Link to ‘cherry blossoms ft. Lucy Pearson’ on streaming platforms:
Development stages
Throughout the past few months I have been working on my final project both in college as well as outside of college. Within my sessions I have taken several different ideas and developed them through structure and instrumentation changes. I worked with different ideas until I made a decision on which one I wanted to develop fully for my final project. I then spent several sessions working on Logic to develop my final idea, following a similar structure and instrumentation to artists who inspired my piece (such as Shawn Mendes). After developing the instrumentation of the piece and making some structural changes, I worked on a melody for my song which I could then fit lyrics over. Initially, it was quite difficult to come up with lyrical ideas for my song. However, I really didn’t want to create another instrumental piece, as I wanted to produce something better than what I had managed to produce in previous projects. Therefore, I persevered, which resulted in some decently constructed lyrics for 2 verses, choruses and a bridge. Of course, having regular sessions within college was ideal, as majority of my practical work was produced at college, and it was the only place where I could properly develop my ideas. Therefore, all of the work I did within college was essential as it all worked towards the outcome of my final piece.
Outside of college I researched into the industry, looking at things like marketing and songwriting techniques. I knew this research would be key and extremely vital to achieve some great results for my final product. I researched using many different methods, including both primary and secondary research. In my opinion, the primary research I did was probably the most beneficial. This is because I knew the target audience of my final project would be my friends and family first, then wherever else I was able to reach afterwards. Therefore, knowing where they streamed music, and what aspects of a release were/were not important to them (such as a music video) really helped me make most of the final decisions for my project, and also helped me know where I should prioritise my time.
Within the first few weeks of the final project, I think my preparation was quite good; I stuck to my initial action plans and completed most of the work I set out to do. However, when I started to come up with the musical ideas for the project, I completely went off track for my weekly/session plans. Writing the piece took a lot longer than I initially thought it would. This left me stressed and worried that I wouldn’t get the song finished in time for the end of the project. This project is the first time I had ever composed an entire song by myself, so I wasn’t aware of just how long it would take to complete. This is something I will most definitely take on board for future projects, and will leave myself more time to do. In my plan, I wanted to have most of my instruments recorded through audio, as I planned to create more of an acoustic track. This changed when developing ideas for my piece and luckily, I was happy with most of my project being recorded in MIDI, so I didn’t have a large amount of recording to do. This is one of the things which worked really well and was really beneficial for my project. Recording in MIDI allowed me to have a lot of creative control over the sounds etc. used in my final piece, and it also saved me a lot of time for both recording and mixing. I believe my planning and preparation was to a good enough standard, and was very thorough. However, there were obstacles in the duration of the project which I wasn’t aware of when planning, so I had to adjust to the changes that they caused.
collaborations
I collaborated with several of my peers and tutors during my final project. These include:
- Paul Holmes – artwork + animation
- Oliver Wright – lyrics
- Harry Wilkinson – recording guitar
- Lucy Pearson – recording vocals
- Abi Swift – recording backing vocals
- Lewis Blofeld – mixing + mastering
I collaborated with Paul throughout the entirety of the project to produce some amazing artwork, as well as the animation for the final showcase. The collaboration was extremely successful; many of my friends and family love the artwork and I received several compliments on the animation at the final showcase. Both the animation and artwork clearly show the meaning of the song and the lyrics within it, and I am very happy with the final result of both of them.
After being let down by one of my peers, Oliver helped me produce the lyrics for the song. I think this was another very successful collaboration; the lyrics are catchy and I have also received a lot of compliments on them. I am very grateful that Oliver was able to help me with the lyrics for the song, as I have mentioned before, this is something I do struggle with on my own.
Although I have been trying to teach myself guitar for a couple of months, I still can’t get the hang of a lot of the chords. Therefore, Harry stepped in and helped me record the guitar for my final track. The guitar helped add texture into the final piece, so I would say this was a successful collaboration.
Lucy helped record in the main vocals for my song, and Abi helped with the backing vocals. This too was a very successful collaboration. Both of them have amazing voices, and their contribution obviously completed the entire song. Similarly to the artwork and lyrics, I have had many people comment on how fantastic the vocals on the track are, and I personally am very happy with how they turned out.
In previous projects, I have lacked knowledge on how to effectively mix tracks and make them sound good. I really struggled in project three with mixing vocals. Therefore, I collaborated with Lewis and he taught me how to correctly balance the track, as well as the best way to mix vocals and subtly (yet effectively) add effects. I am really happy with the outcome of both the mixing and the mastering of the track, and have had a few friends and family members say how professional the final mix sounds.
Own Performance
I think I have really developed as a musician during this project. Many of my skills have improved immensely over the course of the past few months, which makes me feel so much more independent within my work than I did at the start of the project, and even the start of the course as a whole. I now feel a lot more comfortable within a studio setting, and more confident with writing and producing my own music.
This project has given me an insight to what my strengths and weaknesses are as a musician. For example, when composing a piece I know that I have strengths when it comes to chord progressions, but weaknesses when finding a catchy melody. I am also more aware of how to effectively develop instrumentation within a piece, and when it is appropriate to make the texture of a song thicker or thinner. Although I feel a lot more comfortable doing this when creating a pop piece of music, I would like to learn how to do this for other genres too, as I believe this will develop my musical knowledge and skills further.
I would say that I have been very committed to this project. While there are certainly points where I have come off track in terms of the direction and development of my piece, or lost concentration (admittedly quite often), I have managed to regain focus and really stick with creating a good piece. One of the professional qualities I have demonstrated within this project has been perseverance, as although there have been times where I have wanted to completely scrap my ideas and start again, or times where I have faced obstacles (such as lack of creativity when writing lyrics) I have been able to find ways to work around them.
If I were to do this project again, I would take more time to analyse what problems I may encounter prior to starting the project, and find appropriate solutions for them. I would also stay a lot more focused throughout sessions in college, as I believe me losing focus quite regularly caused me to lose a lot of time when I really needed it. I think I would plan to spend a few more sessions researching into the industry and researching into what really goes into writing a song, as I feel as though I was slightly unprepared for this.