WRITING
1st song
I got the inspiration to write this song after listening to how Lauv made Paris in the rain and I liked the type of song he was making so after some careful consideration I decided to write something like Paris in the rain but not in Paris and not in the rain but the same situation but like a campfire scenario but still with someone you admire from the song.
I got the idea of using a ukulele because that was the only thing I had at the time and it always struck me as a calm and relaxed instrument so I thought nothing more I could have bought a cheap guitar just for the song but I liked the idea of using a ukulele and there have been some good romantic ballads these days using the ukulele so I thought I’d give it a chance.
There are many chords to use for this style of the song but before writing the song I was in secondary school and I did a blues/jazz piece where I found out about major 7th and minor 7th and I decided to use them in my song and when I heard Cmajor7 I felt I had to use it to ad more of a romantic feel and to set the mood, there are some chords that I am proud that go with the song which is A7 to F major with sound really good and a nice transition but in music theory, A7 shouldn’t be there because C sharp doesn’t fit in the C major scale so when making a lead part I need to keep that in mind.
When I look at my song I think of replay value by the time I release the song it will be nearly summer and with my theme of a song by campfire there could be some people who would like to play it to their significant other, I think it will be played out in public a ukulele is easily affordable and the song is relatively easy to learn only 4 chords that are not too hard to learn.
The idea of making a campfire song came from songs like Wonderwall and American pie songs that sound like they were made for the campfire and forever affiliated with a campfire or going camping I have gone camping twice in my life and both times I remember some people out with there family singing to their songs from years ago but still hold up today because they are affiliated with something and easily recognisable and memorable so it is an easy way a song can get stuck in someone’s head.
2nd song
With three weeks left and a change of plans, I was faced with a new challenge I had to write another song because my idea of a music video and a single wasn’t the best, so now I was going into a new idea with no idea of what I was going to do either I was going to write some lyrics and if I got desperate I would sing the lyrics and make some offhand melody to writ to or I was going to go full production so I thought I would just write something and see what comes out.
While I was thinking of an Idea I decided to look at some movies for inspiration and their scores it wasn’t until I watched the breakfast club and heard the theme song Don’t you forget about me by simple minds and I thought about making an ’80s inspired song using the drums from the track.
Then I had the drums so I decided to look at another song from the ’80s from Billie jean to Mr blue sky and gathered inspiration from all the song I heard so writing melody’s and lead parts were fun to make.
This was a rushed song because of the time I had left from the other song’s so not a lot of planning came to it since I didn’t have time to think things through before writing and producing this song.
When I am writing chords I don’t really have a reference to them I just pick the first chord at random and go from there I do sometimes look at scales to get a start and to make sense of the chords but most of the time I just playing what I think sounds nice next to the chord it wasn’t until I got to college I started doing that.
Reference
Electric Light Orchestra, 2015. Before you continue to YouTube. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQUlA8Hcv4s> [Accessed 4 December 2015].
Finneas, 2020. Before you continue to YouTube. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaKzNtwPQxE> [Accessed 19 March 2020].
Google.com. 2021. ukulele chords – Google Search. [online] Available at: <https://www.google.com/search?q=ukulele+chords&rlz=1C1CHBD_en-GBGB812GB812&sxsrf=ALeKk03SkEkoLLGFiG3q6Uog6R6DL0T2Vw:1586210389193&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiAtKWW5tToAhWORxUIHUPDBy8Q_AUoAXoECA4QAw&biw=1360&bih=625> [Accessed 28 May 2021].
Lauv, 2018. Before you continue to YouTube. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Kw3NDnSQA> [Accessed 23 September 2018].
Michael Jackson, 2009. Before you continue to YouTube. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi_XLOBDo_Y> [Accessed 3 October 2009].
Simple Minds, 2010. Before you continue to YouTube. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdqoNKCCt7A> [Accessed 3 December 2010].
PRODUCTION
1st song
Once I wrote the lyrics and the ukulele part I was ready to record I was even confident to make the whole song at home because I didn’t like the idea of playing in front of people doesn’t really give me excitement just really makes me nervous so all of the recordings were done at home and not in college.
Other than the audio recording I still produced at college I added some sound FX at the start and bass and claps and clicks to make it sound more of a campfire song.
Once we laid down the vocals I invited a friend to come in and add a lead part to the song or just some guitar in the. We used the guitar as a bridge as well because I couldn’t write a bridge and I liked the fact that the guitar had a big moment in the song other than texture so we were happy with how it sounded and looked.
