Working on my new song

I wanted the starting phrase to sound a little like Fergie in 'let's get it started' where the singer comes in before all of the other instruments, at the moment I think this sounds effective but my pitch is off and so I need to re record this later. It would be great if I had a proffesional to do this part for me as I improvised a little bit and so my voice doesn't sound amazing.

In order to create the different voices I am singing at different pitches but today I tried using the semitones on Mixcraft to raise and lower the tone of my voice however I think the sound becomes very mechanical and not natural which is not what I want for this type of song (often a little like Alvin and the Chipmunks actually). In order to sing the different parts I either muted different instruments or turned that audio channels sound right down. Some parts I had to concentrate extremely hard.

The organ is at the start and I'm layering the voices and creating solo sections throughout the song to provide different textures. It is thicker when I also add percussion and bass guitar versus parts with just the voices, organ and piano.

For the "no wars, no sadness" I created a call and response effect as this includes the choir and echoes the message. This part since it only has one main voice is an excellent contrast to the rest of the piece which is sung as a chorus. This effect is also used in songs such as:

I don't particularly like this song and it is very religion oreintated (Christian Gospel music originates from the church and praising the Lord through song) however you can see what I want to try and achieve with the power of the choir.

I added in the guitar which is playing broken chords at the beginning in order to create a moving effect and begin the song quietly. You can also only detect it if you listen hard which makes it especially interesting as people will know there are more layers to the music but they will not necessarily know what these are.

Dynamics - Today I used dynamics of a gradual crescendo in the "it's the real world" gospel section which slowly builds up to the chorus which is forte.

Since the second chorus came around so quickly I made it so that it had harmonic development - there were different background harmonies which made it sound like repetition (so people can sing along and find continuity) but slightly altered (to keep people's interest).

Although I'm using the same verses and chorus as before I'm making subtle differences to them and singing them in a different style compare here: (I had to upload them to YouTube with random pictures).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYU8jOZaCS4&feature=youtu.be

I spend the most time trying to actually cut up the music and record in pitch and putting it all together, thinking about what instruments sound right rather than actually doing new recordings. I have this great stringed instrument which just doesn't seem to fit anywhere so I may end up leaving it out which is a massive shame.

Development

I know I need to develop my song but I don't know what this really means, I already feel satisfied with what I've produced for the verse. . I recorded a new different part really focusing on the strengths of my voice. My favourite part of my song was the echoing section with "no wars, no wars" I wasn't especially pleased with the chorus so decided to recreate some of this using different words


I also recorded my bridge section which I was especially pleased with, I wanted it to sound like a choir of different people singing, perhaps whilst clapping.

 I wanted to focus on creating some gospel sections in the song and when I spoke to Mr Mcgibbon he agreed that what I had produced so far although good wasn't excellent. To lift it he helped me to re-record sections of organ, guitar and piano and create a new layout to my whole piece which would lift it.

The catch "the real world" would be repeated throughout  and I could sing over the top of this with the chorus and vocally improvising at the end of the song.


The layout is as so:


This is the draft paper version.

A clearer representation is here:

I feel like this is still open to interpretation and I may add in more solos, I need to really work on these vocal harmonies using broken chords and the combination of different voices.

The trouble with drums

Although I had spent a lot of time creating drum beats and looking at different ways of creating background effects. They were completely distracting away from the voice. As can be heard here.

 I tried to salvage the song by adding in different effects which reverberated the drums and made the voice appear echoing however these didn't make the drums more in time which is very important. I simply could not play in time to what had already been recorded and by chopping up the piano track so much it was difficult to piece it together again with the voice without suddenly speeding up or slowing down (tempo changes).

 The song sounded better without the drums.

Also the acoustics in my house are terrible as it is quite echoing so the sounds just travel up and away from the recording device. In my next draft I knew to record somewhere smaller such as in the practice rooms as school.

The second verse and additions

Whilst writing the bridge and second verse I thought a lot about what I wanted to do with my song and who I wanted to listen to it. A powerful singer would be the focus instrument as this is my strength. I wanted to bring my message about solving the world's problems.

I tried to write the second part of my song as well which became:

 

It's the real world, seen through my eyes,

Keep dreaming, don't stop believing,
You can do anything you like,
The world keeps spinning,
Your life keeps on going on,
And if you dream of the castle world,
you're living in my song.

As I realized that..
Everything wasn't perfect,
I tried to do the best I could,
And you know that it was all worth it oooo,
Because one person makes a difference, so lend a hand.

Pre-chorus -
No one hungry, no disease, no bad governance, no corruption, no endangered species.
No pride, no envy… no gluttony, sloth, no hate, no wrath, no lust nor greed...honey...

I wrote the second verse and pre-chorus in the same style as the original lyrics which I had written in order to remain like one song. I was having a lot of trouble finding a tune for the chorus though so I mainly just improvised here.

