I personally think this project was a thorn in my side, but on the final week, I am confident in making/composing music more than I was before. Coming in to use Ableton and Logic for the first time, I hadn’t done any actual ‘songwriting’ before, and had only produced a few pieces on a different DAW before, LMMS, and it was difficult to begin with; I only had drum beats for my songs in the first two weeks, but eventually, I had multiple instruments,
Now that I have completed my songs and documented the process, it wasn’t as hard as I made it out to be. I have used my tools effectively, and I had about a whole day of just playing around with all the available instruments to me so that I could make the Ableton and Logic pieces sound the way they did.
As for what I did regarding structure and ideas before I recorded/produced the songs, Ableton and Logic were simple; I went with whatever I felt in the exact moment, and changed the tracks around if I didn’t like it later on. I had decided that before I wrote my logic piece that I wanted the genre to be something fast and hard, and I played around with ideas from things such as rock, metal, jazz, before I decided on my beats/chords in the final bounce.
For the songwriting process, it was much more planned out, there was a whole structure that was made before deciding to record anything, and it was followed well. I also believe that during the song, it is important that I use a click track, but due to my audio sensory issues, I couldn’t have it in my headphones, as it irritated me, meaning I could not play.
My research this time compared to Project 1 is almost double, so I would say the quantity is a lot better- and I would say the quality of my research is much more sufficient as well. I’ve found from my research has allowed me to understand songwriting a lot more and I can make my own songs confidently, as I can understand the importance of structure, and with a bit of research into how other instruments work, I can create parts for not just drums, but guitars and keyboards. The understanding of guitars is how chords and power chords work, and the different keys that I can play the guitars in. Up until now, I did now really find keys to be interesting, but a pattern in different keys can change the whole feeling of a song, so I now understand the importance of them.
For my SMART Targets, I will list them below.
Including more research.
Keep practicing my drums.
Become more comfortable with the DAWs we use in college.
All three of these I think I have achieved in many ways. I think my drums have progressed to a higher level than I was on before, my research has clearly multiplied, and the DAWs have become easier to use, and I’m comfortable in using both.
If there was anything more I could have done this project it would have been more graphics work. I lack quite a bit of artwork/album sleeves that were a requirement for the project because I was off a multitude of times on a Wednesday.
While this project was fun to me in the end, I don’t feel like I want to pursue composition as a job, as I find it much more fun to play existing songs and sometimes make my own drum beats. I do not think making a whole song from the ground up is something I would like to pursue once I’m out of college.