For my final Project, my idea is to write and produce 2 songs and release them as singles.
I would like to focus on these songs with guitar because thats what is like home to me and I want something comfortable to be with me during this project. I am also gonna challenge myself with doing piano because I have wanted to be able to play piano all my life but I have only recently started to put in the effort and learn it. I like to learn by doing so writing these songs with piano integrated into them will challenge me and give me the working experience I need to improve. Learning how to play with both of my hands at the same time on piano will be difficult because i struggle with my hand to eye co-ordination, this is easier on guitar because when playing chords you don’t really need to look at your picking hand much unless your doing alternative picking but i know roughly where the string are so i don’t really tend to look as much at my picking hand but i’m always looking at my fretting hand to see if my fingers are on the right frets to play the correct notes/chords. I am also looking to improve in producing so i am doing two songs in two different genres to improve on producing because producing different genres, i need to have different mixes of the two tracks because each genre has a better technique to produce that genre specifically. For example in pop, you want it so sound bright and poppy but in a piano ballad, you want it to be emotional and create an emotional atmosphere. So i am gonna challenge myself with these two different aspects of production and create two products that i will be truly proud of.
The songs, I’m thinking of doing one in the genre of pop. And one in the genre of alternative rock. For the pop song i wanna focus on making the most simplest chord progression into a hit pop tune. My inspiration is Ed Sheeran and his liv performances that he does with a loop pedal or when he plays one chord progression and sings multiple different songs in different genres over it.
^^^ This is one example of how he plays one chord progression on stage and sings a bunch of songs on top of it.
^^^ This is one example of him using a loop pedal to play a song and layer all the parts to create a multi track song live by himself.
These are really cool ways of playing music live and I thought they would also be really cool ways to record music too. The way he plays some chords on top of other chords and also plays notes within the chords in a wag to create a lead part that harmonises with the chords perfectly is just really fascinating to me. He does all this whilst singing which is a big inspiration to me because i aspire to be able to play guitar really good and sing at the same time but that will take some time.
The second song i want to do is an alternative song, for this i will use a crunchy distortion tone that sounds like something used by an artist called ‘Chri$tian Gate$’ and ‘Machine Gun Kelly’ and ‘Mcfly’
^^^ The tone of the two guitars in this song is the type of tone that i would like to get for the alternative song.
^^^ The palm muted guitar played in this song has a really nice tone that i would like to incorporate into my song because I like how it doesn’t resinate the sound for too long.
^^^ I really like the tone of these guitars too. The guitar when it goes up into the chorus sounds really powerful and the switch between clean guitar and distorted guitar sounds really seamless.
The main person/artist i am inspired by is Kurt Cobain. And he got his inspirations from The Beatles and The Pixies. So he took inspiration from rock music and added his own other techniques and turned it alternative and punk and it just sounds really good.
During this project i will be seeking help from a drummer to play in some drums for my songs because i myself don’t play drums myself. The way we will come up with the drum part we will probably be just messing about with different drum parts during a jam session and when we find the right part we will just somehow know. I will also be getting Jozef to help me record bass while I record guitar because I’m gonna do a recording of guitar, bass and drums at the same time. When doing the recordings i will also probably be asking a tutor or a fellow student to be in the control room pressing record and maintaining levels.
One of the major challenges I anticipate for this project is when i have my songs ready to be recorded, and I have booked a recording slot, if i run out of time and fall out of my schedule by having to book another recording session. This could set me back quite a bit depending on when the next free slot is. Another problem I could face during this project is technical issues, like equipment or software problems. I can overcome the equipment problems by using some of college’s equipment or using someone else’s. I can overcome the software issues by using a different computer or even, if it comes to it, i could use Ableton to record instead of Logic.
To effectively achieve my goals for this project, I need to do a lot of practicing on piano because I am not really good at playing it and one of my main goals is to write a pop song with piano in it. I also need to develop on my production skills so i am going to be mixing these songs and researching into other producers that specialise in mixing in the two genres i am going to be attempting. Using these techniques I will keep improving and making more music that will get better and better.
I will be doing constant documentation on my digital space webpage, where i will be putting up stuff like what i did each day and how i am getting closer to the end goal. I will also be writing about what i still need to do the next time I’m rehearsing or mixing. I will be posting a lot of videos of me practicing my songs and also coming up with new parts.
To present my final project i will be releasing these two songs as singles on my Spotify, YouTube and Soundcloud. I am going to be doing promotional work on these songs while leading up to the release of the songs, this promotion will be on TikTok and Instagram. A week after the release of the songs i will be evaluating them and seeing how much feedback I get towards the songs within a week. This will help me get some statistics i can include in my final write ups.