weekly blog

Week 1
The plan that I have for this week that I put on my timeline was to start an idea or mess around with a few ideas for the first song on my EP and record it even if I choose to use it or not.

In this week I went into a rehearsal studio and I managed to get a guitar idea and I used the loop pedal and gather different ideas during the loop and played the melodies and riffs on guitar to build a potential song. I struggled in the beginning to use the loop pedal in terms of timing but it was definitely more of a mental thing because after a few times of practicing using the loop pedal, I became confident and I overcame that difficulty by constantly repeating the same loop and not overthinking how it will sound and not being scared to make mistakes. The reason it got me frustrated mentally is because I struggled to get into the right timing with getting all the melodies to work together and not failing make the idea flow as I obviously want it to sound great.


Week 2
My plan for this week is to contact different guests that could feature on my interviews and see when they are available and write down certain questions and ideas for these interviews so I can get the interviews recorded as soon as possible.

My initial plan for this week which I put on my timeline was to get into contact with guests for the interviews but I still haven't gotten in contact with anyone yet because I have been focused on my songs and trying to get ideas together so I don't fall back on making my music which is one thing I fell back on last year. However I will contact an artist on the weekend and see when he is available for an interview and write down some questions so I am prepared for when the it takes place. I came up with a good idea for a song this week, I used a sample from logic which was a vocal sample which reminded me of Daft Punk based on the effect and how the sample sounds and I managed to figure out the key of the song by playing different chords and notes and I found out the chords using my knowledge of chord progressions and I just finished with that quick idea and I will come back next week and get the song finished by adding vocals and getting all the instruments together.
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Week 3
My plan for this week is to go back to the first song idea and try and get majority of the song finished.

This week I managed to go back to the first song idea and get the song finished, it took me a few hours to get the song finished but that's because I spent a good few hours adding instrumentation to the track, adding vocals and creating lyrics. I did struggle with this a bit because I had to do all of this at once rather than spend a few weeks working on one track, this is so I can experiment with various different tracks during this project and so I don't stress out at the end of the project and leave things until the last minute. I managed to get all the instruments recorded such as: leys, software drums, guitar and vocals. However, I struggled to originally come up with a catchy melody for the chorus as in coming up with a structured catchy lyrics in the chorus, what I decided to do to overcome this is since I used the vocal sample in the chorus that says "only one, only one that you'll ever love, you'll ever love", I decided to use the lyrics and sing those lyrics but using vocal dynamics almost like a call in response technique which makes the chorus very interesting because the stand out part in the chorus is pretty much the vocal sample because of the catchy phrase and robotic vocal tone.


  Week 4
The plan for this week is to get the first interview of this project recorded, I was meant to have an out of college Producer/Singer as my first guest but he wasn't available so I'm going to interview a musician from my class called Jayfo and this will help me to get my first interview done and get some practice and experience.

This week I have managed to get my first interview done and I always thought to myself that this would be the moment of truth in terms of if I will enjoy doing this as part of my professional career and I have to say that I loved every moment of it. Besides the fact that I know the person I interviewed which means there's less of a curiosity when it comes to asking the artist questions, I enjoyed being able to ask questions and find out information from the artist in relation to his career and the journey through his music. However, when it came to the end of the interview, one of the camera's said that the recording had "automatically stopped recording". I done some research to find out why this happened and it is because the camera wasn't able to record everything because the camera was recording in a large file size which means it couldn't record the whole interview due to being in a high quality recording and the interviewing being quiet long also affected this. Also. the other camera was using an SD card which was 8GB which is not enough to get recordings of videos that will be more than 20 minutes long, and in my case the interview was 40 minutes long so it ended up on being stopped. This was my first time interviewing someone so I try not to be too upset about it since it was my first interview. However, what I will do is use the audio from the interview and post it as an audio interview on Soundcloud which is also a great way for the audience to hear an interview.

Week 5
Since my interview wasn't fully recorded in video format, this week I will edit the opening and ending of the audio recording so it has a clean start and a clean ending and save it on my computer so I can post at the end of the project and I'm also going to start a new song idea for the EP.

