My idea is to do an album and to do a short documentary showing the process of the album recording and idea process.
Thursday 29 November 2018
Friday 23 November 2018
funding application
My name is Paulo Reiss and I am applying for funding for my European tour that I am planning to go on soon. The best way to get this funding is by getting arts funding because I feel like it is a better approach to getting funded as I meet the criteria and since I don't have a massive fan base it might be harder to get enough money from the fans to go on tour. The funding I will be applying for is youth music as I am a student it makes sense to apply for something that relates to me as a young musical artist. I meet the eligibility criteria as it mentions about being able to support different music making projects across a variety of wide range music which is something that I will be able to do and I do already as I make my music not just based on one genre and I work with different artists with different musical roots. It also mentions being an active musician which is something that I do at the moment particularly with making music and being socially active on social media platforms. This will help me a lot in the future because due to already have been given funding it will give me more exposure as I will be going on tour which could possibly allow me to go to other places as my fan base begins to increase. This will most definitely be good for the fans too as they will get to see me more often.
The funding will help me a lot as it will help in many areas during the tour such as: travelling from show to show by car and also in places where I might stay in a hotel. It will help with food throughout the journeys, petrol and equipment that is needed for performance such as: guitars, drum kits and pianos. It would also help me with clothes that I choose to buy in different countries which I can use when I travel across Europe.
I want to do this will impact my career in the future in a great way as this will allow me to perform a lot more which will build up my fan base and opportunities will arise from getting the funding. Also, by getting this funding since it will make me grow as an artist financially and successfully, It means that as my career succeeds I won't need funding as I will start to make money for myself by the success which will begin to build. Therefore this will have a very big impact on myself as an artist for the rest of my career.
Besides from the impact the funding will have, I will develop it by possibly trying to collaborate with a bigger artist from the industry which will increase my audience by quiet a lot as my music could be interesting to a different crowd that might not necessarily listen to my type of music and it will also open doors for me as I might stand out on social media which might help me to get noticed. I could also collaborate with more artists in the future and which will lead me to better opportunities and more success.
A european tour will cost a lot of money but as I mentioned, it will have a career impact which will create fantastic opportunities. The funding might have to range to up to one hundred thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. I don't have a very big audience so I clearly wouldn't need millions to invest into a european tour as my venues would be much smaller in comparison to artists who are very successful worldwide. The fund I will be applying for is youth music, this is the most suitable funding for me because it is focused for the younger generation and I meet all criteria, whereas other Art funding require multiple songs to be released and be played on the radio before applying for funding which means I wouldn’t be suitable for those art funding as my music has not been played on the radio yet.
The funding will help me a lot as it will help in many areas during the tour such as: travelling from show to show by car and also in places where I might stay in a hotel. It will help with food throughout the journeys, petrol and equipment that is needed for performance such as: guitars, drum kits and pianos. It would also help me with clothes that I choose to buy in different countries which I can use when I travel across Europe.
I want to do this will impact my career in the future in a great way as this will allow me to perform a lot more which will build up my fan base and opportunities will arise from getting the funding. Also, by getting this funding since it will make me grow as an artist financially and successfully, It means that as my career succeeds I won't need funding as I will start to make money for myself by the success which will begin to build. Therefore this will have a very big impact on myself as an artist for the rest of my career.
Besides from the impact the funding will have, I will develop it by possibly trying to collaborate with a bigger artist from the industry which will increase my audience by quiet a lot as my music could be interesting to a different crowd that might not necessarily listen to my type of music and it will also open doors for me as I might stand out on social media which might help me to get noticed. I could also collaborate with more artists in the future and which will lead me to better opportunities and more success.
A european tour will cost a lot of money but as I mentioned, it will have a career impact which will create fantastic opportunities. The funding might have to range to up to one hundred thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. I don't have a very big audience so I clearly wouldn't need millions to invest into a european tour as my venues would be much smaller in comparison to artists who are very successful worldwide. The fund I will be applying for is youth music, this is the most suitable funding for me because it is focused for the younger generation and I meet all criteria, whereas other Art funding require multiple songs to be released and be played on the radio before applying for funding which means I wouldn’t be suitable for those art funding as my music has not been played on the radio yet.
Thursday 8 November 2018
To what extent is current music from post 2010 influenced by the social and political issues of society today?
Intro
I am choosing to do the research on this topic because there are loads of things that I can talk about within this subject. This topic is very wide, opinionated and debatable which I have loads of ideas about. In this essay I will mention my opinion as well as using evidence in artists' music and lyrical content. Additionally, I will talk about the controversy that the hip/hop genre has in society and context of recent hip/hop inspired songs, in terms of issues that were happening in that time when the music was released. I will also do research on artists lyrics and what the songs they write mean to them and what made them write it, this is evidently a very important thing because researching artists and the music that they create can be used as a piece of evidence to prove the point that hip/hop music is influenced by society and political issues. However, just because one artist writes a song about their problems with political issues doesn't necessarily mean that all other hip/hop influenced artists have a problem with society. I will be using research and facts on the internet to show how different artists around the world have used their own music and lyrics to try and create a change in society.