Drum beats

I heard that famous artists such as Jonny Cash and Queen originally recorded their drum beats using boxes and household objects so I took a shaker and planned what other instruments I could use. This drum beat would add a definite rhythm to my song and make it seem more solid. I could also then play with the tempo of the drum beat, making it faster for the chorus and then slower for the verses, to add dramatic effect.

I looked at different ways around my house to produce sounds and experimented with which ones I  could use. I decided that they would probably sound different once recorded so I wanted to record a  sample of all of them and then layer the best ones to produce a drum beat.

-Shaker - snare sound - The problem with the shaker was that it produced different noises when shaken  in a slightly altered way meaning that I only  recorded short perfect sections and tried to paste these  together on Mix Craft.

-Box, tables - bass drum - I tried tapping on my tablet and this sound was terrible as it recorded as tinny   and unprofessional.

- Cymbal - pan lid - It was more effective just using a cymbal actually.

-Other drums - pans and handles of spoons

-CD frame - This sounded almost like a DJ sound of a disk being scratched and so I didn't like it that  much for my project.

-Shutting a small plastic box - another drum.

-Pasta for brushes - pasta breaks when hit on saucepans, this may not have been my best idea.

 I searched for articles and videos on how people make sounds with unconventional objects and found this video and article (Electric):

I thought it was very environmentally friendly that they made their instruments out of rubbish and thought that maybe I could use unusual instruments in my piece.

 I don't actually play the drums so I experimented with different sounds for each instrument and then  muted and layered them. It was difficult to not have pauses in between the different sets of sounds and  I think these make the recording a little rougher. There is also a slight tempo problem at the start  where the beat is slower than the piano, this is not as good as I had wanted it to be.

 I originally was thinking about using a swing beat like this: 

However for my song this didn't fit in properly. A swing beat is most commonly found in jazz songs and  I was already thinking about creating a country jazz song rather than conventional jazz.

 I also put the sound on these instruments right down so they are more background noise rather than  the focal point. Also to tone down the tinny sound of the bottle which I used ( I also added the effect  classical reverb in order to do the same thing).

I played around with upbeats and downbeats which gave different sounds to the song. I felt like the downbeat sounded more disjointed so stayed with the more commonly used attention to the upbeat.

Works Cited

“Electric Junkyard Gamelan makes music with household objects.” QCTimes. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2012. <http://qctimes.com/‌entertainment/‌music/‌article_62a529de-a222-11de-94db-001cc4c002e0.html>.

Country music in general

I started comparing my song to other country music and did some listening and artist research to find out about what instrumentation they used.

I looked at Taylor Swift however she plays the guitar which I cannot do and I decided I didn't want this to be the main sound in my song. Many of her songs were in chronological order kind of like a story which is the effect I thought I could achieve with my verses.

 Tim Mcgraw worked with Gwyneth Paltrow and I loved the start of their song, Back to Tennessee which included acoustic guitars, these sound natural and fit with the genre so I want to include them in my own song although I cannot play guitar. I could ask a friend to play chords for me.

Some of his solo songs such as 'BBQ stain' all had common themes such as trucks, horse riding, meeting a romance, the rain, fields,


There were many interesting instruments used such as banjoes and harmonicas which produced a range of sounds uncommon in other genres of music which would make my sound more unique. Since I also cannot play these I tried using Mixcraft to insert pre-recorded instruments however these tunes didn't work even when set to the tempo of my song.

Introducing Piano

I showed Mr Mcgibbon my initial recording and then he played the chords for what I was singing,and  I recorded these using the program Mix Craft. I spent a long time trying to record my own voice. I cut up the piano recordings according to where I wanted certain chords.

 I also listened to different instruments on mix craft such as drums, bass guitar and acoustic guitar however none of these sounded good with the tune I had already produced even when the tempo was adjusted accordingly.

 Even on the 6th April I'm not satisfied with the chorus tune, I think the inclusion of a drum solo, upbeat drum tempo and guitar chords will give the song a more solid feel to it as at the moment the tone is quite thin and vocally orientated.

Intention and more writing

After all of my drafting I was watching American Idol set in Southern America which included many country artists, country singing is soulful and is generally easy to write.

All of the  problems which I wanted to write about I listed and made them into a list and used them to form my pre-choruses which addressed the problems of the world. The chorus was to be an inspirational message to listeners and the bridge was a change in vocal style - with a gospel choir layering of voices (working together) which gave my perspective on what the future would be like.

-drought /

-floods/

-hunger /

-disease /

-corruption /

-endangered species /

-pollution / abuse,

-hate

-lust

-greed

 I managed to write the first verse and pre-chorus which I could then use as format for the rest of my song. When I first wrote I was humming tunelessly but I made an initial recording once I spent a long time practicing different sounds and establishing what tone and accent (I wanted it to be country but it was difficult for me to sing with a strong southern American accent) I was going to use.

