PMR200 Innovation In Music Performance Development Log by Jacob Brown

Week 2 - Yellow Arch Gig (Sign Of The Times - The Tivolis)

jakealexbrown — 2025-01-27 09:55:24 UTC

Week 3 - Performance & Realisation

jakealexbrown — 2025-02-10 10:11:32 UTC

This week we found that Innovation can come when you play music that is out of your comfort zone. We decided to do a medley of three songs of different genres, Indie Rock, Pop and Rap, all of which were in the same key.

Songs:

Bug - Fontaines DC
What Makes You Beautiful - One Direction
Thick Of It - KSI

10/02/25 - 16/02.25 Week 4

jakealexbrown — 2025-02-10 10:11:40 UTC

Good Innovative Covers:

How Did You Sleep Last Night? - Nirvana
Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinead O'Connor
Twist & Shout - The Beatles
Say Yes To Heaven - Fontaines DC
Back To Black - Sam Fender

I may use the idea of an innovative cover for my summative work, however, these covers give me more inspiration for my original songs too. These are obvious examples of genre-blending, which is something that I aim to do in my Summative work.

Week 4 - New TikTok for Tivolis

jakealexbrown — 2025-02-17 10:14:18 UTC

Week 4 New Tivolis TikTok

jakealexbrown — 2025-02-26 14:16:59 UTC

Week 5 - New Song Idea (Innovation)

jakealexbrown — 2025-02-26 14:19:12 UTC

This song is innovative for me because of its musicality. The intro uses a delay pedal, creating a swell of each note which is partly inspired by Lindsay Buckingham's (Fleetwood Mac) playing in the song 'Dreams'. I also rarely write music on my acoustic guitar, however, I found it to be a new avenue to take my music down for a more melancholic vibe.

Writing on an acoustic guitar has helped me to write my song for my summative, 'Going Home', which is a very Beatles-esque song. Learning how to play piano/keyboard more adequately since week 2 has helped me to create two piano parts to this song, one of which is a pulsating suspended C chord, driving the songs rhythm alongside the drums, and finding a pocket to stay in.

Week 5 New Tivolis TikTok

jakealexbrown — 2025-02-26 14:27:03 UTC

I want to try and make this sort of content more often. Most of the time, they perform very well as they cater towards TikTok's algorithm. I know this through doing some research on popular tiktok bands, and what sort of content they post. I found that covers (last slide) and live videos with lyric captions tend to perform really well.

Week 5 New Tivolis TikTok

jakealexbrown — 2025-02-26 14:29:32 UTC

Week 4 New Song (Innovation)

jakealexbrown — 2025-02-26 15:04:07 UTC

This song is innovative for me because I don't tend to write songs that are of a more heavy persuasion. This song has a much darker and almost unsettling emotion that is completely new to my songwriting capabilities. The main riff also uses a tremolo pedal, which is something that I have never used in any of my songs before.

Week 2 New Song (Innovation)

jakealexbrown — 2025-02-26 16:09:27 UTC

This song is innovative for me because of the lyrics and the use of a synth. I have never played synth before so it was quite challenging to get it right, but I like the ambience it gives behind the relentless guitar riff. The lyrics are about my hometown of Rotherham, what the people think and what I think. This is something that I have never written about before, and with the town having a bad reputation due to past events, improving the reputation of the town is something that I am very passionate about, and it is something that drives me to make my band as successful as possible. I will definitely be writing more like it, from an honest yet ardent point of view.

Having a synth at home will allow me to refine my skills even further, to hopefully make a more musically interesting synth part for this track.

Week 1 - New Song (Innovation)

jakealexbrown — 2025-02-26 16:23:02 UTC

I wrote this song in my Production lesson this week. The song is innovative for me because it is the first song I have ever written in the time signature, 3/4. I found this challenging at first because I kept falling back in to 4/4, but eventually I managed to nail it down and it became very easy for me. I'm quite happy with the product that has come out of it and it is something I'm wanting to build on. The video linked in the next slide, has helped me to become more comfortable in exploring new time signatures, allowing me to possibly branch out to more uncommon time signatures in the future. I would love to write a song in 11/8, similar to 'The way you make me feel' by Michael Jackson.

Innovation Rationale/Proposal

jakealexbrown — 2025-02-28 00:20:47 UTC

Tivolis Pack

jakealexbrown — 2025-03-17 10:55:15 UTC

I have created a pack for my band to send to gig bookers/labels, for gigs in different areas and for opportunities.

Week 6 - New Tivolis TikTok

jakealexbrown — 2025-03-17 11:15:31 UTC

This is a video of us announcing our new song which is out on 21/03/25. We wanted to do something different with this announcement, and be more innovative with our content. This video adds comedic value to our content and is instantly engaging for new viewers. This has worked better for us as it is one of our most viewed tiktok/instagram posts.

Tivolis new cover photo + 1,000 monthly listeners

jakealexbrown — 2025-03-24 10:07:26 UTC

This is even more proof that my innovative approach to the advertisement process was successful, with our monthly listeners skyrocketing from 150 listeners last week.

Week 7 - Tivolis Main Single Announcement Post

jakealexbrown — 2025-03-24 10:20:10 UTC

This post is our announcement that 'Old Memory' is out now to stream on all platforms. We have made a budget of £100 to go towards the advertisement of this post. Our main goal is to reach 950 followers from the advertisement. We currently sit at 786.