Body
I am choosing to do the research on this topic because there are loads of things that I can talk about within this subject. This topic is very wide, opinionated and debatable which I have loads of ideas about. In this essay I will mention my opinion as well as using evidence in artists' music and lyrical content. Additionally, I will talk about the controversy that the hip/hop genre has in society and context of recent hip/hop inspired songs, in terms of issues that were happening in that time when the music was released. I will also do research on artists lyrics and what the songs they write mean to them and what made them write it, this is evidently a very important thing because researching artists and the music that they create can be used as a piece of evidence to prove the point that hip/hop music is influenced by society and political issues. However, just because one artist writes a song about their problems with political issues doesn't necessarily mean that all other hip/hop influenced artists have a problem with society. I will be using research and facts on the internet to show how different artists around the world have used their own music and lyrics to try and create a change in society.
Body
Decades before 2010 (80's and 90's) All genres of music was very greatly
known for it’s specific use of lyrics in relation to social and political issues.
Artists like Tracy Chapman and Tupac wrote their songs based on the social and political
issues of society back in their day. For example, Tracy Chapman, an artist from
the late 80’s and 90’s admitted that the song was about a regular life in the
city, and the difficulties that life itself is a very complicated journey,
especially when living in urban decay and when racism was a huge problem for African
Americans as they were seen as just a “Person of colour” or “Different”. Even
though society has changed a lot, social and political issues still run in this
day and age and musical artists use this as a way to write music to express
their feelings about this. An artist named CNG released a song in 2017 named “Not
My President” and the name of the song comes from the recent event of Donald
Trump becoming president in America, this become very clear when he says, “everybody
tripping in the street's gotta mugging me cause I'm a young MEXICANO in the
industry”. This lyrical sentence is related to the situation about Donald Trump
saying that people of the Mexican race only bring, “drugs, crime and they are
rapists”. This is a valid point in Donald Trumps mind, but the term “rapist” coming
from him can be seen as a hypocritical statement due to the fact that he has
been involved with several allegations in relation to groping and sexually
abusing females in the past. One of these victims is Jessica Leeds, where she admitted
to the New York Times that she had been groped by the President in the early 70’s,
even though the allegations haven’t been in further investigation, there is a
chance that this could be true and is a massive contradiction to his thoughts
on Mexicans being “rapists”. This song written by CNG has been used to go against
Donald Trumps beliefs and opinions on the country and people of Mexico, this
song has also gained a lot of popularity due to the fact that the songwriter is
a of Mexican ethnicity and has chosen to use music to go against Donald Trump.
Body
Regardless of all these issues against Donald
Trump and political issues etc… This is only one big issue that is being seen
around the world, which means that just because one artist has an issue with it
doesn’t mean all artists have an issue with this. Especially to do with the
fact that the world care more about what more worldwide successful write about
rather than what underground or less popular artists choose to express in their
music. The topic of social and political awareness can also be even more
difficult to come across when most of the top hits in the world are mainly
about heartbreak and relationships. The top ten successes of 2018 all have no
relation or lyrical content that relates to the political and social issues of society.
For example, the song “One kiss” by Dua Lipa and Calvin Harris is a song, which
talks about trying to get into a relationship with another person and the
typical upbeat love song of this day and age. Therefore, music isn’t
necessarily as politically involved or written about in comparison to the 90’s
mainly based on the fact that within the last three years top ten successes
have been all about love and relationships. Where as in the 1990’s the top successes
were mainly about the social and political issues of society back then and the problems
that people faced during that time. Political music was the saviour of communities
in the 90’s as society has become much a better place to be with a decrease in
racism and segregation. However, in nowadays music, music is all about escapism,
successful artists such as: Bruno Mars, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran are all about
partying and drinking, it’s almost used in a way to forget all about the
negativity in the world and the issues that we all go through in these current
days and divert from all those things that stop people from being happy.
Nonetheless, is that the right way to go? There is a positive and a negative about
that use of song writing in nowadays music as escaping from reality can
sometimes make a good impact as well as making a bad impact around the world.
By this I mean that escaping from reality can be used as a way to make people
become happier and create a vibrant and cheerful atmosphere towards one
another simultaneously, as all the social and political issues are happening.
