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This week, being formative week, I aimed my full attention at completing my demo for my assessment. Inspired by my drawing above, I decided to work on another new track for this. I felt driven to write introspectively - seeing my emotional self as being a body of water, shedding light on the subconscious feelings that dwell beneath the surface of myself; my core-of-the-onion emotions, the ones in the dark depths of my being. Specifically, my regret.

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Starting with something that was easily playable allowed me to simply focus on writing. I landed on these two chords. They felt right - eery and slightly clashing. I really loved how they sounded. They reminded me of 'Red Room' by Hiatus Kaiyote (Hiatus Kaiyote, 2021), one of my favourite songs, which later lead me to taking inspiration from elements of that track.

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Above is a voice note I recorded at the beach of my initial melodic ideas.
In class this week, as part of the canvas material we discussed the use of disjunct/ conjunct melodies - using repeated motifs contrasted with more scatty/ jumpy melodies. Looking at the melody of 'Red Room', particularly it's mellow vocal, I wanted to create a similar atmosphere; something close to it's strange, surreal sound.
From this, through experimentation, I had the idea of using the 'mhmm' as a repeated motif. I listened to the use of vocal motifs in the song 'Easily I Forget' by Alfa Mist/ Emmavie (Alfa Mist, 2020), specifically how Alfa triggers the vocal samples throughout the whole song. I liked this idea and decided to aim for something similar. There's a particular section where there's this amazing harmonic build-up and I took huge inspiration from this for the harmonies after the C section later on in this song's development.

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Red. A deep blood-red. That's where I started - thinking about the colour of regret. I often find colours are great stimuli for me. I find visualising the colour of a feeling, or the colour of a song really helps me to connect with what I'm writing. It is through this process of turning something metaphorical into something physical that helps me to hear how it needs to sound and envision the kind of atmosphere I'm aiming to create.

I had the idea of writing from the perspective of my regret itself, personifying it through using she/her pronouns.

A section:
'red
like the stain of her kisses, like the blood that I bleed for her
mhmm
a house buried deep under my skin
in perfect shadow
is where she lives
my beautiful sinner'

B section:
'her pain is my agony
embodies my tragedies
feeding me apathy
so subtly
mhmm
there is nobody else who knows me so well
and her name
her name
is regret'

C section:
'so hold me
cus what if I loose her?
who will I be when there's nothin left to heal? (be when there's nothin)
console me
when we say our goodbyes
I ain't no snake but, I best be sheddin my skin'

Having spent the majority of the last year working on myself and focussing on my healing in therapy, in this last section I'm pointing to my anxiety around what I will do and who I will be when there's nothing left to heal; when all of my traumas have been worked through and when there's nothing more to unpack. I struggle with allowing myself to enjoy peace. I wanted to write about how this feels. About dreading the ideal.

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The risk assessment carried out for working in my home studio set-up.

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Above is my bedroom set up when tracking some of my initial ideas. Working with my guitar/ amp and using my super-cardioid condenser mic to record the guitar and vocals, running both through my interface into Logic.

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A snippet of the demo I submitted for my formative assessment.

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1. Having taken initial inspiration from 'Red Room' Hiatus Kaiyote I started by sampling the drums, adding EQ to cut out the top end to make the kicks much more subby and lofi. I also slowed the tempo which gave them a different, more relaxed groove. Fundamentally I just needed a starting point from which I could begin laying my ideas on top of.

2. From here I added keys using a MIDI keyboard. I used a synth plug-in, altering the levels until I achieved the sound I wanted and played the same chords as I had been writing with on my guitar.

3. Next I tracked the vocal motifs and A/B vocal sections. I was concerned I might need to use a pop-shield/ vocal booth as I was worried about the sound quality not being clear enough. However, after reading an article describing how Billie Eillish 'recorded almost every vocal for the first album sitting on [Finneas'] bed with her legs crossed' (headliner magazine, 2021), I set out to do the same thing. It actually felt much more natural to me - often I find using a pop shield feels too rigid and formal and I think this allowed for a better vocal take. After recording and chopping takes together to get one strong main take I then added EQ and reverb, adjusting the levels to get them sounding spacey but without loosing their rawness.

4. From here, using the program Splice, I swapped the Hiatus drum sample for a different one as I wanted my track to feel more authentic. I adjusted the tempo and chopped it in places to add these moments of drop out, adding a real swing to the beat. Again, adding EQ to get the kicks sounding more lofi.

5. With the assistance of my friend, Adham, we then tracked bass. I explained what I wanted the bass to sound like and where I wanted it to go melodically, and together we came up with a bassline.

6. Finally, I tracked the C section and wrote vocal harmonies for the harmonic breakdown. I did this as I recorded it, adding layers of harmony as I went.

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My friend Adham, an incredible bass player, helping me write the bassline I was envisioning for the track. I wanted the bass to be the same as the keys chordally for most of the song, but then for there to be this stand-out moment in the C section where the bass mimics my vocal melody.

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Things I'm happy with:

The overall direction of the track - love the melodies, harmonies & my use of repeated vocal motifs.

The drums/ drum breakdowns. There's a real groove to the song already which is exactly what I was trying to create.

I'm super pleased with the lyrics I've written here, I feel I have really captured the essence of my initial stimulus.

Still to do:

Re-record the main vocal, perhaps altering the main melody in places.

Re-record tighter/ cleaner harmonies and neaten up timings in the outro.

Add layers to the track - specifically adding ambience/ atmosphere through the addition of sampled found/ recorded sound on Splice.

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An artist that really inspires me, Jordan rakei, has a series of YouTube videos where he creates a song from scratch (Rakei, 2020). I'd really like to take a look at these for inspiration on sampling/ creating original drum patterns and how to create atmosphere through layering found/ recorded sounds underneath the man track.

Look into potential alternative structures.

Look further into jazz modes/ jazz harmonics to enable me to write more cohesive, jazzier & more obscure harmonies.

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[1] Hiatus Kaiyote., 2021. Red Room. Available at: <https://open.spotify.com/track/0aefDhwto2nL2kTHIiil0J?si=72e90ee778744949> [Accessed 8 December 2021].
[2] Alfa Mist, Emmavie., 2020. Easily I Forget. Available at: <https://open.spotify.com/track/5rERYuoG0D2vsgxwB5gsZ4?si=e16c89f0b7934b53> [Accessed 8 December 2021].
[3] headliner magazine., 2021. [online] Available at: <https://headlinermagazine.net/headliners/billie-eilish-happier-than-ever-bedroom-production-reaches-new-heights.html> [Accessed 8 December 2021].
[4]Jordan Rakei, 2020. A Song From Nothing. [YouTube livestream series] Available at: <https://youtu.be/pfsjaD6sV-A> [Accessed 8 December 2021].