This week I managed to get a new song started and I looked at different songs from my favourite artists and tried to see the different types of things that make the song special. For example: harmonies, instruments used and vocal improvisation. I looked at the song Billie Jean by Michael Jackson, and one thing that stands out for me in this song is the use of vocal harmonies and also vocal layering which creates a lot more of a crispy and fuller sound which in my opinion makes the song sound catchy and the harmonies and vocal layering stand out. The vocal layering in the pre chorus and chorus makes the sound complete and crispy. I started with a bassline which is a way that helps me to develop a groovy vocal idea and I added in a piano sample which caught my attention because of the use of major and minor in the same chords which made the pre chorus sound very smooth but almost created a sense of tension and unease which is what I was going for.



Week 6
As it says on my proposal, this week I will research different interviews on YouTube so I can analyse them in a way that I can get some ideas from the interviewer him or herself in relation to questions I can ask and how the video looks in terms of camera shots and the setting of where the interview is recorded in.

This week I was pretty busy with my family and personal issues, however I looked at this interview that was very interesting in terms of the way it is set out. The interview is outside which is in a way unusual in my opinion because most interviews are set inside but this is what makes the interview stand out. Also, I love the way in this interview how there's a very good conversation flow and one thing I have learnt from watching all of these interviews is that it doe sent necessarily have to be about just the musicians music or career, it can also involve talking about a musicians private life up to a certain extent if they are okay with it as it will fill in a lot of gaps in terms of what the audience want to find out about the artist in relation to how their music has affected their personal life and also more in depth questions such as to what point have you been close on giving up or did your family support you on your road to success and sacrifices that took place during that process or was it more of a personal belief and self support. These types of questions are the ones that motivate people when they watch these interviews to live their life to the fullest and not be scared to make sacrifices and follow their dreams and this is something that will make my interviews stand out and be something to remember.




Week 7
As it says on my proposal I was meant to be doing an interview, however last week I didn't manage to contact any artists for an interview for this week. But what I will do is continue with my music this week and go back to the second song of my EP.

Due to not being able to do an interview this week I managed to finish the song I started last week and I used various techniques in order to make my song sound a certain way. The way I wrote this song was mainly on spot, by this I mean I wrote, recorded and sang the song all together in around 3 hours with no actual structure. The reason I done this is because when I used to write my songs in advance, I felt like their would always be a mental block which didn't allow me to write the songs without being scared of what would come out my mouth and it actually took me longer to recorded songs as I would spend one day writing and another day in a week recording. Therefore, this made my song flow very easily with no pressure on top of trying to write my lyrics and no pressure when it came to recording because now I record with the emotions that I feel in that moment without overthinking things.

I used the baseline as the main instrument to guide me through the song and I wrote this song in that  particular way as the use of the bass  is what makes my song writing come along at a much quicker flow and creative flow.  I think this is purely because my style is more to do with Soul and pop funk music so I become a lot more interested when it comes to song writing. I used vocal layering as a technique to  make the vocal sound much fuller and richer, this was used in the pre-chorus and the chorus. When it came to writing the song it was more about improvising and using my emotions in that particular moment to make the song come across more natural rather than have a structured way of singing and not as dynamic or natural.

Week 8

As it says on my proposal, this week I am going to back to the second song I started for my EP and finish it.

This week I finished my second song and I really liked making this song purely based on the fact that I wrote this song by improvising lyrically and vocally whilst recording simultaneously. I layered the pre chorus and the chorus with my vocals which created a much fuller sound. I struggled with making the song much fuller in terms of instrumentation because I wanted to add more instruments so I feel more satisfied but I thought to myself that simplicity is the best quantity of music so I just kept the: piano, bass, guitar and vocals and had fun with the way I recorded the song by just recording the song on spot and going with the flow rather than overthinking and thinking of a strict structure to follow through out the entire track.

Week 9
On my proposal it says I was meant to edit my second interview but since it didn't take place I will start a third song for my EP. However, this week an artist from outside college said he is available for an interview for Thursday and we plan to get this recorded.

