What am I doing? I’m making my own song, as I’m a highly creative person, also I like to do my own things.

I didn’t plan what I’ll be doing, everything came to my head as soon as I sat down with Logic Pro and MIDI keyboard.

I thought that house music will be good idea, so I picked beat from loops section. Then I started discovering all samples on Logic Pro, and picking what I felt that sounded good, and I started playing chords on keyboard, then playing around with single sounds.

That day in time of my midi class I had beat, bass and few other effects. And that was the end of work I did that day.

I had already beat, bass and few sound effects, so I was searching for more sounds to add and create more melody. I forgot to add another channel while trying new sound, and by accident I’ve changed one of my channels to different effect, although I did really liked that, so I kept it. After that mistake which turned out to be a great shout I do remember ALWAYS add new channel, before trying anything. ALWAYS.

I made nice variation with notes on keyboard, but then I thought that I broke my brain, as this variation at first sounded like there is slight delay even if I fixed everything manually, and after short refreshing break it sounded like it’s faster than metronome. This is a prove that, if you are listening to something again and again, you hear things that aren’t existing.

Few days before I continued on my project, I was helping my colleague from my class to write a song. I composed melody then recorded it, by that I’ve learned by myself how to adjust sounds to the bars or rhythm after playing on keyboard (keys on midi keyboard are light weighted, so dynamic or perfect timing is quite difficult, specially for me when I’m used to play piano). But I’ve managed how to fix it in program! Also with Scott’s help I’ve learned how to do sustain effect on Logic Pro without sustain pedal, and how to cut or copy tracks.

But I did my own research online after class and found out, that if I really need sustain pedal I can connect one, and apparently ones from digital pianos will be fine to use it. I haven’t check that yet. But I will!

What I’ve learned? Patience, as fixing 4 bars with bass took me 15 minutes, just correcting them and adjusting every sound and the length, definiately work without metronome is impossible. Even more patience, when I’ve tried to record 4 notes (if played together would make a full chord) with the tempo and dynamics. Tempo was 133 bpm, mostly eight notes… After half an hour I did it! So definitely patience.

Another thing I’ve learned, that muting other channels while working on one is helpful for sure.

It was great practice for me and getting to know Logic Pro or midi keyboard. Both have so many fun functions. So much to discover, will never leave my home 😂

As a warm up with music I continued on helping my colleague with his song, and we were coming up with vocal ideas and also practicing more on recording audio, as I’ll need it for my project as well.

Then finally I came back home and continued working on my own song for 1st assessment. And today was a huge discovery day! First of all I didn’t like beat I had from loops at first, so I made my own beat. I used kick (although I’ll have to find better sampler with kicks), then I finished my full instrumental. And I discovered magic buttons. First: apply region tempo to project tempo. This is my new best friend as saves a lot of time! And helped me with adjusting kick from beat. Although it doesn’t work while doing wild dynamically things in music, this has to be fixed manually. But helps with basic stuff. Then I still didn’t really like the way that kick sounded. And I discovered another button (I did it by accident but I’m so happy it happened). Button X and shows all channels, and there are more buttons (yeah after today button is my favourite word I think), and whole fun begun. So I was working on EQ and reverb for kick, changed sound of kick to the way I can deal with. Kick is not overtaking and it’s in background and it’s not fully dry. Also covered one high pitched noise that was coming from sample, was barely heard, but I heard it and it was annoying.

So my whole instrumental is finished and ready for vocals. I wrote lyrics as well, and felt that I’ll dedicate this to my dearest friend who passed away 19 years ago, and I finally finished grieving about a week ago, I went through last stage, and then I felt that this song sounds magical and mystic, that’s why lyrics about us being kids and living in our fantasy world will be perfect.

Final touches with balancing sound and adjusting hz’s and everything else I’ll do after recording vocals.

So for now my work is done in 85%.

Surely what I do to learn more and discover, is when I see function and I just click it, and check what it does. That’s the best way for me to learn, as just reading stuff and new terms is like a dark magic for me. I have to check and try on my own.

Next thing for me to find out for 100% is, how to clean audio and use reverb or other sound effects for vocals to make it sound nice. As I’ve heard how just recorded vocals sound and definitely don’t like it.

So that’s it for today! Very successful work 😊 step by step, day by day getting better!

Couple of days ago, I recorded new vocals, as I wasn’t happy with my previous ones, and I needed harmonies. I’ve recorded around 20 tracks and picked the best ones.