However that is more to do with creating an emotional illusion and forgetting
about what is real, whereas the downside to this would be that politically, the
world can become worse and people will become revolting towards society and the
beliefs that people have around the world will have less of an impact on
politics and the world can become a very dangerous place.
Body
Body
In 2012, a punk band from Russia called “Pussy Riot” got arrested for
hooliganism after performing an anti-Putin song in a cathedral in Moscow. The
band has written and performed a song called “Dear mother of god, chase Putin
away” which was about getting rid of president Putin as they were against his
beliefs of church state confluence and protested for equality of woman and
civil rights. This was a very big scandal at the time as it provoked violence
during the live performance which caused an arrest to take place for the band
members. During the years, the band have released several tracks in which some
of them relate to the politics and issues in the world. In 2018, they got sent
to jail for two weeks for invading the pitch because of human right abuse
during the world cup. This just shows how over the years they have stuck with
their beliefs and continued to protest against anything that they didn’t believe
in. This in general just gives a clear indication that post 2010 artists have
continued to use music to express their feelings towards politics and social
issues. However, in my opinion I think that music in the last 10 years has dramatically
decreased in terms of using political and social problems as part of their
songs. This is mainly because society has developed a lot since the 80’s and 90’s
in terms of racism and political issues. Nevertheless, there is a statistic
that shows that 64 percent of American’s believe that racism remains a major problem
in 2018, according to NBC news. One example was that two black men had been
arrested at Starbucks for waiting for a friend and the workers had told them to
get out because they weren’t buying anything but no violence or abusive language
had been made from the two men, therefore this had caused a massive outrage for
some American citizens as they believe the reason they got arrested was because
the workers were racist. Regardless of this, as seen throughout the music
industry, there have been various collaborations with mixed racial artist around
the world which is something that there never was within the music industry and
creative industry. Also, this is seen within music writing as artists from the
last couple of years have embrace the use of different genres and cultures of music
to progress their music making. Artists such as Charlie Puth have adopted this
technique of using music that black artists from the 90’s used in their music
in terms of drum patterns and melodies that were popular and relevant at the
time in R&B and soul music.
Body
A university in Florida done massive amounts of research on how Love and Relationships dominates pop song lyrics and the differentiation of lyrics now and from the 20th centre. A music professor from the university researching about modern lyrics stated that, "The most notable difference between the song lyrics of the two eras was the prevalence of bad language in today’s songs. Many of the words, particularly in rap songs, are blatantly sexual and would have been considered obscene in the 1960s." Evidently, what this quote is simply trying to convey is that in modern music the lyrics are very specifically direct in terms of using sexual language in comparison to a few decades ago where songs used to be more elaborated in a way that there was metaphorical language and more thoughtful ways of conveying the love and relationship genre. Therefore, what this also indicates is that in modern music we are surrounded by songs that are very blatantly sexual and explicit language to make the song come across in a more direct way which in my opinion means that political issues and social issues are almost forgotten about by the way the last few decades have gone by as in the 80's and 90's, it was about using intelligent lyrics and language devices such as: metaphors and imagery to make the song come across in a certain way which conclusively suggests that political issues was something was taken more into account in the 80's and 90's purely because racial segregation and social issues were more worried about back then than in the present moment.
Conclusion
In conclusion, to what extent current music is influenced by social and political issues of society today is truly based on the facts that current modern music displays a very direct way of using lyrics to make the listeners understand what the song is about, particularly in love songs where sexual language is used very explicitly in comparison to the 80's and 90's which definitely suggests that music is currently under this phase of just having fun and forgetting about the problems that the world is facing. This relates to having fun and partying to create an emotional illusion in our minds to almost heal our minds from all the stress. Furthermore, we cannot forget that that in respect to having majority of current songs revolving around sex and love, there are artists who have expressed their feelings towards politics and social issues but haven't necessarily gotten the respect or recognition they deserve, but in my opinion this is because in the last couple of years artist that have tried to replicate the political way of lyrical writing in their music have been artist who haven't got a very big or massive supporting audience which makes it much harder to make a change or make a realisation in the publics eyes of all the dangers that all of us humans could end up facing in the future.
