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The brief: – Utilising the wide range of learning from this module select and perform a single track which best showcases your abilities and preferred musical style. The track may be an original composition, cover version, and/or creative arrangement and will be 2-5 minutes in duration.

This is an opportunity to focus on musical detail, authenticity, stylistic understanding, technical proficiency. You are asked to produce a finished piece of work that is complete, arranged, coherent, orchestrated, and ready for stage or studio and would be received with credibility by the target audience.

My initial ideas for the summative assignment primarily revolved around how to differentiate the live and recorded versions of the same song. One of my first ideas was to make the produced version of the song first, then approach the live version in a stripped back ‘NPR Tiny Desk’ way. So taking the original version and limiting the orchestration for a more bare composition. For instance instead of having layers of distorted electric guitar I’d have just the one acoustic/electric guitar. Other examples of stripping it back include, replacing the drums with something quieter like a cajon or using only one vocalist with any unison lines/harmonies being removed. My alternative idea for differing the two versions was inspired by Led Zeppelin’s subtle changes in their live performances. Due to the limitation of the band only having four members, Zeppelin would have to adapt the parts in their studio recorded tracks to fit within their live context. Bass parts would get transposed onto the keyboard and the guitar overdubs would get melded into the main riffs. Other than that, Zeppelin had a habit of adding new sections entirely and building on their original studio versions. Their cover of ‘Dazed and Confused’ originally came in at 6.29 minutes on their album, whilst some of their live versions of the song could last up to half an hour long with these added sections. So these two ideas are definitely options I should consider moving forward into this brief.

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House Band Session #1 - 'The Forever Bride'

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House Band Session #1 - 'The Forever Bride'

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21.Sep.2022 - The first session with the house band was exciting, I brought them a song that I wrote prior to uni called 'Forever Bride'. I played bass as I had already mapped out all of the parts for the instrument, and taught the chord progression to the guitarist and keyboardist.

I then received feedback for the track. Everyone seemed to like the instrumental and most were curious in the direction I'd take vocals when added (I don't sing). Most of the critical feedback revolved around the developing the song dynamically in terms of composition and textures. It was suggested that maybe the bass line (which was the main hook aside from any future vocals) should be used more sparingly to make people crave it more when it does come back in. The composition also drew comparison to the sound of both Florence + the Machine and The Smiths. I actually used the bass line from the Smiths track 'There is a Light That Never Goes Out' as a reference point for my own bass part, so I was pleased with the comparison.

Harvard reference needed!

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This week I started work on writing my song. I already had some idea of what sort of song I wanted to make. Being a big fan of Little Simz and especially her last album ‘Sometimes I Might Be Introvert’, I liked the idea of combining rap beats with lush string arrangements and real instruments. This can be found on her songs like ‘Introvert’ and ‘Flowers’. I also was inspired by my recent exposure to moshing through bands like Tiger cub and Animal Shithouse (who I had both been introduced to since starting uni). With this odd combination of influences I wanted to write a song that started off with the more lush rap beat and then would later devolve into hard mosh riffs. Though this fusion doesn’t seem to work too well on paper, I think if I can pull it off what I’m hearing in my head it’ll make a really cool contrast (think of it like a rap version of ‘Freebird’ - Lynyrd Skynyrd almost).

I started by trying to write a chord progression for the first half of the song, and came up with two possibilities (shown above):

1st progression: A / / / | C# / / / | D / / / | E7 / / / |

I wasn’t too big of a fan of this progression as I think it lent too much in a grunge direction harmonically (with the C# major). Grunge is not a particularly favourite genre of mine.

2nd progression: F#m / / / | E / D / | Bm / / A | A C#m B / |

I liked this progression a lot more because I preferred the mood of it more (sort of longing) and had a more interesting rhythm with the changes. I also liked the harmonic change that the B major brought at the end.

I also wrote a little spoken word passage that could fit somewhere in the song and could help outline a potential theme for the rest of the lyrics:

In tall towers your mind flowers

Amongst the idle blitz and the iron mountains

Keep calm and embrace napalm

And just fuck around and find yourself

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This week in project management we looked at SWOT analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats). This is when you analyse how you're doing in the assignment with these 4 criteria.

My Strengths: One of my strengths that I think will come in handy during this assignment is my ability to generate ideas quickly. As the first song you come up with may not always be the best, it's good to be able to come up with other ideas to offer other possible songs that could replace it.

My Weaknesses: I think a big weakness of mine, this week in particular, was communicating ideas. For instance, I had trouble during a song writing session this week properly communicating an idea to the house band keyboardist Quilla. This led to a less efficient session spent only working on one section of the song.