I was adjusting them manually to make sure everything is in the rhythm. Then I’ve worked with reverb.

Although my voice was slightly off tune. I’ve tried to use autotune, but it made it worse. That’s why I resigned from autotune. And for that day I finished my work on project as adjusting and using reverb took a while.

But today was groundbreaking day!

I knew that, there must be way how to fix those tiny off tune bits.

I found information on google about pitch flex! And this was gold!

So, I found by myself where pitch flex is in Logic Pro (it took fair while). I had to make sure that flex was on on my audio first. Then I double clicked my audio to have proper view and be able start working on it. What I’ve figured out at first was, that I can change notes of my audio.

Although I didn’t need to change notes, I had to slightly pitch up or down my vocals.

And then I saw little dots to every part of my audio, top dot was for pitch.

So, I could adjust pitch.

Another thing I have discovered, that by wavy shaped tool I can straighten up audio sound and get rid of unnecessary vibration.

For bounce and export I used guide made by Scott on Moodle.

In few last words: I didn’t use at all any YouTube tutorials, everything I’ve figured out on my own by exploring Logic Pro (okay sometimes by clicking something by mistake) and once I had to use google, so I found information about pitch flex.

Working on this project took me 30 maybe over 30 hours (vocals recording included). I have learned a lot!

I did also share some of my gained knowledge with my classmates.

For my first time ever doing song on my own, by myself, using any kind of program ever (in this case Logic Pro) I’m very proud of my work.

Homeworks I did for classes were related to our project, that’s why parts of the homeworks I did use as well for our presentation.

Morgan worked on visual side of PowerPoint. And we both agreed she would take care of presentation and I took care of preparing things for our band (as preparing harmonies for vocalists, booking practice rooms or preparing voting charts about rehearsal days and songs we were picking etc).

We have planned our presentation rehearsal for few days before presenting at the class.

-Yes, I was worried if we will do good performance, as some of us haven’t performed in front of the crowd, and it was quite new experience. So I would say I was worried, that we will get stressed and would fail our performance

2. What were you confident about before performance, and why?

   • I was confident definitely with our two songs, creep and sex on fire, as we rehearsed those two songs so many times, and I knew we know them very well.

3. What do you feel went well during the performance?

   • The way how we played our songs. I’m very happy with them as we haven’t done mistakes, everyone performed their part, as we’ve been preparing and did go well. Definitely I feel that my part at the creep went very very well and I’m proud of it.

4. What could have gone better?

   • our engagement with the crowd, show at the stage, as some of us were moving to the music, some were standing still. That could be done better.

5. What would you do differently next time?

   • Get more creative with songs and add extra bits instead of sticking to the actual songs, even if we did changes we could’ve done more. Do some choreographies as dancing moves, or at least some sort of show to express engagement with songs. Engage with the crowd. And keep in mind that performing isn’t that scary, as we thought and felt before this one. And make sure we rehearse more.

Simple things like pressing one key are boring to me of course… That’s why I have to complicate my life and play something tad challenging…

At some point even frustration is noticeable.

I made short video with few attempts to show, how my work on this part of the project looks like, in reality I kept playing this part way longer, to get my chords rhythmically perfect, without pressing other key by accident.

As a side note, I’ve never seen how do I look while making music. At least I don’t have stone face all the time!

I’ve nearly finished background music for last scenes. As usual, I composed music on a go. Well, I watched full video few times before and then just started composing while watching scenes.

In each track I dived more into EQ side. And I have to say honestly, that working on EQs isn’t that bad. I’ve had a lot of fun, of course it takes a lot of time. To be able to work on my EQs I have looped bars with my sounds.

With bass I got rid of distortion, compressed a little (yes I found compressing function! I can’t say a lot about that yet, as I have to dive more into it). So far by compressing I managed to get deeper sound of bass and more stronger, and of course in EQ section I made sure bass is deep as a base,well heard, but it doesn’t over take the rest of the sounds.

I combined all elements to sound cohesive.

Of course I’ve added some reverb, and same again in reverb section: I focused more on balancing out and finding perfect spot where it does sound good.

In general, instead of doing a lot of music and sound effects, today I focused more on mixing. And I love it! It’s so interesting and feels rewarding, as music after sounds great!