When I was younger,

I built a castle,
A group of hopes and dreams all crafted from the sand,
Of course crumbled down, oooo down,
Now I think to myself o, about that land,

No wars, no sadness, no people dying or crying or lost in the madness,

No droughts, no floods of tears, because the world is together and together is here, honey,

My first initial recording is inserted here:

Drafting lyrics

I started to draft different sets of lyrics for my different ideas, some were really ridiculous since the rhyme scheme was hard to follow but I kept them anyway in case they inspired me later on.

Some samples are found below:

This song had some sort of religious theme and also artists always refer to the weather in order to make the listener feel certain emotions for example rain = sadness, sunshine = happiness, clouds = confusion, snow = Christmas and festivity.

 Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

The weather -
Only strangers talk about the weather,
Outside my door the streets are getting wetter,
The water is building up,
Soon it'll be a flood,
Where's Noah to build his Ark.

 I decided this was too religious and also that I am really bad at rhyming words.

This was based around an inspirational quote:

 “You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,

Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”

 This seemed also too religious and cheesy.

These were based around the UN theme:

When I was young we were told to do things right,

But now I can see we've forgotten these rules,
And I'm dreaming of a better life,
It all started out in 1945,
The UN was formed and they helped keep hope alive.

 This is truly awful and didn't represent my message of purity at all since the lyrics were so bad.

Will the children be fed?

Rain will fall down on those places with drought,
Hungry are fed, and we wipe out disease,
Corruption is forgotten and wars a thing of the past,
Is this a reflection or will it never last?

 This I didn't think was too bad but definitely not good enough for my final piece. I came back to this idea later.

Life goes on and on and on and on…..

If we stop and sing along,
Because our lives a like a song,
We just need to keep the right from the wrong,
And things can only get better,

 I also looked at my favourite poem as since song writing is like poetry I thought maybe writing a poem and putting it to music would be acceptable. The poem is called 'Grey' and it is about the transition from a child to an adult and how instead of black and white ie: clarity, everything turns to grey as you are a child looking through an adults eyes. I thought this would be a good theme except I couldn't think of many inspirational lyrics.

I'm still a child trying to look through an adults eyes,
How do I walk on stones of fire?
I walk by myself, scared of what others think,
I know I'm not alone but sometimes if I just blink,
Do they know? What it's like inside…
I'm just a child looking through an adults eyes.

This song would also be relating to my own fears as a teenager about growing up and be accessible to others around me who experience similar emotions.

Planning and choosing topics

First I looked at all the potential topics I could write a song about, as well as listening to music I like and looking at their themes. The commonly used themes were -

• The environment - Like the song 'Wonderful World' I wanted a slightly broader topic.
• Love, break-ups, falling in love : I decided that this topic was too embarrassing and also I wouldn't be able to pull it off realistically.
• Partying - A dance song such as in the genre 'dubstep' would have a lot of technology involved which isn't my strength and also it  wouldn't include vocals and wouldn't spread an important message which is what I wanted to achieve with my song writing.
• Humour - To write a humorous song you actually have to be funny and people wouldn't take you seriously, the joke songs I  listen to also wouldn't be appropriate for a school audience.
• A festival/season - Christmas, Easter and other religious festivals have many songs written for them except we're not in the correct season right now for any of these (the performance is in June) and this would limit my audience.

Other inspiration also came from quotes (Quotes) although some were too old fashioned, they made me think about how to use rhyme and word choice in order to create something meaningful and beautiful.


 wanted something which would spread a message rather than simply being a dance song like dubstep which also doesn't include many vocals.


I made a list of different topics which I had an interest in:


Song ideas- My favourite films, going home, a historical event, friendship, love, war, trust, Unoriginality


Paintings, books, traffic, dreams, Life on Mars, ideas worth spreading - which is the TED slogan.

I thought about basic structure of a song:

• Verse 1

• Verse 2

• Chorus - with a hook (quotes?)

• 3rd verse

• Bridge - consider you story from a different perspective, maybe looking at it from the past or the future.

• Chorus

• Fade out

I wanted to follow this basic format with the same tune being used for the verses and chorus, the bridge would also make the song more interesting.

I wanted to write about the past and peace keeping which would also be the message of the UN and our school. I researched them (Major) and found out about different events such as sending peacekeepers so Somalia however these were then really hard to write about.

Artists who had a message similar to mine included -

 Michael Jackson - We are the world originally by Michael Jackson but used to gain support for Haiti. This song is sung by a chorus of people (a choir) and I loved the harmony of the different sounds (tenor, alto, bass and soprano).

John Lennon - Imagine, this song inspires and uplifts those who listen, as he sings about solving problems, the lyrics here are far more important than the tune.

Both of these two songs focused on the strength, purity and voice quality of the singer which is also something which I wanted to improve. I also realized that my lyrics must be poetic and have meaning if the song was to be slow.

Works Cited:

“Major Events in the History of the UN.” CFIF. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2012. <http://www.cfif.org/‌htdocs/‌freedomline/‌un_monitor/‌background/‌events_in_un_history.htm>.

“Quotes about Life.” Brainyquote. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2012. <http://www.brainyquote.com/‌quotes/‌topics/‌topic_motivational2.html>.