My Opportunities: Given that a weakness of mine is that I can't sing/am not a good singer a possible opportunity is using the singers around me. I'm surrounded by some very talented singers/lyricists and if I use these connections effectively I think it will yield very positive results.

My Threats: I have a very bad habit of leaving things to the last minute and with a work load like this, this habit could become a threat to my success. In order to combat this I'd like to set aside a day every week just to completing the diaries as well as time to write/develop my final song. This will help me manage my time more effectively and get rid of the work load more efficiently.

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Song idea: ‘Uncle Ben’

Another song option for my assignment was to revitalise an even older song of mine: ‘uncle Ben’. A song that I was actually planning on using for the first LPW session. I had already outlined the whole progression for the song and now all that was needed was vocal/lyrics and to fine tune the arrangement into a proper song.

Verse progression: Dm7 | C6 | Fmaj7/C | Bb6 |

Interlude progression: Fmaj7 | Am7 | Gm7 | ??? |

The song ends on a key change by a whole step, making the ending progression: Em7 | D6 | Gmaj7/D | C6 |

Structure: intro - verse - interlude - verse - chord transition - key change - outro

I have had the song idea laying about for so long that the amount of different versions/ideas I've had for it have blurred how I actually want the song to be. I initially wanted it to be like an 60s soul song/ballad, in the vein of '(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay' - Otis Redding or 'Let It Be' - The Beatles. Then I saw it heading in a more modern ballad direction such as 'when the party's over' - Billie Eilish. So my plan is to try and restart this song once again. Hopefully the new environment and musicians I am surrounded by can help the develop the song into an actual finished product. I'm going to bring the track to the house band to see what they can do with it. I also recently met the singer Jess Oyo at an open mic night and could possibly see the tune going in a more stripped back singer-songwriter direction if I were to collaborate with her on it.

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Risk Assessment

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19.Oct.2022 - For this house band session I brought them another song I had written prior to uni currently called ‘Uncle Ben’. I wrote this song as a ballad intended to be in the soul genre, inspired by tracks like ‘(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay)’ - Otis Redding. However after bringing it to the house band, the track soon adopted a different, much more modern sound. I think this was partly down to me mislabelling the genre as neo-soul instead of just soul. This however wasn’t a bad thing, as the house band’s interpretation of my song provided a new way of looking at a song that I had been in a creative stalemate with for quite some time. Theo’s implementation of electric drum sounds into acoustic, and Quilla’s more modern electric piano sound are both things I could carry on into the song moving forward. The house band basically recontextualised this song once again.

Most of the feedback praised the song’s chill atmosphere, saying the chord progression and embellishments were lovely and the song made them want to dance. Much like my previous song though, the composition was in need of some tension and release. My playing also seemed a bit tentative and the embellishments I had written seemed too rehearsed and had the potential to get stale. The room was split on whether the song would sound better with a female or male vocalist also (John Mayer’s buttery vocals being suggested as a way to go). Quilla said the song reminded her of like the 90s girl R&B groups and also mentioned ‘From This Moment On’ - Shania Twain as a reference point for that.

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This week I had my first songwriting session with Jess Oyo, a singer-songwriter from Waterbear. In this session we worked on ideas for my song 'uncle ben' discussing lyrical themes (as that's something I wanted her to help me on) as well as certain discrepancies with the structure. For instance the interlude section where the song goes to Fmaj7 worked more for the song when it was instrumental but complicated the structure when adding lyrics. After eventually reaching a dead end with this song we turned our creativity to trying to write a new song altogether.

I started with the verse chords: Em7 | Cmaj7 | on repeat then came up with the chorus progression. This immediately held better results as the freshness of the idea led to more and more ideas coming on naturally. Jess was able to come up with a vocal melody for both the verse and chorus very quickly and wrote a tune about breakfast as placement lyrics for now. Overall I think our first songwriting session was quite successful and will definitely get another one booked in for the future.

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Critical Thinking
I need to finally settle on one song this week to focus on for the rest of the term so that I actually have a chance of finishing a song by the deadline. I currently have four song options: 'Forever Bride', 'Uncle Ben', 'Batshit Apeing' and 'Leadfoot'.

'Forever Bride' has a full structure and a completed chord progression for the whole song. Though I have been working on this song for a long time, and the amount of parts I still have left to write for and to teach the house band are substantial. So if I did pick this song it would be a very close call.

'Uncle Ben' also has a full song structure and chord progression, and even a singer to it with Jess. However the gaps between our songwriting sessions have been too big for us to gain any solid momentum. Also, there is a scheduling conflict between Jess' lesson and my LPW lesson meaning she wouldn't be able to perform with the band until the day of the performance probably, which is leaving it quite last minute to bring a vocalist in.

