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Green - Planning/ Research into my project.

Blue - Anything I have learned in my weekly lessons that I have taken inspiration from to use in my project OR Feedback.

Purple - Everything to do with my project work itself (explaining my work).

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28/09/23
Who first inspired you to make music?
I  first started enjoying songwriting/ writing my own music after discovering indie/pop artists like Phoebe Bridgers, as well as recent Lana Del Rey albums. I also have a musical family so music has always been encouraged.

Who are your current biggest influences musically?
Beabadoobee, Boygenius/ Phoebe Bridgers, Lana Del Rey, Gracie Abrams, Lizzy Mcalpine. These artists mainly influence my songwriting/vocals, however I do take inspiration from heavier bands like Wolf Alice for instrumentation occasionally.

Of all the ways to express yourself creatively, why music?
Music is something I can never get tired of, especially songwriting. I have grown up around music creation and it comes natural for me.

What or who motivates you?
Seeing what other female musicians are capable of and the opportunities we now have in the industry makes me motivated to release my original music. As well as wanting to make a sufficient income from what I enjoy doing.

What are three of your biggest strengths?

- Multi-instrumentalist.

- Good Knowledge of how to use Logic Pro X.

- Songwriting skills and experience making music.

What are three of your biggest weaknesses?

- Lack of perseverance when I don't understand things.

- Lack a full understanding on how to mix vocal tracks professionally.

- Lack of confidence when performing.

Who is your music for?
Some topics I write about address mainly female issues/ my personal experiences. I want my music to resonate with everyone, however I think younger women/ the younger generation in general will appreciate it more.

What's the difference between influence and inspiration?
Influence is the direct force that enables us to go after our specific goal. For example: friends, family, an idol etc can influence you to do something. On the other hand inspiration sparks emotion, giving you hope and motivating you in order to achieve the goal you have been influenced to do. For example I could be influenced by a musician by wanting to create something similar, however inspiration comes from the art/ music itself.

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During today’s session I learned about a lot of useful plug-ins that I will be keeping in mind for my DAW track. These plug-ins are:

Chorus - duplicates the original track, detunes and adjusts around the original track in order to create a similar sound to double tracking.

Phaser & Flanger - adds depth, movement and texture to music / filters frequencies in and out.

Tremolo - pulsing effect - creates movement sound in dynamics.

Harmonic Distortion - adjust the frequencies in the output that are not present in the input - harmonic information - commonly used in guitar/bass.

Delay - repeated signal like an echo.

Artists like Beabadoobee use a lot of distortion on guitar, as well as chorus like my other influences. I will be using these within my DAW track as they replicate the sound I want to create.

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7/10/23

After much consideration, I have decided my case studies are going to be Beabadoobee,  Phoebe Bridgers and Boygenius . I am going to focus on Beabadoobee and Phoebe mainly, however Boygenius will overlap with Phoebe in some places. I decided on Beabadoobee, Phoebe and Boygenius as they're female musicians that focus on the same genre and style of music I want to create - so looking into their techniques and producers will help me out a lot.

I have started to research some key facts about all artists that I have linked above. This is just a start.

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8/10/23

DAW/ Logic Track: Original Song - by Me
Live Performance Track: 'I wish I was Stephen Malkmus' - Beabadoobee

I chose for the DAW track to do my own song as I have had one in the works for a while that clearly represent how these artists have influenced me. I also think it will be a great opportunity to challenge myself by doing an original. For the live performance, I chose to cover this Beabadoobee song as it has heavier instrumentation, but still continues the soft vocals. I want to experiment with both think and thick texture when it comes to instrumentation, so I think both songs will highlight these areas.

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Beabadoobee - I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus (Space Cadet Sessions)

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8/10/23

Attached is my study plan for the next few weeks leading up to the formative. I have colour coded the three parts of the submission to make it clear what I am working on each day. This is a rough plan however gives me a guide to work alongside in order to complete my work in time.

