David,
This song is very carefully constructed. It shows a lot of craftsmanship in making a pop song. The chord progressions, key changes, orchestration, etc. all sound very sophisticated. I particularly like the lift of the key change at the end.
In short, I liked the song (although it is not the style of music I would go out to buy). Here are some comments, general and specific:
(1) The intro (electric piano?) sounds too dated for today. Maybe different instrumentation for the same parts would make all the difference. You need to hook the listener in the first 10 seconds for a pop song. You don't want the listener to spend those 10 seconds thinking, "What song from the 1980s is this?"
(2) It matters a lot whether you make this song an instrumental or a ballad with a strong vocalist. As an instrumental, it might draw favor among "smooth jazz" fans, but I suspect it is too lush for them--there is not much soulfulness. But I could easily imagine someone like Celine Dion or Josh Groban singing lyrics to this song. Better yet, craft it as a duet between a guy and a girl--that gives you complete license to be sentimental. I think that the big vocal send-up is more the market for this piece. Do you have lyrics? This sounds like a classic love song.
(3) If this composition is to remain an instrumental piece, and if it does not grab the smooth jazzers, then it sounds like a TV theme song to me. The only problem is that the melody is too long to be compressed to the 30 to 45 seconds of opening credits for a show. I don't think it fits into the John Tesh genre because it does not have a hard enough beat and is not bombastic. It is an unapologetically sentimental song, which is great.
(4) I hear a lot of David Foster in your chord progression and arrangement. This song could have been used in
St. Elmo's Fire. That David Foster connection is partly what made me think of Celine Dion. This might make you cringe, but I also heard some Neil Diamond. Don't laugh--anyone who owns the copyright on "California Dreamin'" and dozens of other pop hits is sitting pretty. What these reactions are telling me is that your target audience is not the riff-oriented rocker. No offense intended, but this is "easy listening" music--it is soothing and enveloping, not confrontational in the least. It also has no trace of blues or funk, save a couple of blue notes on the sax. You need to think about who listens to such music, who buys it, where, and how do they enjoy it. Are you targeting people who buys CDs and download songs, or are you targeting people who select songs for insertion into other content such as TV shows, movies, commercials, documentaries?
(5) The acoustic piano is playing some country-style chords. You might turn this into more of a Nashville sound. It doesn't rock hard enough to be "new country," but you could pitch it as a country pop ballad (as in point 2 above) to a singer like Kenny Rogers. That option, however, would probably require a lot more reworking than the Celine Dion-Josh Groban duet I imagine above.
(6) Another idea: Since it is a sentimental piece, think about whether you could turn it into a Christmas song. The good thing about Christmas songs is that they have a long shelf life. They get heavy airplay and other non-radio performances for 4 weeks, year after year. You would need good lyrics and a strong vocal performance (again, you could have a guy/gal duet and make it a Christmas tear jerker). If this idea pays off, I hope you will invite me someday to your ski chalet overlooking Aspen. In all seriousness, check out Richard Page's Christmas song, "I Always Cry at Christmas." (
http://www.richardpagemusic.com/music/) It's a beautiful song, but so is yours. Of course, Richard's song has a vocal performance by one of the best male vocalists in the business. Richard works a lot with David Foster, so his song may give you more insight into what I am hearing in terms of the potential in your song.
If I think of other possibilities, I will post them.
Overall, I don't think this piece fits well beside the others of yours I have heard, mainly because it does sound dated, but also because it sounds more lush in the Josh Groban sense.
Incidentally, what did you use for the tenor sax? It sounded quite a lot like Dave Boruff's playing on "Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire (Instrumental)." See
http://www.lastudiomusicians.org/davebo ... tepage.htm
Keep up the good work.
Greg
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