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Overall this performance went well, little mistakes were made and we performed fluently and communicated well with one another. To improve we would add the use of percussion such as the bongos, to help fill out the songs and to aid timing struggles.

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QS16 3 Week 8 Lydia Yv Matt Simran 60s Reggae

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QS16 3 Week 8 Lydia Yv Matt Simran 60s Reggae

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As Yvie had been absent for the past two rehearsals, she had missed the writing of two songs. This meant that we had to teach her the songs, and also decide how best t incorporate her talents into them. For the punk song 'Misery', we had decided it would be best for hr to join Matt on the vocals. She would sing backing line son vocals at the beginning and at the end of the chorus: 'you are my misery', and she would also sing the second verse. We believed that her soft vocal tone would be an interesting contrast to Matt's more aggressive style. As for the pop song 'Seasons', we decided to give Yvie a part playing the bass guitar. She had some previous experience with playing the bass, so we worked our a simple bass line and she took to it and made it her own immediately. These songs will need practice but we have certainly made good progress.

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Unfortunately we do not have a video of this song, as it has not been uploaded by Mike. This was our first version as we do not have access to our final version of this song. Yvie is also missing in this performance as it was recorded in her absence.

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This performance went very well in my opinion. We made little mistakes, and ones we did make did not detract from the whole performance. I feel that we worked really hard on this song and communicated well as a group, and it certainly paid off. To make this even better, we could benefit from having some percussion to accompany our current instrumentation, to add a more prominent beat to the song and to better help our timing.

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QS16 3 Week 8 Lydia Matt Yv Simran Modern Pop

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QS16 3 Week 8 Lydia Matt Yv Simran Modern Pop

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Overall, our performance of this song was good. We did however make some noticeable errors during the second verse. This was due to timing errors and Yvie not knowing the lyrics too well. In future, we could fix this problem by either using a metronome or a loop pedal to provide a basic drum pattern to keep the whole band in time with one another. We should also maybe have dedicated more of our rehearsal time to this song, so we were all aware of our parts, therefore our performance would be fluent and up to a more professional standard.

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QS16 3 Week 8 Lydia Matt Sim Yv 50s style

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QS16 3 Week 8 Lydia Matt Sim Yv 50s style

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[VERSE]
We met in the spring/On a Tuesday in Beijing/You were as pretty as a painting/And you made my broken heart sing/We were shining in the summer/The days were long and the nights were longer/We'd get lost in the city/The months flew by so quickly

[PRE CHORUS]
But now you're gone/All it does is rain in my head/Now you're gone/The seasons change like we never met

[CHORUS]
I'm still holding on to you/Its so dark outside my window/Without you
(Repeat)

[VERSE]
By autumn we fell apart /Like the leaves fell off the tree/You were my shining star/Now the skies are cloudy/Winter's here and I'm so cold/All I want is you to hold/Now you're gone and nobody knows/I'm broken and it shows

[PRE CHORUS]
[CHORUS]
[INSTRUMENTAL]
[CHORUS]

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This week, we wrote a modern themed pop ballad, inspired by musical phenomenons of recent years such as Ed Sheehan and Adele. These artists tend to keep their instrumentation simple, like basic chords played on piano or acoustic guitar. The instruments we used this week were electric guitar, keyboard and the bass. We tried mainly to concentrate on the lyrics and the vocals, as these are the main focus in most pop songs. As ballads tend to tell sad love stories, we wrote our lyrics about a love that changed with the seasons. The rehearsal itself went well, we felt very productive and we got a whole song done to a good standard in a short space of time. The chords we used were C, Em, Am and G. These chords are basic an generic, but we used them in such a way so that our song sounded original and interesting. We decided to use these chords in a picking style on the electric guitar as an intro, and throughout the first verse. Then, doing the pre chorus, Matt will strum the guitar. The helps build up the song to help it sound more dramatic, as the lyrics change to negative feelings and emotions. We also used this picking technique for the outro to fade the song our gently. Next week, we will concentrate on rehearsing all they songs we have, however this may be an issue as Yvie has been absent for two weeks in a row, and during that time we had written two new songs. Next week we will have to teach her the new songs we've written, work out how to either in to those songs and rehearse previous compositions. This means that we will have to make good use of the so none is wasted.