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10/10/23
First Steps and Recording:
I decided on the guitar part myself however the guitar in the actual track was recorded by a guitarist friend of mine. This is because although I can play guitar, I struggle with velocity and tempo of the part i'm playing, which is important when trying to record a professional song, and in time. The chords I am playing are G, D, C and D again. Although I am playing D twice, they're in different places on the guitar, so they sound slightly different. The first D chord I took from some of Phoebe Bridgers' songs from her album 'Stranger in the Alps'. This chord shows up several times in the album and is a really pretty rendition of the standard D chord. The final D chord is just the standard C moved up two frets. The chord progression is showed in the video above!

In order to start recording the track, I needed to think about the structure of the song. I did this by marking how many times the chords repeated so the guitarist knew how many bars to play for. I did consider recording one bar and looping it, although I wanted the guitar to sound less robotic and more natural, so he just played the first verse in one run through. I then decided I wanted the chorus to be strummed heavier, so we recorded a separate guitar piece for there. Despite that, there are only two recorded rhythm parts in the song - I have just changed the effects on it to make it sound different throughout, which I will go into detail about in a later entry.

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13/10/23

This weeks track conveys the vocal softness and tone similar to my own style of music, so I chose to highlight it in my diary. This song also fits into the alternative/indie music I take inspiration with the instrumentation structure. I usually would use softer guitars in my music compared to the original track, but the acoustic cover we did I prefer a lot.

During pre-production we decided to take out the drums and replace it with a simple percussion part. This stripped back the song a lot and accompanied the softer guitar rhythm well. We did have two guitars in the song, however they didn't overlap too much and complimented each other nicely.

Attached is a snippet of the PPW performance of our version of Naive by the Kooks.

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15/10/23

Above is a short clip of my formative submission for 'I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus'. This is just a demo to showcase my song idea, consisting of a backing track from Youtube and a vocal track I recorded. I added 'Space Designer' reverb to create space in the vocals and equalised it. This is all I did to this track due to it being only a demo - I will be performing this live on video for the summative!

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16/10/23

The video above mentions a snippet of an interview conducted on Phoebe, where she states that the Gibson guitar she uses is very rare and that there are not many at all in the world. As well as this, it is theorised that Phoebe uses a microphone worth around £30k, extremely out of my budget! Although I cannot mirror her sound identically, there are some recording and production techniques I could use. On the recording side, the video mentioned using a rubber pipe to create the muffled guitar sound. On the production side Phoebe uses a low pass filter in order to create the muffled guitar and the ‘thudding’ kick drum. A handful of other stuff I have recognised on the track are distortion, spring, plate and reverse reverb, saturation and also mentioned in the video: the lossy compression plug-in. Phoebe cuts out a lot of high frequencies in her songs achieving the dark and soft tone. Looking into Phoebe’s song writing, her songs are never just about one subject matter. She explores a lot of different topics and mentions things that seem personal between her and the person the song is about. This is a repeated theme for phoebe and I think it really matches the vibe or her music.

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How to Sound Like Phoebe Bridgers in Your Bedroom

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22/10/23

Attached above is a table of information I found out from videos, interviews and other sources on the two initial case studies.

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Guitar - 11/10/23
AuLowpass Filter - this creates the muffled guitar sound you can hear, which I found out about when researching Phoebe Bridgers. This makes the song sound quite gloomy and soft. This cuts out the high frequency and any unwanted ones during recording.

Channel EQ - With this I used the preset 'low focus guitar' to equalise this song.

Silververb - This type of reverb created the glossy guitar noise, as well as softening out the sharper notes.

Compressor - This helped to make the guitar sound louder, as well as pushing down any harsh notes in the mix.

Bass - 17/10/23
I MIDI inputed the bass using my Alesis keyboard and choosing the 'Liverpool Bass' preset sound. This is a soft bass sound with no distortion and compliments the song well. I didn't add much to this, however added a reverb to make it sound less harsh.