A couple of weeks go by and it finally settles in that the song we made was really bad and I thought it was a song that couldn’t be saved so I focused all my time on the second song to try and not make that as much as a failure as the first but my tutor convinced me to work on it again and it was just like I thought it was but still needing finishing for a good grade.
I worked on the remainder song with Ben to pick up the pieces of my song I thought would be the best one and tried to make it something I could listen to it and not feel disappointed with myself and embarrassed then we decided to use some synths and PAD’s which made it less of a campfire song but I was more worried of not having a completed song and not finishing the project so competing it was more important than the meaning of the song.
We also scraped the vocals and all of the guitar parts because of the way they sounded and they were out of tune.
-2nd Song
For this song I knew that I didn’t have time to write a full song with lyrics so I thought about making an ’80s instrumental song for maybe a filler or something like that so I started with the drums from simple minds don’t you forget about me and worked up I decided to use synths in a pattern I was already working on so I went and used that and built it up by adding one more synth to build texture.
1st screenshot
Now after adding the synths and the drums I had to add the relatively easy bass but there were still some problems with the bass because even though I used the bass notes there were still some problems with how the bass sounded and how much different they sounded and they were boring since that’s all you heard throughout the song knowing that the bass was bad I had to ask for help to have that fixed and it did with some help and we also added some textures to the bass as well which I think makes the track that little bit better.
2nd screenshot
Once we made the verse I wanted to add a break to the song and put in a lead part to give the listener a break since this was supposed to be an instrumental song and not a normal lyrical song so adding a new part was vital and something I was building up to, I like making lead parts on piano or the keyboard but it was making one that fits with the key and time of the song which is something I don’t really think of when making the melody I just make something that I find appealing not something in the same key or time and once I looked through the inspiration I had I made one that I am proud of now that its in time and key.
3rd screenshot
Then after that is was a matter of just copying what I had then added an outro to it after which brought the song to 2 minutes 58 seconds once I added a simple outro I looked back on the song and asked my tutor to listen back to it to find out if there was anything that was needed he then said we should at least try adding vocals and ask a vocalist which we did and we sat down with 2 tutors a vocalist named Barbora from the second year and me they started brainstorming vocal ideas and within 5-10 minutes we had them written down and recorded and they sounded really well she was a perfect choice her vocals were strong, powerful and amazing something the track really needed but I was too stubborn to know but now my song was sounding better then before.
4th screenshot
Now that we added the vocals to the track I asked my tutor again what was needed and he just said that it needed texture so we opened up splice and looked through the large library of sounds and plugins until we found the perfect one Ben was Nice enough to waist a few points on me to download the pack he didn’t need to but he did and I am really glad he did because the track sounds 10 times better than before.
5th screenshot
MIXING
1st song
From making the first song I didn’t expect I would take the song this far since I was so disappointed with the outcome of this song but nether the less Ben convinced me to change my stubborn ways and finish producing the song and do a little bit of mixing so this song won’t be as heavily mixed as the second song will be because that will be heard in the showcase and needs to be ready for then.
I did do a little bit more mixing for this song in terms of texture and effects and I also did some panning to some of the instruments to make sure they don’t get drowned down by the other instruments and can equality be heard.
2nd song
Unlike my first song, the second song will appear on the showcase and I have made it my main focus to make it the best I can make it with the time I had during the mixing part I did have a lot of help because we didn’t get to do the mixing course due to covid so we were issued help if we needed it and I did have a lot of fun mixing but hearing the same song every day took its toll and I got annoyed quick but it did help me find points in my song that needed.
After putting all my audio files down I had to organise that to be put in buses to fix the mess and to help organise the track I then colour coded the track which helped in a way.
1st screenshot
Since I bounced down the audio files with normalizer off I had to do all the effects again which wasn’t as bad because I can listen to the track more closely to see if they need a lot or not that much so that maybe took about a week to get everything perfect which included FX, EQ, and other effects to the drums bass synths and vocals.
2nd screenshot
Another thing that I had to fix was the levels for the track the volume for some of the tracks where high while there might be too low so as which they would have been drowned out by the louder audio which did take some time to get used to and still something I am looking to fix and make sure it’s perfect and not make the song sound bad for the listeners.
3rd screenshot
Now that the song is fully mixed I am happy to say that it’s ready for the showcase and that I went from a song with no hope to make a song from 4 weeks and making it my song on the showcase and hope people enjoy the song.