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I said your name
And you turned away
You broke my heart
This is our last day
You said goodbye
But I didn't cry
You won't break me
No not this time

[CHORUS]
You break me
You hate me
You made the monster
In my head
You are my misery

You told your friends
That it happened again
I showed no respect
Well what did you expect?
Wasted my time on you
Knew it was too good
To be true

[CHORUS]
You break me
You hate me
You made the monster
In my head
You are my misery

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Today we began work on our 2000s punk song. We had Matt playing electric guitar and singing, Simran on the keyboard and I was playing the bass. Yvie was away this week, so we will incorporate her vocals in next week. Matt decided to play power chords for this song as they were popular in 2000s punk songs, and the chord sequence we created was: F#, D, A, C#. This sequence was made of challenging chords but fitted our style well. Without intention, we wrote the intro in 3/4 timing, which therefore made it difficult to sing to in the verses and chorus. Therefore, we changed to standard 4/4 time for these parts, to make it easier for the lyrics to fit the instrumentation. I found playing bass difficult to begin with, as it is not an instrument I have played before, but I think I picked it up quickly and it works well within the song. The lyrics were a collaborative effort, and we decided that as we were writing an angry punk song, our lyrics hereto be about an angry break up. We managed to finish this song in the session, and began to plan for next week's song , too.

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Today we focussed on writing a 70s style ballad, about losing love, as most ballads were sad stories about lost or unrequited love. To write the lyrics, we chose to write a line each and merge them together. This proved an effective way to write lyrics. I played the acoustic guitar, and placed a capo on fret 2. This meant that Simran had to transpose the chords, as she was playing the keyboard. However, she accidentally transposed Fm from Em instead of F#m as she forgot there are no semitones between E and F. Our final guitar chord sequence was C, Em, G and Am. We changed Am from D, as Am seemed to fit better and round the sequence off nicely. We decided that we should use the keyboard as the leading instrument, as most ballads at this time used the piano as a forefront, to emphasise the sad theme of the song. We had some issues, sometimes we found that the bass was turned up way too high, and as a consequence strongly overpowered the guitar. Eventually we actually decided that this song wasn't particularly working out the way he had imagined it to. I feel that none of the members of the group were really committed to the themes and the lyrics, and we weren't dedicated to it or sold on the idea completely, so this made it very difficult to write. Ideas weren't flowing as they usually do when we sit down to write a song together, as we weren't inspired by the topic. So, instead of pretending to be invested in this piece and having it turn out terrible, we decided to go back and perfect our previous reggae song. We had some more ideas for this song, such as adding bongos underneath to create a traditional reggae rhythm. However, this proved difficult as Simran, Matt and I were already playing instruments, and Yvie struggled to play the beat on the bongos and sing at the same time. In future, if we continue work on this song, I think it will be beneficial to the group to use a basic drum pattern played on a loop pedal, to help fill out the song and keep us intake, but to also add a more distinctive reggae vibe to the piece.

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Peaceful love
Remember that ocean view
Don't let your worries bring you down
I know we'll get through

Gather your friends around
Enjoy the peaceful sound
Of love
We'll sit by the seaside
We'll sing to the world wide
We know we'll get through

Summer is in the air
Good vibes are everywhere
We'll get through these hard times
With our family by our side