Drums - 17/10/23

I sampled a hi-hat, kick and snare from Splice. The drums have the AuLowpass filter, taking inspiration from 'Moon Song' by Phoebe. This creates the thud sound. I also added some compression and reverb to the drums as a whole as I wanted them to sound quite 'spacey'.

Vocals - 24/10/23

Channel EQ - I used the present 'Softened Lead Vocals' which is self explanatory. This just cut out any harsh/ high frequencies in the mix.

Noise Gate - I used this to cut out any background noise as the microphone I used (RODE NT1-A) is quite a cheap option, so this isolated my vocals in the recording.

Tape Delay - I always only use a slight delay to fill out the empty spaces where I am not singing. It is very subtle and hard to hear as I only really use it to make one melodic phrase glide to the other.

Spring Reverb - As advised from my production teacher, I used a spring reverb as this is something he picked up in 'Moon Song' and 'Garden Song' by Phoebe Bridgers. It is a very delicate but effective reverb that adds to her soft tone.

Compressor - I used a compressor, once again to limit any harsh notes in the mix. This is supposed to be a cosy and intimate song and I didn't want anything to be too sharp on the ears.

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25/10/23

What you can hear above is the bridge and final chorus of my original song for the DAW demo formative submission. The bridge has 5 different harmonic lines that accompany the lead and double tracked vocal line. I added the same effects to all vocals through a bus as previously mentioned, except I changed the amount of reverb on certain tracks as heard above.

This bridge part is inspired by 'I Know the End' by Phoebe bridgers instrumentally with the continuous kick drum and several songs on the album 'Beatopia' by Beabadoobee (incl. Sunny day, Lovesong and You're here thats the thing) for the lyrics. The soft and gentle lyrics come from the love songs on the album but one theme I took from 'Graceland Too' by Phoebe is the 'Whatever you want/ anything you want' lines. I mirrored the melody slightly in the chorus however it isn't that noticeable unless you are comparing songs side by side.

Overall I am very proud of the harmonic arrangement on this track, however I would have made sure the double tracks and harmony lines are tighter together as I can hear the overlap of the vocals slightly. This is something I will take control of for my summative.

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25/10/23

Upon reflection of the study plan I made for the formative, I realised I finished a lot of my work ahead of time. The positive thing about this is that I kept up with my work and did not fall behind. On the other hand, I think the plan lacked detail and specification, therefore I just decided to do tasks at different times.

For the summative, I think I will create detailed weekly plans and keep a calendar of certain deadlines I have to meet for the month, instead of something so vague as before.

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5/11/23

After much consideration, I have decided to change to a different Beabadoobee song as this song displays my style of music more. Also, with the band I have available, I realised this song would be more suitable to play without it sounding like something is missing.

The song is called 'You're here thats the thing' by Beabadoobee and I chose this because I think the lyrics and chord progression are both quite similar to songs I have written myself. I also think this song is more fun to sing and further highlights the softened vocals I am taking inspiration from.

Because the song is on the shorter side, and the guitar solo will not be in the live performance bit, I have decided to add another two bars in the bridge section. The instrumentation stays the same I just will be adding some 'hums' and vocal runs in this part to lengthen the song to fit the brief, as well as improve my vocal performance. Additionally, I’ve asked the drummer to play with brushes, which I can hear in the original song - I think keeping this technique will add the intimate/ acoustic vibe.

Overall, I think I can do more with this song vocally than 'I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus' and it feels more like me.

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5/11/23

The table above is my plan for the summative over the next few weeks. Like before, I have colour coded everything based on: DAW track, Live Performance, WB06 and written work.

I will be updating the last week when I have completed work, as well as using an additional app to control daily to-do lists/ tasks so that I don't fall behind like last time.

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5/11/23
I found this app called “Structured” through a YouTube video as I was struggling to stay on top of my work, as well as balancing a job alongside it.

I update this app every night for the next day and I can set how long it’ll take me to do each task, which is very helpful for me to manage my day!

