My song link

My song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP4ARiGiKns&list=HL1335958211&feature=mh_lolz 

The weekend and reflection

I tried layering different parts over one another. I tried doing them all together which sounded like a trainwreck and then decided on having "I know what's coming for me" with the chorus and then the "no wars" and verse. I also tried adding background alto parts with "it's the real world" which worked and the ba,ba ba which was just a little too much.

I then wanted a distinctly different end so wrote a few words and sung them without the piano, I then wanted to come back to the organ and the electric guitar as many songs use the same music at the start and the end. The organ shortened worked since I could sing over the top however I decided against reusing the electric guitar as the recording I had didn't finish the song with impact, it was too soft and I wanted something memorable rather than a fade out effect like one strong chord, I couldn't play it so instead I just sung it.

I added in percussion although it's not exactly the correct timing to show the effect with and with instruments on the sounds of the voices.

REFLECTION:

I wanted to think about mistakes I made whilst writing this song that perhaps I wouldn't do in future or how I could develop it further if I had time.

What could I have done differently?

One thing that I would have done slightly differently is the genre I feel like the tempo was still a little slow and it would be more upbeat and fun if it was a little more jazzy. I also should have done all of my recordings in one location as I have varied sounds with soft and loud. Something else is that I should have been more open-minded when writing as I didn't change my concept until much later on so spent a lot of time working on my original song.

What was my favourite effect?

I loved the accappella sound of the different voices and also the concept of solos. Layering the voices on top of one another was the most challenging as I was limited by my vocal range, but trying to work out what sounded good was enjoyable and I think that experimenting this was a strength of mine in this project.

What worked and what didn't?

It didn't work to chop up the music quite like I did which left slight pauses which ruin the continuity and professionalism of the song, if I was re-doing the project I would love to smooth these over or learn to play the piano part myself to compose a solo and play the chords at a desired speed.
Actually using the instruments and the effects on the program wasn't that great and I found it was so much easier to just do everything myself, some things would make a really great club, house or techno song though.

Friday

Chorus

Bridge

Solo

Verse 2

The things highlighted in yellow are complete but I want to work on them more.

Improv with gospel to end - I am still experimenting with different effects for this section as well as the organ at the start. I thought I could:

 Change the chorus so you have the normal chorus layered with "no wars" and "I know what's coming for me". I feel that I can do this since the piano line is the same so it is easy for me to time singing one over the other. I am going  to try different combinations to make an interesting effect at the end. Originally I wanted a round however I don't think this would work since the chords I have chosen only have 'f' in common and Mr Mcgibbon tells me this is rather difficult to achieve. I think it would be better to focus my efforts elsewhere.

An effect I found that I like is:  acoustica chorus accapella duet

I also re-arranged my song so that in the chorus the tempo is faster which makes the sound more upbeat. This meant that I had to remove some of the percussion and drums however I think this means that the sections with mainly vocals are not overpowered. I could add bass guitar and organ into some parts but in other parts where I wanted it for consistency it simply would not fit in because of the tempo changes.

Another note is the length of my song, a typical song is around 3 minutes and mine is only half of this even with a solo and bridge. This may be because I made the tempo faster for the chorus however this shouldn't have made much of a difference. If I were to recreate it I would probably add in a few more verses as these are rather short, and I would have put in a guitar solo.

I also actually added in my sister to the chorus as the effects on Mixcraft are no where near as good as the sound that  two voices can produce harmonizing together.

The difficult part is where I put the organ, it is changing chords fairly fast and although I've tried singing something over them I'm not sure how good it sounds, I can't fit in any words though. This may have been a mistake to put in this part without deciding what was going to go there first.

Looking at gospel music

I could use these features: call and response, rounds, harmony across a chord, one dominant voice with extra sounds in the background.

Why? These effects work with a chorus of people who have different vocal ranges.

How am I limited?

I am limited by the program I am using since it only provides a certain number of instruments none of which I've actually used since the timing never seems to work.

I only have my voice (alto) which I can only manipulate to within around an octave.

Instruments used commonly: the organ, the piano, drums, bass guitar and occasionally the electric guitar.

Famous singers: Aretha Franklin - soul singer, Marvin Gaye, Michael Buble (Jazz),

Think about:

Tempo - My tempo at the moment is 90bpm which is fairly slow in comparison to many other gospel songs. It is in common time, a duple meter,  which is typical of the country and gospel genre. I wanted to change the tempo for the choruses however using this program it is difficult to do this especially since I've already made so many initial recordings.

Instrumentation : A lot of these songs are actually accapella with a piano, or organ in some parts, if I had a choir of people this would be great for my song however I'm a little limited with finding singers who will be willing to devote their time to recording with me. To make the tone thicker instead I will be using instruments such as the bass guitar and percussion which are more commonly found in jazz or pop music.

Mood : At the moment I feel it sounds happy, uplifting and joyful, perhaps because it is in a major key.

Lyrics: Actually mainly the lyrics are about Christianity which isn't the main theme of my song however I think that my song has something to do with this.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_music