At the classes I found out today how I can use samples, how I can get them from other songs and play around with. Definitely I’ll be using some, unfortunately nothing from two mp3s we got on moodle, as nothing fits my art (yeah at this point I just say an art, not even a melody, just art).

Soon I’ll get to sound effects for the movie. Although I have to say honestly, at this moment I think, that I do enjoy more composing my background music to express emotions and create vibe for the scenes, than doing sound effects, as eating, breathing, printer sound etc. Surely it’s fun and for my future I’ll need this to know, also I know it’ll be extremally detailed work. I’m still in progress of recording sound effects, as I prefer to have it all, and then mainly focus on this.

For today that would be all.

I did practised way more with mixing of course. Also I discovered new ground for me, as music had to be done in more funnier way.

It was more work to balance out sounds. Function: set region tempo to project tempo was very helpful this time, as I used mostly funkier effects than regular instrument sounds. So it helped me to adjust everything.

One of the samples had weird note/sound in the middle, that was clashing with the rest of the audio and I could hear that, it played differently compared to other sounds. So I worked out solution to it. I used a little of reverb, and compressed a little, then by playing in EQs section I muted slightly one particular sound which was overtaking. By that I could still have my effect in my project, and it blended perfectly!

In my opinion two hours time for composing short melody and mixing as a beginner, isn’t that bad. And with more practice I’ll get better and faster.

Additional words: in last moment before I pressed button to bounce I remembered to turn off the metronome!

Although, as I’ve already studied theory in my past and I know stuff that we’re doing at the classes, I asked my teacher for some advanced theory of music books, so I could do self study at home. She recommended books for me, and I’m just waiting for my delivery. Also I got offered that I could join hnd1 classes on Thursdays for theory of music. I attended this week first time, and I love it! Never enough theory of music, or music in general.

Definitely it is exciting as it’ll help me extra with projects or music composing. I’ll get more ideas, but also more understanding.

I’m quite happy with people I have in my band, as they’re excited to do work!

As soon as we got picked we made group on Snapchat and we started searching for songs we could prepare. After few days we picked out two songs, and we agreed, as we picked songs were not changing them no matter what difficulty level it would be.

Two songs we picked were sweet child of mine by guns n roses, and skater boy by Avril Lavigne. Everyone said at first it’ll be cool to do those two songs, I’m not gonna lie I had some concerns, as those aren’t easy songs. And yes, once we have started preparing them and rehearsing week after, we agreed those are quite challenging. Although we’re taking the challenge and we’re preparing ourselves. With some challenge we can become better and regain our skills.

Anyway, we started playing sweet child of mine and skater boy. Definitely we agreed, that instead of doing all at once, it’ll be better to focus on one song at a time.

So we started working on sweet child of mine.

Guitarists split all guitar parts between each other (and yes we have four guitarists). We have one lead guitar, although in sweet child of mine there are many guitar solos, and we had chat with other guitarist if he could face the challenge and learn at least the guitar intro, so lead guitar won’t get exhausted after one song. Our other guitarist agreed and got excited. I even had chat with him and said that I believe in him and I know he can do it, as in previous band he improved himself with guitar playing.

Also we all had chat and we agreed that we should clearly communicate and say if somethings wrong.

As my usual, I keep checking and asking my bands members during rehearsals if they’re doing okay or if there is anything they would like to say, as I do realise that not many people are confident enough to speak up straight away.

It was quite successful rehearsal if I have to be honest. We came prepared, we played, we did some changes how we do play some parts, and what’s most important we kept rehearsing a lot. All of us were tired after which is good sign, as we did a lot of work!

Those two songs are in two different keys, so we have mutually decided that we will keep skater boy in the same key as sweet child of mine, as it’ll be easier for our guitarists during performance.

Mainly we focused on sweet child of mine on that rehearsal. We have agreed as well that three vocalists that are able sing with chest voice will perform sweet child of mine (as this is heavy song and falsetto vocals wouldn’t fit fully). But two other vocals will join us for choruses, and I’ll work on harmonies for everyone. And skater boy can be done with falsetto vocals, that’s why vocalists who are singing falsetto will do skater boy and the rest of us will join them for choruses as well. We all agreed for that and we’re happy with our decision.

