[Anime on Tuba]

Hi VO, this will be my second publically released original.

Well, first the story I'm planning. It's in the vein of insanity songs. I've never really liked all the songs about "insanity" in the western fandom, as they're generally just someone being confused, (Or just attempting to confuse the audience with abstract lyrics.) so I decided to make my own. It's about a girl and her dead loved one. She wishes she could meet this person again, so she daydreams heavily in her imagination, and eventually loses grip on reality while caught in between the real world and her fantasy one. (Get the song title's pun by now? Haha. Yeah, it's kind of lame)

The second part, the music. I noticed that another aspect of Insanity songs is that the music is very dark and ungrounded, so I want to go in the opposite direction. I'm going for light with a melancholic undertone, extremely rigid rhythmic structure, and an instrumentation with little to no techno, almost Disney with a little splash of dance beat and synths. Here's a karaoke preview: (Strings, brasses, piano, and bass, with a tiny arp, pumping, and kick drum for good measure.)

Listen on Soundcloud.com

So, what do you think of the story idea? Is it interesting, yet do-able? Is the instrumentation going right and sounding good? I've never done a style like this, so I'd like critiques. (And if you could point to songs with the orchestration I'm aiming for, that'd be great.) This is going in the Vocaloid song contest #2, so it'll be released by July 5th.

[Anime on Tuba]

Listen on Soundcloud.com

The instrumentation is kinda worrying me, reviews would be appreciated.

[Alphonse]

I like the instrumental, though as an insanity song, I'm not sure you're doing enough. I understand that you wanted to do it from a different angle than usual ("I'm not really insane! I'm just happy~!" or something). But I think it might be a little better if you /did/ show some signs of insanity? Like the composition getting more loose and a little more discordant towards the end? You don't have to make it dark and looming or anything, though. Maybe try listening to some Kikuo songs (like Tengoku e Ikou, or maybe Boku wo Sonna Me de Minai de)? He does vaguely similar stuff to what you're trying to do--happy songs that still give you the feeling that something is off because they're overly happy. Because if you don't make it sound even a little insane, then the lyrics will neither match the lyrics nor be different enough from them to make a notable contrast.

EDIT: Added some stuff.