I’ve been using it for a week now and it has helped me stay on track of my work and remember small things I would otherwise forget.

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6/11/23

For my live performance band I am using only a drummer and guitarist as I want to achieve the acoustic vibe. I have sourced my band from people I have known since college, as a lot of people on my course are booked up for summative work, and I did not want any extra stress from people pulling out last minute like last year.

This way, the bands focus is on me and not elsewhere, and I am able to get lots of rehearsal time with them.

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13/11/23

Above I have attached a screenshot from my notes app where I listened to the song during production and made a list of things I needed to do and the days I am going to do them in order to complete my logic/ DAW track.

This will help me to know exactly what I need to do on each day.

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15/11/23

Attached is a video from a rehearsal I organised with the guitarist for my song. As you can see, I have decided to slow down the song to focus more on my vocal technique, as well as to fit the assignment brief.

During this session, we played the song several times and ensured we both were comfortable with our parts in the song. I will be using a drummer for this song, however the drummer was not available to rehearse on this day, so I will need to put together another rehearsal for them to practice with us too.

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20/11/23

During my production session I showed my tutor the track as I had met a dead end with what I wanted to do. The feedback he gave me was very useful in that my guitar sounded to like it was DI recorded, and not very authentic. To combat this he suggested adding an amp to my guitar to give it a sense of realness so that is what I did.

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22/11/23

Today I had a search around for places to record my summative performance and ended up booking a rehearsal room in South London where I am from. This rehearsal room is laid out in a way that I can record my live performance here.

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24/11/23

Today I practiced vocals for my summative, trying to focus on my technique. Above is a small snippet of my rehearsal session where I tried to copy the soft vocals like Beabadoobee conveys in 'You're here thats the thing'. After listening back, I think my tone is great, however I think I could reach more into my head voice instead of my chest voice in some places.

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26/11/23

As previously mentioned, I was leaving the last few weeks until a later date to create my final study plan. This is because I didn't know how long each task would take or where I would be.

I am behind my study plan, however on track with my assignments. My study plan was unrealistic and did not take into account how much time and effort was needed for each task.

Now I am in the final stretch of my work, I updated my study plan to the above as I now understand how much time it will take to complete tasks.

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27/11/23

As I was coming to a finish with mixing, I learned about buses in production. This is essentially sending multiple tracks to one track only, for adding effects etc.

In my lesson, my tutor grouped my tracks into a “track stack” which grouped the lead vocals, harmonies and BVs in 3 different parts so I could edit them together.

This helped clean up my session by implementing track stacks and also buses so that mixing is simpler.

(The yellow circle is where a new group starts)

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2/12/23

For tomorrow's performance I am going to bring my Macbook, DI box and my Shure SM58 microphone. This is because I want to record vocals straight into logic so that I can overlap them with my video recording so that you can hear my vocals more clearly - they will be completely unedited just overlapping them solely so that I can be heard.

I will use a light and a stand so you can see me well in the performance. Also, I will be sitting down in my performance which is a stylistic choice as the song does not require a lot of movement - just subtle and tasteful.

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3/12/23

Today's performance went really well and I think I gave the song what it needed. I engaged with my band mates and the audience/ camera which is something I usually find hard to do. I also swayed and used hand gestures to execute the fun and wholesome vibe in the song, and generally gave my best.

What I would do differently next time is perhaps get my whole body in shot and even stand up/ interact with the drummer more. However, I do not think it was necessary to my performance it could have just made it more interesting.

Overall I think I am most proud of this vocal performance as it shows what style of music I like to sing and my vocals sound technically very good.

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4/11/23

This study plan was much more realistic and effective than the last ones I created. This is because I took into account how long tasks would take when making it.

I have finished my work early as I put the vocals over the video track on the day of the performance, however giving myself more time took the stress away. I also did have an academic support booked that I cancelled as I want to utilise my final project management lesson for support.

Overall, I stuck to the plan and even finished earlier than expected!