I would say that this week has been very successful overall! We have begun working on a brief structure that currently consists of a verse and chorus, and we have chord progressions for both of these. We also have a melody part for the keys in the verse. As well as this, our communication is still going strong by using voice memos to send each other ideas we have, and then we all work on that idea together to make it even better and stronger when we apply that with the rest of the instruments and layers.
Progressions And Strengths
Possibly the most important thing we did this week was the idea for a chorus. The chorus is in the same key as the verse (E major) and the chords I used are C#m, B major and A major. However, I used open chords on the guitar to make it dreamy and to give it more complex harmonies. This means the chords I was originally playing would turn to an A add9, Bsus and C#m7. To put it simply, the top B and E strings are open through the whole progression and this is why they are called open chords. I learnt how to play these chords during my guitar lesson and I have been trying progressions using these since. I think these chords work really well for the style of the song and when the keys and vocals are added, the chorus overall will sound almost surreal and dreamlike.
As well as coming up with a chord structure for the chorus, I also created another idea that uses the same chords but in a fingerpicking style. I feel like this could be used either as a replacement for the block chords I was playing originally or it could alternatively be another layer of guitar when it comes to recording the tracks into reaper. I think the fingerpicking style is quite advanced for me and it again makes this relaxed and soft sound we are going for here. If I use the fingerpicking as a replacement for the chords, the keys could take the block chord part instead to keep the track moving and engaging.
Moving to the verse part of the song, Tia came up with a great melody for the keys here. As the melody just uses the root notes of each chord in the verse, the melody is pentatonic meaning that it works almost anywhere in the song if the key stays in E major, and there won’t be any clashy sounding notes. I think having a melody for the verse is important as it can ask as one of the polyrhythms alongside the vocal melody. The vocal melody can diatonically harmonise with this part depending on the melody we write for it and I think that would sound great if we did.
Improvements
Looking at the song as a whole, we need to make sure the structure is better and more finalised. Right now we only have a verse and chorus, but we need to think about when we want to repeat this and how we can transition between the two without it sounding too forced. We also need to begin thinking about other parts like intros and outros, bridges/breaks and perhaps even a solo part if we have the time to work on that. I think devising an overall structure for the song is important to complete early on as it gives you a general idea of how long the song will be and how many ideas you should be developing to make the song sound comprehensive and complete to the best extent.
As we now have a pretty secure idea for a chorus, we now need lyrics for the chorus. As Lucy is the lyricist, she can get to work on this so we might have a set of lyrics for both the verse and chorus by next week. Tia can also help Lucy with this if she needs so together they can come up with a great lyrical part that might even have a melody as well if they get to the part. Once we have the lyrics down, this is when we can thinking about other ideas such as the name of the song and it’s album art, and what sort of feeling we want to give to the listener through all there things. Giving a song an emotion through lyrics is very important if you want the listener to relate to the song or feel for the character in the song.
Something I realised whilst doing the evaluations is that as we were sending each other ideas in the form of voice memos on Instagram; we couldn’t save these to look back on for future reference to put them in our evaluations. So, we should think about ways in which we can record our progress which is easier to access. For example, we could record on a phone camera, like how I and Tia recorded a couple of parts this week, or on a laptop using free software like Audacity, and upload to Youtube/Soundcloud or just send the files to each other so we can reference them easier and link them in our evaluations. I think this will show the progress we are making more and if we record using Audacity on laptop, the general sound quality will increase as well.
Targets For Next Week
-finalise the structure of the song and work begin work on all the parts.
-Still need to see about lyrics/melody and if they work or whether we should change them.
-Begin recording our work to make our first drafts on Reaper.