'Batshit Apeing' realistically is barely a song idea, with a sort of chorus chord progression and nothing else really. So I think it's off the table as an option.

'Leadfoot' though a new song, already has two good established sections to it (the main riff and the drum fill section). Due to the type of genre it's based in (metal/rock), the song could very well operate on solely 2-3 riffs which makes writing the rest of the song much easier than the other song options.

Final song choice: 'Leadfoot'

Now that I had finally chosen a song to work on, I started to think of possible collaborators I could use for the performance/recording of the song. My mate Nathaniel Bishop is a great and versatile drummer, who also has a drum recording set-up at home, so he could possibly record drums for my DAW track. Will Graves, another friend and the singer and bassist for local doom metal band Outback, was a possible vocalist option. I also happened to sit in on Nathaniel's performance class, where I watched a number of singers perform the song 'Cochise' - Audioslave. As that song was similar in style to my one (hard rock) it was actually the perfect opportunity to see any potential singers who were strong in that genre that I could reach out to later.

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09.Nov.2022 - The song I brought to the house band this week was written just the night before in like an hour. It was written initially as the mosh section to ‘Batshit Apeing’ hence why it’s in the same key (F#m/Phrygian) but throughout this session I soon realised it had strong enough footing to be its own song entirely. As my previous two entries for the house band had been quite chill, I wanted to prove myself more by showing the heavier side of my playing and bring in something more distorted and punk/metal infused. I also wanted to test out the chops of the house band’s drummer (Theo) who’s incredible at his instrument, which is why I gave him all of the  drum fill breaks.

I got a lot of positive feedback from this track, praising the stylistic versatility I’ve shown throughout term as well as how solid of an idea I was able to make in a short span of time. Although Jade did say the idea was definitely derivative of a time (being compared to the 90s Power Rangers theme) she did say I was able to combine different elements from other genres really successfully. Once again the question of vocals came up and yet again I didn’t have a clue of what to do with them. The house band seemed to like it too and Theo said the song lent itself very well to odd time signatures. An idea I might try and implement into the song as I keep developing it. The song ‘Rosemary’ - Deftones was suggested by Steven (the house band’s guitarist) as an example of how I could go about writing an odd time signature section. I think the lack of preconceived notions about the track helped this session a lot. Unlike my other two songs, I had written this specifically as an idea to bring to the house band which I think allowed the band to more comfortably suggest and implement their own ideas (such as Theo's odd time idea). This I think led to a more productive and creative session.

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Musical Analysis
When writing the song 'Leadfoot', I tried to strike a balance between the genres of thrash metal and hardcore punk. This can be shown with my song's cast tempo of 204 bpm, a characteristic of both genres.

Elements of thrash metal can seen with the persistent use of flat dissonant notes, the song being in F# Phrygian a scale that utilises the flat second. The chord progression used throughout the entirety of the song | F#5 | F#5 | E5 | C5 B5 | also uses the flat 5th of the key (C) enhancing that dissonance further. Whilst primarily being in 4/4 the song ends on an odd time signature breakdown - another characteristic of the metal genre. Though the breakdown has not been written yet I want it to utilise a 7/4 time signature and possibly another odd time signature (update: 5/4).  Thrash metal's staple use of guitar chugging can be seen in my song's main riff as well.

The impact 'This Town Is A Graveyard' - Animal Shithouse (hardcore punk) had on the creation of this song cannot be understated. You can hear the punk edge in the aggressively picked, root note driven bass line and I specifically told the drummers for my live and recorded versions to implement punk stylings into their parts. I would've also wanted to apply Shithouse's aggressive, shouty vocal delivery to the few lyrics I have if I did use a vocalist at some point:

Leadfoot pop in, no chance for stopping
You watch as all the bodies fly in and drop dead
Feels like lightning, ripping up your tissues, cremated
…
I hear this song and then I’ll do it again (what)
I hear this song and then I’ll do it again
…
…
(the lyrics so far, the '...'s represent lines I haven't come up with yet)

The structure for the song goes:
intro drum fill (2 bars) - bass riff (16 bars) - verse 1 (16 bars) - chorus (16 bars) - guitar riff (16 bars) - verse 2 (16 bars) - chorus (16 bars) - guitar solo (16 bars) - transition (1 bar) - 7/4 section (8 bars) - 5/4 section (9 bars).

Other notable aspects of the song are the drum fills that occur in the start of the chorus.

references:
- Martin Faux. B, Mulley. E (2022), This Town Is A Graveyard, Distrokid.

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30.Nov - Running 'Leadfoot' through with the house band for the final time before the assessment with the added odd time signature section at the end.