Practising composing on Logic
Whilst doing my research I thought it would be a good idea to practice composing on Logic so that my skills on Logic would improve for when i would be composing for my EP. Here are bounces of 3 tracks i did to build my skills on Logic.
First practice
Since the genre we choose as a group was to be Hip-Hop/R&B, i though i was a good idea to do a Hip-Hop track.
Pros
In my opinion I think that the instrumental layers and the pitching were balanced. I believe that is suits in the genre of Hip-Hop and I added violin harmonies. There was an ending to the track and it ends with violin that i added reverb on so that it slightly fades out.
Cons
This track was a bit short and plain as it was pretty much the same thing all the way trough, i believe that i could of added a guitar or something to make the track fuller and less boring and also I don’t think the track would suit singing in it. I got Harry (the producer of our band) to actually do the beat(drums) for me as i am not very good in that category. I could try adding my own drums to other future tracks.
Second practice
The second practice was also a Hip-Hop track.
Pros
Once again I believe that what I did well on was harmonising all of the strings. I made sure that the instrumental layers and the pitching were balanced. I didn’t make the beat simple or plain as i added guitar solos in. I made this beat slightly different to most Hip-Hop beats as the time signature of most beats are a 4/4 and this is in the time signature of 6/8. I added drums this time as i wanted to from the last practice.
Cons
The piano at the beginning starts of too loud and too harshly. I believe that the actual beat/drums could of been more creative rather than the same all the way through as i am not good in that area and i mostly focus on different instruments than drum kits. I totally missed out on the structure of the track which is important. As this was only a practice i didn’t put the effort in to actually recording a guitar in so i used a software instrument for the guitar part and it doesn’t sound a lot like a guitar and sounds a bit harsh or sharp.
Third Practice
For this track i wanted to focus more on R&B
Pros
I believe that it suits the genre R&B. The piano doesn’t start off harshly like on last track. I let the track Build the instrumental texture throughout the song for example, the piano starts the track off for 2 bars, then the violas and string for 2nd and 3rd bars followed by bass on the 4th bar. I added texture to the track by adding piano and a glockenspiel so that it wasn’t boring and same all the way through.
Cons
Once again i didn’t focus on the structure of the track as it was only a practice track. The track doesn’t have an ending so it just stops. I didn’t add drums to this track as i knew it would take me ages to do that so over all I believe that the practice part was necessary so that i could be prepared for composing my song for the EP, through this practising process i realised that i wasn’t very good at adding drums to a track which made me figure out that Harry (the producer of the band should do that for the songs as he is much more better in that category as me.
How I started composing my song
When i finished my research, for a while I was stuck on, what key do to my song in and didn’t know where to start from. After struggling to find any inspiration to start writing/composing my song, I remembered that I composed a track before that i liked which sounded like this.
Unfortunately somehow I accidentally didn’t save in on my USB stick when the college computers were getting wiped. Thankfully i uploaded it on soundcloud where I could listen to it and compose it all over again on Logic. It took me 1 full college day to compose it again and make it sound almost the same.
Composing Process
These are the bounces of each piano that I added in order including the scores.
1
I started off by playing the root notes of the chords Am, Dm, Am, G, C, G
2
I then arpeggiated the chords to create a melody.
3
I then played this melody at a higher octave for the pitch balance.
4
I then played the chords in.
5
I played the same melody as bounce 3 but at a lower octave as it sounded too high pitched needed a balance.
6
Then once again I mimicked the melody of bounce 2 at a higher octave to have that pitch balance.
7
Once again I added the same melody 3rd time at an even higher octave as it was sounding a bit too bassy and low pitched so far.
8
With these two notes I as harmonising the last two notes the bar. on bounce 1 the endnotes are C, B so I played the notes E, D which are a 3rd away from each other, to harmonise.
This is what it looked like on Logic.
I then added strings/violin
I played the notes, A, D, C, G, C, B and C, F, E, B, E, D which are a 3rd away from each other, at the same octave to harmonise and add fulness to the track.
I then did the same but at a higher octave toad pitch balance.
These are all the harmonies played together.
This is what all the harmonies looked like on Logic.
I then added bass to the track which sounded like this
I played the root notes of the chords A, D, C, G, C, B
End result