I can’t lie I did enjoy this rehearsal, as I could conduct people haha I figured out at some point that guitars aren’t in tune together, so we made sure they’re in tune. Anyway later on our lecturer helped us to find out that one more guitar wasn’t in tune (but I didn’t hear that, as they’re were too quiet before and I just couldn’t hear when everyone played together)

As everyone found challenging rehearsing without drums (as some people recognised when they can start play or sing but drum parts) I made sure I gave them signal when they can start. It was fun!

Some band members were losing rhythm while playing song, as it’s understandable, when drum player plays drums it’s loud, when I just use kick and my hand (as I’m not a drum player, at least yet as who knows what future will bring) it’s way quieter, and when all guitars starts playing my kicking and clapping was barely heard. So I kept counting til 4 out loudly. Very loudly. So everyone could hear it and keep the rhythm.

By the end we were saved by our lecturer who supported us by playing drums for us. Life saver! Definitely we enjoyed that, also we got a lot of feedback from him which was helpful and defo we will keep this in our mind.

At the moment we’re trying to find venue which is affordable and has equipment, so we could rehearse extra. As on days when we can rehearse, rehearsals rooms are booked for other classes.

But we’re getting there.

The most important thing, we do get along together and enjoy working together. And most of us really care. I can honestly see that I see a lot of improvement with every rehearsal and we do keep motivated each other. We do spread positive energy that even if it’s challenging we can do it and we will perform well. As long as we will support each other and we will all work together.

So I told about that to my band members, that instead of strongly focusing what each person is playing, just feel the music. And it worked! When we all started feeling music playing went way better!

We could practice as a full band today, every member attended! And I’m so proud of it! Definitely with each week we’re getting more along together! Sweet child of mine is nearly done, to the point that we can play from start to the end. There are more details to work on, but at least we’re able to play it so far. And it’s a challenging song. Although we did some fun together at our rehearsal and we were getting creative. For fun me and another vocalist were trying to recreate Axl’s squeaky voice haha we had so much laugh and fun doing it

And we all believe, that we will do great performance! But we need more practice for sure

If we will keep going like that until the end of the year, work with this band will be very pleasant and less stressful for all of us.

I found out how to get rid of distortion, as my bass lane was great, but had very sharp sound instead of a smooth one. Firstly I used compressor tool and then I used distortion tool. Of course in EQ section I balanced out bass.

Then I have added sound effects recorded by me. Very detailed work, takes a lot of patience. Although there is some progress. And I didn’t make bad samples too.

After a long time and work I realised that one of my sound effects I cut too quickly. Tiny bit. I couldn’t be bothered to work again from the beginning on my sample. I didn’t want to use reverb, as I jest needed tiny delay by the end of my audio, so I won’t hear straight away cut on my audio, the end supposed to be smooth. And with that, Tape delay tool helped me a lot. Yes I googled that. So I fixed my problem without doing everything all again. Now the end of my audio ends normal way and sounds the way as supposed to. Work smart not hard

Evaluation seems like it was a little bit of work, but in reality it was a lot of work today. And some new knowledge.

I’d like to start from, how I did clean and adjusted my recorded samples, so I could blend them in my video. As I wasn’t happy with extra sounds in my audios, I found a way on my own how to take them down to minimum. This idea somehow came to my head and it actually worked! I’ve started with channel EQ, and it was doing work, still needed something more, as sound was better but slightly weird at the same time (I really don’t know how to describe it, and yes I have to learn new habit of videoing my work, it’ll be easier for future updates). So I thought of using reverb. When I was working on previous project I learned that, with reverb I can create an echo, but I can also make sound super dry. So I thought of using reverb in reverse way than usual one (if that makes any sense). And finally I got what I wanted!

I kept working with those two functions on my audios. And of course! With one of audios later a tiny issue occurred. I got stuck, as one audio no matter how I’ve adjusted that, wasn’t blending the way I wanted. So another idea popped into my head. Compressor! I thought I’ll try that one, and if that wouldn’t work then I would have to record again or try to find another idea. But it worked! I kept working with those three tools. For beginning and learning sake I can deal with it.

Although, this area interests me a lot, and I would like to dive more into doing samples or working on recorded stuff and bringing to its own best way. Definitely I’ll need proper microphone for better quality, and for sounds effects completely quiet space.

I’ve learned at the class two weeks ago how to do crescendo effect. The day before class I got to the point, that I found where was function to create crescendo (by pressing button A), but I didn’t know how to do my points and create it. At the classes I asked for help, and I was shown how to mark my points, and do crescendo (I don’t really know how to describe it other way, that’s why crescendo is the best word, as everyone knows what I’m talking about).