Edit: The advertisement is not performing very well, only giving us 8 followers from £10. In line with the innovation in this module, I have decided to stop the ad, and spread the budget over this post, and two other posts which have given us the most engagement. This is innovative because I have found a way to create the most buzz around the new single as possible, while actually taking away from the release post.

Old Memory out now on Spotify

jakealexbrown — 2025-03-24 10:22:36 UTC

Week 10 Innovation Justification

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 00:23:45 UTC

Week 10 Programme Notes

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 00:24:28 UTC

Week 10 Press Release

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 00:25:11 UTC

Week 10 Innovation In The Music Industry

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 00:26:08 UTC

Week 10 Final Song (Innovation) Worldwide

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 00:31:15 UTC

Worldwide is an original song. I wrote the song on my electric guitar, originally using an MXR Phase 90 pedal to create the funk sound, however it was later switched for a Dunlop Wah pedal. The song is innovative through:

Genre-blending - I wrote the song with the aim to blend funk/R&B/Jazz with my band's genre of Indie Rock.

The use of wah, Synthesizer, and 7th chord shapes helped me in achieving this sound. The chord progression is Em7 - Bm7 - Am7. This is a perfect example of genre blending in itself, the root notes being a commonly used chord progression in Indie Rock, with the ‘m7’ on top of those chords to create the R&B sound.

Unconventional arrangement - Instead of following the usual verse - chorus structure, the song begins with three back to back verses, and doesn’t have a traditional chorus, but more of a bridge. This allows the song to flow organically, pulling the listener along without being predictable, allowing for an easy listening experience, adjacent to the genres I aimed to utilise.

Cultural Resonance - ‘Worldwide’ acts as a metaphor for both the lyrics and music, taking influences from African-American R&B and British Indie Rock, the cross-cultural expression creates more emotional depth.

Week 10 Final Song (Innovation) 'Going Home'

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 00:32:30 UTC

Going Home is an original, 60’s inspired love song, blending folk, rock and country. I was inspired by the three part harmony in the song ‘This Boy’ by The Beatles. As an indie rock guitarist, I usually write music on my electric guitar, but when writing ‘Going Home’, acoustic suited the 60’s sound .

This song is also innovative as it has two lead singers, a brother-sister duo. While there are multiple bands fronted by brothers, a brother-sister duo is rare, ‘The Carpenters’ being the most popular example.

Release strategy for 'Old Memory' Results

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 00:54:02 UTC

Release Strategy Results.2

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 00:55:17 UTC

Release Strategy Results.3

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 00:56:19 UTC

This post was released over a year ago, meaning it was a bold attempt to put money towards an advertisement for it, however, it has paid off. As seen above, it was our most successful advertisement, giving us almost double the amount of followers than what the other two ads did, despite having the same amount of money put towards it. This has shown me what works in terms of content on instagram.

Week 9 - Goal Reached (950 Followers)

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 01:15:21 UTC

Surpassed by 31 followers. Shows the success of my innovative approach in advertising the newest single, 'Old Memory'.

Week 5 - Song Ideas for Summative 'Going Home'

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 02:04:40 UTC

This song is an original, 60's inspired love song, namely inspired by 'The Beatles'. I believe this is innovative as, especially in the Sheffield Music Scene, you don't hear of Indie bands singing three part harmonies about the joy's of love, but more about having a punch up with a bouncer on a night out. This song helps our band to shy away from that, and to hopefully reach a wider audience as a result.

Week 5 Song for Summative Progress - 'Worldwide'

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 02:06:03 UTC

This song is an original, inspired by RnB/Funk music of the 70's. This is innovative, mainly due to walking the line of multiple genres. As stated in past weeks, genre blending is something that I wanted to incorporate into my summative work, due to my wide music taste. This song blends RnB/Funk with Indie Rock. The use of Wah, Syncopated bass line and m7 chords helped me in achieving this.

Time Signature Video that helped me get to grasp with the concept

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 02:17:43 UTC

Week 10 - 'Old Memory' Performance

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 02:25:25 UTC

'Old Memory' has not performed as well in its first month as our last two singles. This has led me to do some critical thinking about what went wrong in the advertising process and release strategy. I believe that it is due to the rush of the advertisement process. We only put out three posts about the song before it was released, whereas for the other two singles, we put out six. With this information, I will make sure to be more prepared for the next single, by creating a timeline for posts and teasers.

Upcoming Gig - The Tivolis support Bromheads Jacket at The Leadmill

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 02:54:54 UTC

Our recent performances on social media, has helped us gain some traction on the Sheffield scene, leading to some amazing gig opportunities, including the next slide. Supporting Bromheads Jacket at The Leadmill be our biggest gig to date.

Upcoming Gig - The Tivolis at Spongefest

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 02:56:06 UTC

Nontaines SC

jakealexbrown — 2025-04-14 13:58:36 UTC

Me and some friends from Uni, Elliott Mawbey, Alex Emsley, Daniel Penrose, Lydon Sagliocca ad Alex's friend Sam, have decided to create a cover band for a band that we all love, Fontaines DC. Fontaines DC are an Irish Post-Punk/Alternative band, who we all came together in admiration for them. We decided to create the band, mainly due to the fact that there isn't a Fontaines cover band out there, leading to a big gap in the market for such a popular band, therefore leading to innovation for our module. We have created a half-hour setlist for gigs, hoping to debut at the Waterbear end of year party at Yellow Arch Studios. The name is a play on words to the original bands name. The 'DC' part in the name stands for 'Dublin City', so in ours, it is 'SC' standing for 'Sheffield City'.