The first thing I targeted for this project was learning a difficult song that will challenge me. I chose Mississipi Queen by Mountain, The song has a lot of bends with an into like a solo and through out the song is the same I chose this because I thought it would stay challenging and stay fun.
Another song for the project could be an acoustic one to perform I’m thinking of doing a nice emotional song called Bossman by Louis Dunford I started to learn it the chords are standard. The biggest challenge with this song is singing while playing it’s something I’m going to have to try try and try again but I’ll get there it be fine.
I was messing around with a scale and I found this weird little tune so I was trying to look for a way to adapt it and I couldn’t so i thaught I’d just expand on the bit that I already had.https://youtube.com/shorts/xT44cDina58?si=HzkjNFp0z3JQ2Jwf
From the last time I wrote any thing here I was doing terrible it was like another week of no imagination no creativity I had the idea for the song and I couldn’t even add to it. I was really stressed out
I had ordered a new guitar not too long ago, it arrived and it motivated me to play even when I was going through a rough patch in this project I spent a day trying with absolutely no luck and no progress. I slept on it and woke up early and just thought about ideas for the project. I just picked up my new guitar and started playing around with some jazzy chords and came up with a nice little riff so I kept pushing it and now I have progress for a new song called Since Summers Coming. It sounds a bit like something two door cinema club would make so I started looking into their songs and am currently finding ways to develop this song adding another guitar part over and it experimenting a little.
Today with 6 or 7 weeks remaining I plan on recording my song Since Summers Coming I want to be able to create and record a big portion of this song as it would put me back on track for this project. I have chosen to record today as I don’t have any recording equipment at home so the best I could get is sitting my phone on the amp and using the phones microphone for the song, the problem with doing this is when it comes to recording another part for the song the audio from the past recording will bleed into the other current recording so I need college equipment for this reason.
In today’s session I focused on the jazz song Compromise by Phony Ppl In the first video I focused on the song as a whole and what I need to work on there are some new looking chords I’ve never seen before this song so it’s a good challenge for me. The first video I am not doing very well struggling with the jazzy chords, I couldn’t get all the strings to ring out and the timings of the song is off. Either way there is plenty of room for improvement.
In this video it shows me going over the chorus of the song to make sure to nail that tricky 2nd chord and get the strings to ring out I get there in the end but if I keep practicing it will pay off and I will see a big improvement with the song I plan on taking another video today of a improved version of the song.
Today in my guitar lesson I started learning Somehow by Phony Ppl its a beautiful song and has some nice chords I plan on the song putting in the gig would be good to play I am struggling learning these new chords and it is a refreshing challenge so just gotta keep at it. In the next few sessions I need to work on lyric writing and stick to doing it at home
Today I planned on making an entirely new song as my first idea wasn’t going any where. I have spent all day figuring chords and little things for the guitar bits and am trying to figure out a melody and lyrics I have recorded the tune on ableton and I’m going over the loop again and again to try and find a good melody and words for this song.
This is the first video I took of the song its not awesome but it shows me I need to work on getting all of the notes to ring out and I need to stay consistent with the speed and timings of the song. Next I plan to write a bass part and find a melody to help me with writing the lyrics. I do like this riff
This video has the song looped on a pedal and I show the different parts of the song I have so far, little progress is still progress.
I was losing hope for the acoustic original song as I was struggling to come up with other instrument parts and lyrics so I decided to leave that to one side for now and write yet another song to see if my luck changes. The video above shows the first idea for the song using power chords G,B,C for rhythm guitar and using Phrygian in B and Lydian in C and just trying to pick out a melody or idea for a solo or anything. Still not much luck with lyric writing but I’m sure I’ll get there just need to keep practicing
At this point i am just writing riff after riff and cant seem to make any progress with adding and developing Since Summers Coming and the other song so i just thought i might as well put the other riffs on as i need to put something to show for my time spent on this project.
I finally made some progress with Since Summers Coming on Band Lab learning how to use it a little better and gaining more independence on DAWs (even if it’s just band lab it’s still progress) I learnt how to fix latency aswell. At least now if any thing I have a little demo for it and a little experience with logic.
This video shows me recording the guitar parts for Compromise by Phony Ppl on logic with some help from Faye. Recording Compromise was one of the things i had set for the final project so i am glad that is out of the way now i have to focus on finishing the demos and i should be okay.
This week has given me the time to sort through the demos completing the goal i had set for my self which was to make demos for my originals to get a better understanding of DAWs like BandLab, Logic and Ableton and to give me more experience with recording and producing which was also a goal for my final project.I feel I have improved my guitar playing, improvising, recording and my confidence when it comes to using technologies and different devices has also improved.