Another thing I found that day was: how to change voice into alien style or robotic style, or anything funky! I used tool called: spectral gate, and by playing with it I changed my voice into something weird, as needed.

On this project I have composed 3 background music pieces. I used musical effects for background as well.

Most of sounds effect are recorded by myself. But! Some of them I couldn’t record. In that case I found some videos which had some sounds I needed, downloaded mp3 versions and used bits I needed/ or sampled my samples/sounds from mp3 files? That’s how you would say?

I think I’ve mentioned above in one of my posts, that I have also sampled one effect from mp3 song and with midi keyboard I did some music for project too.

I do really hope I’ve mentioned everything here what I did with my project.

In general: I used everything what I could, what I was told at the classes and what I thought it would be great to have fun with.

Didn’t stop myself with creativity or opportunities.

With this project I was able to learn new ways of working with Logic Pro, working with sounds or sound design. I’m extremely happy that I could expand my knowledge and experience.

Comparing those two projects (1st and 2nd) with this one I made way bigger progress in learning. I could practice more my gained previously knowledge.

About the project: this project was more time consuming than the previous one. I didn’t even count hours I spent on it. It was very detailed work, took a lot of time and patience.

I had moments when I enjoyed it and then I hated it too. It wasn’t an easy work or maybe it was me that I didn’t make it easy ( I didn’t want to do just basic things or something simple, as by doing more complicated things I can see what are my strengths and weaknesses, where I need to focus more, where I need to practice more, and if I had an opportunity for learning a lot specially on different grounds, it would be silly not to use it to the maximum).

I did some of my work by using headphones and some by using monitors. There is a huge difference!

I’ve managed to end up with 84 channels.

My project is already finished and ready to bounce (which we will be shown how to do it at the class in next few days).

Time I have left I’ll use to organise my channels and learn how to put them into groups, as this will be very handy in future.

I’m proud of it and very satisfied.

Specially he was rhythmic guitar and he never did solos before, so definitely was very progressive thing for him. And we were all super proud of him!

I could hit all of the bites on vocal solo with my chest voice. And now I’m working on smoothing out this vocal lines. I’m expanding my vocal abilities as well, as I haven’t sang that high notes with chest voice before.

We did practice more skater boi, as at the beginning we focused more on sweet child of mine. Skater boi is getting way better as well.

Although me and another vocalist who sings with me sweet child of mine, covered two vocalists who are singing skater boi, as they were absent.

After we were placed into smaller groups for song writing I had idea in the middle of the night and played some stuff on piano. But because it was very late then I used midi keyboard to record it, so I could send this idea to the rest of the people from my group. I don’t know if we will go with that idea, at least I dropped something.

Here I’ve attached chords idea, it’s not polished just recorded to be able share that with the rest of my band members.

This time we had rehearsal in smaller groups and we were focussing on our song writing as a band.

I brought some idea and we did play together. Our guitarists and bass player did say that actually is a nice song. Although our drummer even said in frown of our lecturers that he feels like he's told what to do that's why he wasn't happy and said as I brought full song to the band. I've tried to explain to him, that I brought idea of chords not the full song, and it's full bands work to come up with idea how we could play them.

But okay! I asked him what are his ideas for chords, if he was making such a fuss about my idea (and made me feel at some point uncomfortable). In reply back I heard: we can play e and a. And I have asked him what does he means by saying e and a, like e major or minor or diminished, or augmented? He said, he doesn't know and he doesn't see the difference in stuff I'm saying. So I simply explained to him why is it important to have basic musical knowledge.

Anyway! We started playing his idea, and honestly, to keep him 'happy' and not to have to deal with him complaining (or any kind of drama) I think we're gonna stay with this song, as we can't be stuck and we have to progress.

But here's my honest opinion, we already had chat with other band members and we agreed, we have to do changes in this song, as is boring, sounds the same. There is no difference in verse and chorus. I started at home working on piano and trying some different additions to it, like for example different chords progression, to make it more interesting.

Had already chat with our bass player, as he was coming up with nice bass solos and ideas in this song, which makes it more interesting and funkier. Our lead guitarists is working on solos to this song and working together with our another guitarist, and splitting roles between each other. I'm working more on lyrics with another vocalist, and we're figuring out how we're gonna manage this vocally.