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This week, we worked on our 60s inspired reggae song. Following the vibes of the great reggae artists like Bob Marley, we decided to base our lyrics around the idea of loving one another and enjoying life, and overcoming struggles together. We first thought to use acoustic guitar, keyboard and electric bass guitar in this song. We used the same round of repetitive chords, C F G, as in most popular reggae songs the instrumentation is quite simple, and we wanted to stay true to form. Originally I intended to play the guitar, but I found the timing of the strumming too difficult to play, so I swapped roles with Simran and played the piano instead. Unfortunately I experienced a lot of issues with timing, as Matt and I were not communicating very well I struggled to stay in time with the bass. However after a considerable amount of practice, I began to feel more comfortable and started to get it right. We decided to use the piano to play chords on the 1st beat, as this would aid filling out the sound, and making the song sound less empty. We also had the idea to not use a plectrum when playing the guitar, to create a warmer, more relaxed tone. We used the guitar to play on the off beat, as this is a signature sound in almost all reggae songs. We also chose to use different strums in the chorus and the verse, so it isn't entirely the same all the way through, and so it doesn't start to get boring - to play and listen to. We also chose to use long notes sung in the chorus, as this is what Bob Marley did.

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This week we wrote and performed our jazz style 50s song. We did struggle at first with this song, as it was hard to find a melody that fit our lyrics well. We also struggled to stay in tune with the melody. The lyrics we wrote were basic yet loving, as this was normal for jazz songs at the time because the genre of music emerged after the second world war. We also decided to write our lyrics in tai way, because most border pop jazz songs use a variety of intricate metaphors and descriptive language, whereas more traditional jazz songs do not; the lyrics were more honest and less, for lack of a better word, cheesy. Other inspirations we had for this song were duets by iconic jazz musicians such as Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Probably their most famous song: a cover of 'Dream a Little Dream of Me', has sold millions of copies worldwide. The song is simple and relaxing, with basic instrumentation of keyboard,a piano and trumpet as the main focuses, and improvised scat singing during the intro. The concept of the music was quite basic, so we followed this and only used keyboard, guitar and vocals. We also used improvised scat singing as a form of chorus, as this was a traditional technique used in early jazz music, and we wanted to make our song as close to tradiontal elements as possible. The song definitely needs work but I think with more practice over the coming weeks, it will eventually come together. We were very productive this session, as we also began work on our 60s reggae inspired song.

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Today was our first session of term 3. The task for this term is to compose and perform a minimum of four original songs in the style of different decades, such as 50s, 60s, 70s and so on. Members of my group include myself, Simran, Yvie and Matt. Our initial ideas for our first composition - a 50s Jazz song - were that we should use traditional elements of jazz music, such as scat singing. Scat singing is improvised vocals, where voice is used to imitate - or instead of - an instrument. It is usually improvised and made up of nonsense syllables. We thought that this would help to challenge our skills as vocalists, and would also help to bring a very classical jazz element into our work. We also decided that we should use seventh chords, played on piano and guitar. which were also very popular among jazz musicians. A seventh chord is a chord made up of a triad (three notes) plus a note forming an interval of a seventh above the root note of the chord. We decided that the instrumentation for this song would be just piano and guitar(s). Like many jazz songs, we chose to keep the instrumentation simple, to mainly focus on the vocals.  Another idea that we were opening to experimenting with was to make use of a loop pedal. This is because we do not have a drummer in our group, and lots of jazz songs are focused around a steady, rolling tempo, usually controlled by the drums. We also had an idea to use techniques such as a-capella singing and finger clicking to create this tempo. None of us have any previous experience of working with a loop pedal, so we believe that it would be a good opportunity to push ourselves in different ways. Many of the lyrics to jazz songs channel very romantic vibes, as popular jazz music in the 50s was written post World War 2, and many a solider and a partner were reunited, and therefore in love. From this idea, we decided to write lyrics following this. Another idea we had surrounding vocals was to sing duets, such as those of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, including strong harmonies, to really emphasise vocal technique. This week we spent a vast majority of the session planning every song we intend to write up until the end of term, so we were well ahead and very organised. We also started to write some lyrics for our 50s jazz song, which we will continue to work on up until our next Magnet session. Our group were extremely productive today, and I believe that our detailed planning will be very beneficial in the long run.