FMP - The proposal

Introduction - The Proposal 
In this project, I will focus on completing three to four songs which will be part of my FMP. I will try to get a few collaborations with Monet and another artist from outside the college and one to two of the compositions will be performed in the summer gig. In these tracks, I will gain my musical and production skills in order to make my songs sound professional. The reason I choose to do a couple of tracks rather than a single is because I want to gain experience on collaborating with other artists and be aware of time management and plan my work carefully. The main reason to perform one of the songs live is mainly to do with promoting my songs. The good thing about performing the songs live is that it is a good way of promoting my music as myself as an artist, also, since this EP has different aspects of collaboration, an artist that features on my EP might have a certain group of people who like his or her specific music style, however, having collaboration might get an audience who would necessarily identify themselves with my style of music to maybe appreciate my music or even enjoy my way of writing or producing music. My EP will be released on different music platforms such as: Sound cloud and iTunes as well as social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. I will be using these social media platforms and social media platforms because they're the most popular platforms out there which will help my EP to get noticed by different audiences and people on the internet to listen to my music. Since this is all in relation to promoting, I will also use business cards which I can give to them at the end of my performance, the card will have my Facebook, Instagram and YouTube links to my original music and music pages so that if they like my music they can go to my social media and check out any other music related posts and I can keep them updated in terms of future music releases.

Context Studies:
Since I am a songwriter and I normally start out writing a song on guitar, I tend to record my guitar melody down and vocal melody on logic so I have a certain idea of how I want it to sound using my voice recorder from my iPhone so I remember my ideas and so I can develop my song. Since I will be collaborating with other people, I will get some of my class peers to input their instrumental ideas by booking practice rooms and having jam sessions to get some ideas on how the track could sound. At the moment, I would say this is a beneficial way of making the music because it puts less pressure on the artists and makes the process hopefully easier to go through, it will also develop my sound as an artist and know what kind of EP I want to make. This will be a very exciting process because my collaborations might change the way I choose to introduce might vocal melody and the direction I choose to go musically. By choosing to do an EP, I will develop my musical skills as well as my production and social skills. In relation to social skills, I mean being able to work with other people and sharing my ideas with others to make a great EP. This will evidently have a positive impact on my music as I will be able to work with other musicians or producers in the future without worrying or being uncomfortable. As well as making an EP can positive as I get to work with other people, the negative side of releasing my music is getting criticism from people who don't enjoy my music which I personally think might be a good thing because it then allows me to analyze my own music and know how to make my music sound even better, not necessarily to fulfill a certain audiences needs who don't like my music, but to be able to take criticism with a pinch of salt and show progression through the music I make.

Research Plan
In this project, I will look at the work of many artists such as: Luis Fonsi, Maluma and other pop/Latin influential artists. The reason for this is because my EP is mainly based on that pop/Latin type genre. By listening and researching their music it will help me use similar technical and musical skills to make my music sound current and catchy. This will also help my songwriting as I will have more inspiration in terms of what I want to write about. The main idea is to mainly have an EP with the concept of love and heartbreak which is what I want to write about. However, the productions will have to be catchy and melodic and the lyrics need to have a special meaning so it doesn't become boring or too repetitive for the listener. This is why looking at different artists that have similar types of songs will benefit me because I can get inspiration from these artists and use techniques that they use in my own music. Also, since one of the songs will be performed live, I will also research live performances from these artists' songs so I know how to be on stage and how to deliver my song live to make the audience feel my song. Since I am doing a ballad, I need to perform the song in a specific way that makes the audience interested, I can do this by making eye contact with the audience but not move around too much whilst on stage because moving around too much might shift the attention away from the emotion of the song. To make sure the audience remain interested throughout the entire song the main focus is the vocals so I need to make sure to put full emotion into the song and connect with the lyrics so the audience feel the emotion.

Methodology

For me to meet my target I will plan my productions before hand so I can have a certain idea of how I want to follow through with my tracks. As every week passes, I will put an alarm on my phone every couple of days to put a reminder of what I need to do or any idea I can continue with. In terms of my song writing, I will always use the cut-up technique which involves writing down lyrics that relates to the song I am trying to write. This makes the songs easier to write and sing about. In the production side of things, I always stick to the same strategy and technique, I start off with a four bar loop and make any melody that comes to my mind and continuously add in sounds that are catchy or melodic. However, every time I add in a different sound I think about the structure in terms of the pre chorus and chorus and where I can add in these sounds to make the song grow effectively. I will effectively progress in terms of lyrics by listening to songs that have interesting lyrics and that have a deeper meaning. My goal for this project is to successfully complete it with songs that I personally feel people which I will enjoy listening to and other people will too, and the only way to do this is to continuously to write songs but not force them out. One method I haven't tried before is putting myself in another persons shoes, this means writing a song from another persons perspective and use their feelings and opinion to write lyrics down on paper and try to see how it would make me feel if I was in that position.

Timeline
Week 1 - This week I plan to research different types of musical artists to get some inspiration and see what ideas I can get from different artists.
Week 2 - In the second week I plan to get into a recording studio and get some music started with the ideas I have got from the previous week.
Week 3 - This week I will start an idea for a track which I am planning to have a feature on with Monet, I will possibly start the track myself and send the track to Monet so she can have an idea for her part of the song.
Week 4 - In the fourth week I am planning to research my case study and what techniques and strategies I can use in my music.
Week 5 - Get into a practice room and rehearse songs that I have finished up to that week and make sure I am confident with the performance part of it.
Week 6 - This week I will try to collaborate with an artist from outside college and make a track which I can hopefully finish in that week.
Week 7 - Get into a rehearsal room and practice songs from other people's projects which I will take part in, this involves playing instruments on other people's projects.
Week 8 - Mix tracks that I have completed and make sure all levels from the songs are balanced.
Week 9 - Rehearse cover song that I might ask people to collaborate on for the live performance.
Week 10 - This final week is the FMP performance which will take place on the 21st of May.

Case Study
In this video, Charlie Puth talks about his strategy to make his music sound better and to stand out and this relates to my music because I will try to use different production skills or maybe even vocal skills to make the music stand out.

Case Study
This a video of Bruno Mars playing a piano and singing which shows the emotion and the intimacy between the audience and the singer which similarly relates to one of the covers in my FMP which I will perform live.