian societies in the world.
Thank you, John.
I second what swetch said, but I’m not really a guitar-guy, but anyway, if you take any 1-minute clip from that 8-minute track, it will be well-played and have a nice feel, as it does throughout, but it would be very similar to any other 1-minute clip, if you get what I mean. Use breaks and build crescendos and use rhythm changes and other instruments to keep the attention; try to create a musical journey, with ups and downs and even upside-downs too if you want.
Good Luck with it.
Thank you for the reply but are you sure we’re listening to the same tune?
I hear several “1 minute clips” and they sure don’t sound the same to me, there are tempo changes and crescendos, even a section built on the whole tone scale, I suppose not everyone can hear that kind of thing.
Anyway the bottom line here is that this piece is the background track for a music and photos video I made of my late father’s WWII experiences with some photos he’d kept. Not the sort of thing where the music should be the focal point.
Other than that, you make some valid points, thanks for that. 