Tomorrow I was meant to get an interview done with an artist (producer/songwriter) outside college but he has contacted me saying he is unavailable because he has a photoshoot booked for tomorrow evening which is quiet disappointing as he seems to be unreliable as he should've told me in advance so that I don't need to explain myself to people who are trying to help me and are using their valuable time to get something done when they don't really have to. Furthermore, it seems like my interviews will be delayed and I will struggle to get another interview in my project, nonetheless, I feel like I have been trying to hard to get people from outside college to do an interview so to keep things simple but interesting, I will record an interview with a classmate in the next couple of weeks who is a singer/songwriter named The Afterparty rather than stress out making an interview with people who are unreliable and who don't have any time on their hands.

This week I managed to get a good idea for my third song, I went more for an acoustic vibe but with a soulful vocal edge. The same 4 loop guitar loop was used throughout the whole song which is a risky move because it can make the song boring but what I done is I used harmonies to make the song fuller and crispier. Also, the favourite part of making this song is recording the vocals without any pressure because I recorded the song by improvising my lyrics (not all at once) and going with the flow. I recorded the: verse, pre chorus and chorus separately but all was improvised by feeling the song, improvising and not overthinking.


Week 10
As it says on my proposal, this week I was meant to record a new interview, however, no artist has seemed to be available for an interview as one of them was only in London for two weeks and another artist told me a day before the actual day of getting the interview done that he wasn't available therefore this week I will just get my third song for my EP complete. One thing I have learnt so far from doing these interviews is that I definitely need to plan my interviews way in advance because some artists are just very busy for this and some artist are just very unreliable with time. Therefore, in this project its just about keeping it simple and learning with experience and trusting the process.

This week I have managed to finish my third song for the EP, I did struggle a bit with this song as since its acoustic I kept on trying to make it better and better vocally and production wise. I added a lot of reverb as the song itself is quiet ambient and soulful so I want to use the reverb to expand the sound to create a very live stage feeling. I added piano to the song with the main melody being the sampled  Guitar but I kept on trying to make the song better and better without adding too much production as I wanted to keep it an acoustic track, but I found out the chords of the guitar and played it on piano and panned them to make it more spread out throughout the track and to make the song a bit more dynamic.

Week 11
This week I was meant to finish my third song but I managed to finish the song last week due to an interview not taking place last week. Therefore, for this week I'll just focus on getting my fourth song idea started and do as much as I can.

This week I managed to get my fourth song idea started and finished and I also looked at a song called "nervous" by Shawn Mendes and I took inspiration from this song by using the bass as the lead instrument similar to my second song and I used the same production technique of layering which I also did in the second song I worked on and the song I looked at by Shawn Mendes has real life instruments on it such as guitar and keys which is something I done but the keys I used is a sample from splice but the rest of the track was recorded from logic, such as the guitar, drums and all vocals. I also took inspiration from Prince in terms of vocal performance and lyrics. The song is about seducing a woman that is special to me and I show that through my vocal recording as I use smiling and arrogance through the way I sing in the song in order to create a confident performance and so it comes across as an assertive performance which also make the listener acknowledge that the singer on the track (in this case me) is confident and knows what he's singing about as a mature artist.



Week 12
Since I have managed to finish all my songs for my EP, what I will do is get my interview done this week with one of my classmates, according to my proposal this week I was meant to finish the 4th song this week but since my interviews have been cancelled and delayed I still managed to get all of my music done which is a good thing but it has slowed down the process with getting my interviews done which has stressed me out a bit but in a way since this is my last week I am able to concentrate on it this week. However, I plan to do it as a podcast type recording using my iPhone voice recorder which one thing that I learnt from doing the first interview is that even though it went wrong in terms of getting the interview recorded properly in terms of video, I still managed to get the voice recording done using Logic which sometimes can be a good way to use in a podcast which can be very intimate for the audience to listen to. Therefore, I plan to record my interview which my classmate (The Aferparty) in a podcast.


This week I managed to finish my interview with The Afterparty and it went really smoothly, I asked good questions but as I have mentioned before, the objective is to make the interview as smooth and relaxed as possible which is something I have learnt in the two interviews that have taken place. This week was also the final performance in which I performed "Purple Rain" by Prince with The Afterparty (aka Kai). I chose to perform this song because this artist has influenced me in many ways such as: vocally and musically. This is also because I wanted to perform a song that I grew up listening to and because I wanted it to be a memorable performance for the last  year of college.