As we're done with two projects right now, I can focus more and spend more time on the band song and record more videos or audios for my band members, so we will know what exactly we're doing next week.

In final words, I don't think this song is bad, as it isn't, but it's just boring, sounds the same.

Any cherry on the top for me to learn was: how to recognise in which key song is written without actually playing it, just checking key information. With that, classes at hnd helped me. As before I could tell which key song is potentially made, but recognising by notes if it’s minor or major I’ve learned at the classes, and I’m so happy about that!

I can see how tiny details are very important in song writing, which I didn’t know before.

We had chords from previous rehearsal week before, but then we started jamming and this is how we wrote song. We were writing lyrics on a go, whatever came to head and sounded good.

If you come with me

Maybe there you’ll see

A bit of my magic world

Promise you there isn’t cold

Chorus

And if you don’t you won’t have so much fun

And if you don’t then you’ll regret choosing not to come

Verse 2

If you come with me

We will stay there free

release our fantasy

And drift away in ecstasy

Chords:

Verses: A, E, D, G

Choruses: Em, D, C, G

Of course we have how we will dress as well. Main themes of clothes were: as a skater boys or glam rock.

Me and on of guitarists prepared surprise for everyone!

But after that rehearsal we all felt confident and we were actually excited to perform.

Our actual performance!

Oh I’m so, so proud of us!

In my own opinion we did great show! Me and Cayden surprised everyone with our costumes! I still can’t believe I did it!

But part of the performance is to deliver great show, so I think we did well on that!

We know for next time that guitars have to be louder, as oh it’s such a shame guitars solos weren’t heard! Specially our guitarists worked hard on those and they did them well! Our ’Slash’ who used to be before rhythm guitar did an actual solo from sweet child of mine and I know I’ve mentioned that on posts before, but oh we were so shocked and proud of him! He did so well!

About performance: maybe we did mistakes there maybe we didn’t… if we did we’ve managed to cover them well, and if we didn’t then everything went as planned 😉 but that will be thing to talk about at our next rehearsal

What we can do better for next time? Definitely add tiny little touches to our original song, as we will have more time to work on it (still for this amount of time we did very well, specially for this size of the band, as working in a large band isn’t so easy)

We know that we have to make sure vocalists and guitarists are heard well!

We also have learned that all the lights work and extra stuff at the stage have to be discussed with tech people way before performance and planned.

In my opinion we have all progressed since last performance and we’ve progressed a lot!

Every person who played at the band progressed with music skills but also performing skills too!

I did progress vocally a lot!

And what I did really like, we all agreed that we will have fun there at the stage and we won’t stress out so much!

We also didn’t want to take out of the performance one of our vocalists, as she wasn’t coming for past rehearsals due to health issues. She did come for performance and we knew she could do skater boi, so we decided she could perform for this song and wouldn’t be completely excluded from performance.

Last words: we do have our disagreements and moments, but when comes to playing we can get together and play the best as we can! We do align together, and we all agreed that: we do love to complicate things, all of us! And sometimes we should keep it simple but great!

This is difficult choice for me and I think I need to sleep with this thought for few days. As when I started I knew my direction was music production, but with time I had chance to experience different grounds which I did really enjoyed too. So I'll have to think what I did enjoyed the most. I love individual work a lot, and with past two projects from midi class I've gained so much experience and knowledge. Also I love detailed work. But I do also enjoy band work, and I found very fun and pleasant performing (which I didn't like before). I do like to work with other people as well, and combine all ideas together. It is challenging, but also very fun.

3. Do you feel confident in completing project that is created by yourself?

Yes I do.

4. What support, help, or resources do you feel would be useful in completing your project?

Depends which one project I'll be doing. If I'll do tech project then there is an idea in my head, but I'll need consultation with my lecturer about that. As for tech project of thought of video where I could dive more into sound design but also compose my own music in background, or some sort of music video with sound effect at the beginning, But I'm not a vide4o maker and also I'll need more thoughts on that or chat.

If I'll pick performance as my main project then I already got everything I need, and I know if I would struggle vocally or with band work in general I can come to my vocal lecturer or live performance lecturers.

5. Do you feel it would be possible to work on your own individual project while still taking part in the performance class?

Yes. And of course I would love to do two projects. I'm disciplined and committed, so of course it would be possible for me to do two projects.