Since Summers Coming
Leeds Night
The demo on the top is called Since Summers Coming. When I think back to when I first came up with this song I remember being really stuck and didn’t know what to write but I also remembered that it’s one of the dumbest things to stop writing or leaving songs behind or unfinished (can’t remember who said it so remember them as cool guitar wizard ) The process took a while but I started developing little lead guitar parts to go with the chords on my loop pedal with nice smooth bass parts that is used in the demo. One thing about the bass in the demo is it’s not the best bass but it was fun writing a first proper bass part and for the chorus I think it works well, I still want and know I need to learn a lot more about bass because in the demo towards the end I’m pretty sure I go off key but oh well I’ll learn from it by practicing the bass part on a guitar as I don’t have a bass. After writing bass parts and the other guitar chords I could fit with it I then had to learn to actually record these demos as I’ve never really done that before especially not with a system as complex as some of those , I plan on buying a M1 Macbook Air 8gb ram 256gb as my tutor recommended it. I need to learn this other side of music if I want to improve so I will learn at home and see how far I get (I’m not very confident but imma stick it out dw) After recording all the parts with the Focusrites (audio interfaces) in one of the practice rooms (I used the sun burst telecaster for all guitar parts, the brown precision bass for the bass parts and just a Ableton drum looper Lewis pulled up, I still need to learn how to do that stuff) The only thing left to do was to put the video up on here which was the part I didn’t even consider for some foolish reason but I asked Joseph from level 3 to help me he showed me that he went onto a adobe app with a purple icon I can’t remember what it was called (I clearly have much more to learn but that’s why I’m here so I shall learn)
The 2nd is Leeds Night this is proof of my final project for writing songs, recording and starting to learn and use DAWs like Band Lab, Logic and Ableton. This song was the only song I was able to put a few lyrics on, the part I struggled with the most on this project was writing words for my songs it took me a while to make some progress with it but at least I did make progress I am glad I stuck with it and didn’t give up because that little progress is motivation and proof that if you keep at it you will see improvement. I was not confident enough to sing so the lyrics are not in the demo (it just means I need to work more on singing to build confidence. This song has a nice indie feel which is what I was going for I got inspiration from the chords used in scotty dosent know for the chorus G, B and C in power chords I just messed around with the strumming patterns and added some palm muting and it made the idea come to life. For the lead parts I put the chords on the loop pedal just like before and just started improvising and noodling around the G minor scale pentatonic out of the box so I could use the full fretboard instead of being limited to one position. For the bass parts I was not as confident with this song so I stuck to the root notes which I am fine with it works whatever but one thing that terrible with all that was recorded for this project is the mixing with this second song is you can hear ALOT of lead and hardly any bass or rhythm, this is a skill I want to focus on improving next year along with music theory, soloing/improvising, producing/mixing and singing. I feel next year I want to do more cover work and performances to improve on skills just stated.
The image is the start of the lyrics for the leeds song
I found this project a real challenge with writing and using DAWs when it came down to trying to write more than one song and work on a cover with a completely different genre to what I am used to playing. I stressed myself out way too much this time and I am surprised I was able to finish what I planned but it does prepare me for what’s to come and is a good enough sign that I just got to keep doing it.
This is the proof for my cover Compromise by Phony Ppl with Pav on Keyboard and Bontle is on vocals. I remember that this song started with me and Pav just looking for a song to mess around with in our wednesday lessons. Pav suggested the song for the lessons because of the chords used in the song i had never even seen before i think he was trying to let me get the hang of jazz chords and to practice a quick smooth transition from each complex chord. I remember coming out of pavs lessons and just sitting in the halls practising the chord changes and the song in general it was difficult at the start. When I started struggling with the songs I was writing i spoke to pav and he recommended performing Compromise as we had already learnt half the song already so it would take some stress off for the project. Every wednesday session after that we would just practice compromise as much as we could. When there was like 5 weeks left for the project final I was told we wouldn’t be able to perform the song I cant remember why but i know there was very poor communication from all of us thats a big reason it didn’t go down but also I don’t think a jazz song would have been the best for a venue like Bradford Underground.After being told I wont be performing that song I didn’t want to just throw that song away to perform with a different song so i chose to record Compromise with Pav on keyboard. We spoke about me improvising a solo for Compromise and I started noodling with the E Minor scale came up with some cool ideas but with the acoustic guitar needed more than a few takes so that took a lot of my time then i just needed to get it on here.