Harvard reference
Florida, U. (2018). 05 » Love still dominates pop song lyrics, but with raunchier language » University of Florida. [online] News.ufl.edu. Available at: http://news.ufl.edu/archive/2007/05/love-still-dominates-pop-song-lyrics-but-with-raunchier-language.html [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
BBC News. (2018). How Pussy Riot burst into World Cup final. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44886550 [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
BBC News. (2018). Pussy Riot allies remain defiant. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19255291 [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
YouTube. (2018). Tracy Chapman - Fast car. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwrHwZyFN7M [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
YouTube. (2018). Donald Trump doubles down on calling Mexicans 'rapis.... [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jaz1J0s-cL4&t=24s [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
Graves, L. (2018). The sexual misconduct allegations against Donald Trump – the full list. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/nov/30/donald-trump-sexual-misconduct-allegations-full-list [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
NBC News. (2018). Poll: 64 percent of Americans say racism remains a major problem. [online] Available at: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-64-percent-americans-say-racism-remains-major-problem-n877536 [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
Spinditty. (2018). Top 10 Social & Political Songs of Our Time. [online] Available at: https://spinditty.com/playlists/Top-10-Social-Political-Songs-of-Our-Time [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
BigTop40. (2018). Top 10 Biggest Songs of 2018. [online] Available at: https://www.bigtop40.com/features/top-songs-of-2018/ [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
Body
A university in Florida done massive amounts of research on how Love and Relationships dominates pop song lyrics and the differentiation of lyrics now and from the 20th centre. A music professor from the university researching about modern lyrics stated that, "The most notable difference between the song lyrics of the two eras was the prevalence of bad language in today’s songs. Many of the words, particularly in rap songs, are blatantly sexual and would have been considered obscene in the 1960s." Evidently, what this quote is simply trying to convey is that in modern music the lyrics are very specifically direct in terms of using sexual language in comparison to a few decades ago where songs used to be more elaborated in a way that there was metaphorical language and more thoughtful ways of conveying the love and relationship genre. Therefore, what this also indicates is that in modern music we are surrounded by songs that are very blatantly sexual and explicit language to make the song come across in a more direct way which in my opinion means that political issues and social issues are almost forgotten about by the way the last few decades have gone by as in the 80's and 90's, it was about using intelligent lyrics and language devices such as: metaphors and imagery to make the song come across in a certain way which conclusively suggests that political issues was something was taken more into account in the 80's and 90's purely because racial segregation and social issues were more worried about back then than in the present moment.
Conclusion
In conclusion, to what extent current music is influenced by social and political issues of society today is truly based on the facts that current modern music displays a very direct way of using lyrics to make the listeners understand what the song is about, particularly in love songs where sexual language is used very explicitly in comparison to the 80's and 90's which definitely suggests that music is currently under this phase of just having fun and forgetting about the problems that the world is facing. This relates to having fun and partying to create an emotional illusion in our minds to almost heal our minds from all the stress. Furthermore, we cannot forget that that in respect to having majority of current songs revolving around sex and love, there are artists who have expressed their feelings towards politics and social issues but haven't necessarily gotten the respect or recognition they deserve, but in my opinion this is because in the last couple of years artist that have tried to replicate the political way of lyrical writing in their music have been artist who haven't got a very big or massive supporting audience which makes it much harder to make a change or make a realisation in the publics eyes of all the dangers that all of us humans could end up facing in the future.
Harvard reference
Florida, U. (2018). 05 » Love still dominates pop song lyrics, but with raunchier language » University of Florida. [online] News.ufl.edu. Available at: http://news.ufl.edu/archive/2007/05/love-still-dominates-pop-song-lyrics-but-with-raunchier-language.html [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
BBC News. (2018). How Pussy Riot burst into World Cup final. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44886550 [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
BBC News. (2018). Pussy Riot allies remain defiant. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19255291 [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
YouTube. (2018). Tracy Chapman - Fast car. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwrHwZyFN7M [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
YouTube. (2018). Donald Trump doubles down on calling Mexicans 'rapis.... [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jaz1J0s-cL4&t=24s [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
Graves, L. (2018). The sexual misconduct allegations against Donald Trump – the full list. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/nov/30/donald-trump-sexual-misconduct-allegations-full-list [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
NBC News. (2018). Poll: 64 percent of Americans say racism remains a major problem. [online] Available at: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-64-percent-americans-say-racism-remains-major-problem-n877536 [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
Spinditty. (2018). Top 10 Social & Political Songs of Our Time. [online] Available at: https://spinditty.com/playlists/Top-10-Social-Political-Songs-of-Our-Time [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
BigTop40. (2018). Top 10 Biggest Songs of 2018. [online] Available at: https://www.bigtop40.com/features/top-songs-of-2018/ [Accessed 13 Dec. 2018].
Band workshop phsychedlic soul
In this first lesson of band workshop we worked on Psychedelic Soul, we worked on "Papa was a rolling stone" and we didn't struggle at all with the making of the song but we had to find a way to make the song grow because the original song was quiet simple and empty but the singers added harmonies which made the song sound fuller. The genre of soul is usually known for its space in terms of the sounds used but the vocals and lyrics are the main focus for the listener because of the process of improvisation during performance which we managed to re-impersonate. However, to change this we decided to add in harmonies in the chorus to make the song sound unique and to keep the song interesting during the different parts of the song - especially in the chorus.
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