6. Do you have any initial ideas for project concepts or aims? If so, please outline them briefly.

As I've mentioned above, I've been thinking about my individual project, and I would love to combine sound design (making my own sound effects) with song writing and making. Or using already existing video and do my own sound effects, as we did for project 2. But I'll need consultation with my lecturer about that and also check if I'm not too complicating.

I'll have to be honest, the decision isn't easy, as I do enjoy everything I'm doing right now. I made huge progress in every class and I'm getting better. I would like to keep progressing on every ground as I do so far.

We had some discussions about our song structure, and at the final point most of the bands members voted, that we should end song after second verse.

Personally I disagree slightly with this, as I think that we should do one more chorus after verse, even if we weren't doing bridge or solos or anything extra. I did say that at our rehearsal, but decisions was made. And as a part of the group I did go with the performance, and tried to deliver it the best way I could.

I'm not fully sure if I've mentioned how I've prepared my vocal for sweet child of mine.

I've checked many videos online about expanding vocal range (if that makes sense). I did many vocal exercises (singing in different ways, doing weird sounds, different methods of warm ups), some stretching exercises, specially neck stretching and jaw stretching. Then I had to learn how to relax my throat to be able sing higher. And main thing for me to learn was: how to control my throat while singing and avoid tightening my throat while singing.

By preparing to this song and going through vocal exercises I found new ways of singing too. I did even mention that on my vocal classes.

Vocal classes helps me as lot as well.

It was a big challenge, as I do remember how I sounded at our first rehearsals while trying to recreate the last part of the song sweet child of mine, and how I did sound on our performance. And I don't know how many times I've said that, but this was very difficult. I did this with my full throat voice.

I've decided to record it in Logic Pro, and used this as my backing track for solo performance. And here the challenges appeared. I found out, that I can't connect my digital piano to audio interface, as I got very weird sound. I've checked everything, and I think I might need to order different wire. Anyway, I had to record it. So I used for that midi keyboard. Main challenge with midi keyboard for me is, that keys are very light, there are no dynamics, no sustain pedal and only 24 keys. So on top of that I can't play both hands at the same time. On the piano my hands were smoothly swinging between each other. So just recording my piano parts took me hours, to get it the right way. Then I've had to move some parts manually on the programme, and manage how to get sustain effect. Still have some bits to work on. Although I'm facing another issue, which is some sort of creative block. I'm trying to finish my instrumental part, but I just can't. I'm some sort of stuck. I know lyrics wise what I want this song about, but same situation, whenever I'm trying to think of words there is emptiness in my head. I have to be honest, I'm facing something like that first time. As I don't have full block from creating. I have ideas for another melodies, I do have issue to continue or finish or progress in already started song. It's like that from past 5 days, and I do really hope it'll pass soon, and I'll get back on my track.

But I don't give up, or waiting. While kind of writing break I do work on bits I've already done and I'm working on mixing or adding effects.

I'm not gonna lie, technical issue, that I couldn't use piano it was a big challenge, as of course it's easier for me to play piano than any keyboard.

But I didn't give up facing this challenge. Have I went through different emotional stages? Of course I did! Every musician do. But I found way how to do it. More complicated and difficult, but I found and it works.

We did go through our usual songs, which were sweet child of mine and skater boi. We did play them few times as our routine, and let's be honest, after performance and during our break none of us was practicing them at home, as we needed break from them.

In the vocal class earlier we did ask our lecturer for some help with harmonies for our original band song. Although, rest of the band at our practice decided that we won't perform for our final project our original band song. Which is shame, as personally I think it was a good song, and with a little more work on it and addition of some details it would be great song. But anyway, majority said no.

In mean time most of our band members decided to do song Don't Look Back In Anger by Oasis, so we did rehearse this song that day. And I have to say honestly, it went very well and sounded good! With first playing it sounded like we have been practicing this for ages! I wasn't singing main parts there, but I was working on a go on harmonies. I did get few ideas in my head, and few band members said it all sounded good, and our vocal parts sounded good as well. But! I've done more research on my own after rehearsal for harmonies. I found one good video and it's way easier to practice more with this video. Although I have asked my vocal lecturer for some help with harmonies for this song. As I can harmonise on my own, but we have 5 vocalists!

So we do have three songs in our setlist!

It was good rehearsal that day! We did very well!

Here's the link for video I was watching and trying out harmonies from.

