For my EP, I settled on three songs as my goal; This seems like an achievable goal provided that I put my absolute full effort into writing and recording. Each of these are going to be instrumental, heavy metal pieces. I want to be recording and writing these during the project so that I can keep track of my progress and be fully dedicated to making the final product something to be proud of.
Content:
As I have said, I will be composing and recording three songs to go on my EP. These are going to be fully focused on my electric guitar playing as that is my primary instrument, and my main enjoyment in music, therefore I made the decision to make my tracks purely instrumental. I’m going for a heavy metal style as that is the genre that I love playing, so I will be taking inspiration from metal bands, and instrumental artists. (as mentioned in my research)
Cover art + Title:
This is something that I have already had a think about. I want my artwork to have a military theme, or a theme of conflict or dystopia. I think that this will suit the style of the EP as I will be writing using ‘clashy’ sounding riffs and chords due to the genre that I am writing in. I want to have a bit of a menacing feel about the songs on the EP so I think that this feeling will be portrayed really well through cover art of this style. Upon thinking around these ideas further, I decided on the name “Covenant” for the final product. I went with this name as it is another term used to describe ‘an agreement’ thus juxtaposing the whole theme of conflict. I feel that this really works for me as it adds to the whole ‘clashy’ theme due to the name clashing with the artwork.
Here are some of the main album covers that I was influenced by when thinking up these ideas:
And this links to my Pinterest mood board that I made for some further inspiration: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/danielgreenhalgh2000/album-art-inspiration/
The plan is to get some of the higher education graphic design students to design something for me as they are far more experienced than I am, and will produce a much higher quality and professional looking cover. Plus I think it would be really beneficial to have another person’s take on how the cover should look rather than just my own opinion.
Instrumentation:
When composing these tracks, I will be writing for a standard rock band set up comprised of drums, bass, rhythm guitar, and lead guitar. When performed live, the drums, bass, and rhythm guitars are basically going to provide the backing while I take the lead guitar parts and melody lines. I may add in extra small lead guitar parts to add harmony lines but the majority of all the lead parts will be on one guitar. I plan on playing each part myself, apart from the drums as I am not proficient enough at the instrument and it will take far too much time to rig up a whole drum kit to record with. This means I will use the kits that are built into Logic Pro, I do not think that this is a drawback however, as the kit sounds that are already present actually sound really professional.
Performance:
While this isn’t a part of the recording process, I feel as though this is a big part of my EP as this is going to be my final presentation of it as it releases. This means that I will be making backing tracks, along side the full mixes of my songs, to play along to for my launch day performance.
In regards to the actual performance venue and organisation, I want to have my launch at ‘The Underground’ live music venue in Bradford. I have already played at this venue countless times with past bands and in other college projects, so I know that it is a reliable choice. This venue is ideal as the sound reinforcement that they have there is more than enough for heavy metal, but also the venue itself has a sort of ‘Rock and roll’ atmosphere for lack of better terms, therefore it lends itself towards heavier acts. In addition to this, the venue has a good crowd capacity and a fantastic stage to perform on due to it’s ideal size and placement. Finally, the venue itself is local and easy to get to, so there will be no transport cost or hassle on the actual day.
Here is a link to the venue’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theundergroundbradford/
To summarise:
This is my overall plan of how I want my EP to go. For a weekly plan of tasks see the ‘proposal form’ tab of my proposal section.
I think that this is achievable, however I am pushing my luck with regards to the timescale of the project; This means I will need to maintain full focus and work drive in order to pull this off, but I feel as though the reward outweighs the risk and that this will be an enjoyable project to work on.