Fun fact! There is also video for creep by Radiohead, and I didn't know about that, and I did the same harmonies for creep song for project one (I did harmonies for that song on my own without watching any videos, I've listened to song over and over again and I came up from my head and ear)

Unfortunately I don't have video of me playing piano, but I do play piano at home and I'm trying to work through intervals and chords for our harmonies as well.

At first, when we got to rehearsal room, our drummer wasn't there. And one person said that doesn't really know, as heard two versions that our drummer he won't be playing with us, because he joined other band or he will be, but won't be on every rehearsal due to practice with other band. So that was first mess to figure out. I found our drummer and then as a band we had chat together, as we didn't know what's going on, and we are mid way to our final project.

Our drummer explained to us that, he joined another band, but still will be performing with us. He'll be doing split rehearsals, because people from other band can't do other days. And all of us from our band said to him, that we don't really care, that other people can't do other days, as it's their side work, and this is our main project. We were also annoyed that he didn't say anything to us before too.

We weren't annoyed because he's doing work for another band, but we were annoyed, as he didn't communicate anything with us and our rehearsal was messy, we didn't know what we should plan then and also it's our main project! Of course we want to perform the best way as we can! And there is so much work to do.

So that day our drummer rehearsed with us two songs and went to the other band. It was very annoying, as we needed drummer.

But! Our bass player played drums for us (he's learning on his own how to play drums, and he did fantastic work! He played so well and it was a lot of help to our rehearsal), our key player, as he knew don't look back in anger song perfectly, by head shakes was communicating with me when vocalists should start or whenever he was going into transition from verse to chorus, and I was conducting the rest. I was clapping rhythm for Rory who played drums, as he was losing rhythm from time to time, he said it helped him a lot to keep the rhythm, then by watching Luca and him showing me signs I was leading vocalists and giving them signals when they should start singing. So we did great team work together! Even under circumstances like that we have managed to rehearse, still in a good way. But after all we had chat with our drummer, and we told him that unfortunately it can't look like that, as this is quite problematic.

We would have to work this out if we had no other way of course.

So it was intense day.

The only thing that we will have to discuss and potentially change is song can't stop, as I've been saying before that none of our vocals fit this song, but another thing is, our bass player can't do slapping. And whole song is made in bass slap technique. So this song will have to be changed. And reason why the rest voted for thing song, as it's a cool song and peoples pleaser. And I've been trying to explain, that we can't choose song because it's cool or peoples pleaser, as we need to make sure we're able to perform this song. Every song song can be cool and peoples pleaser if it's done correctly and in a good way, same as every good song can be easily destroyed if don'ts match skills or it's too challenging.

Although in my free time I have been trying different things with my vocals, and it's definitely something I could use maybe in the future or in any of our songs, who knows. So I've found out new vocal technique which is cry technique. And I'm glad I have videoed this. This is something what I will practice more, as I had so much fun with it. It's not prefect yet and it was my first day trying it.

As for example I do keep all of data in my phone and notes from my work or progress, but I forget to post it or I don't have time, or simply I'm struggling to just sit down and lock in properly. Definitely it's way easier to do in group. Also we do have our brain storms about future work in our separate bands or study wise, or we can discuss where each of us could improve!

That rehearsal was personally for me one of the most difficult ones. Day before practice I got news, that my granddad passed away. Personally it was devastating , but I did communicate this to my band. I send them text about news I got, and I told them, that I'll come to practice and I will try my best to be present as much as possible. I did get a lot of support from my band members and warm words. All of them said if I need anything I can talk to them. And it meant a lot to me!

Why did I choose to come?

I really didn't want to come and I had anxiety for the whole day, I was tired as I didn't sleep and from huge amount of stress, and shock, and all the emotions the previous day, I was exhausted. But! We don't have much time left and our band work is very important for me, final project is coming soon, every minute is important for us, and grades for each of us depends on OUR work together.

It was my granddads will too, that no matter what I won't skip my classes and I will continue with my life.

Anyway, back to rehearsal.

Good news for us, new guitar player joined our band, and I'm very happy about that, as he's very talented and amazing guitarist.

Under Shadows band has amazing musicians!

Before we started playing we were supposed to have some chat, as we do have to share our drummer with other band (we were trying to figure this out how to make it work), we were also chatting about our set list for our performance. We were supposed to talk also about the inside issues likewise communication. But we didn't get anywhere, as some people kept arguing all the time. In general: drama. Which personally I'm tired of.

I don't like dramas or arguments. Specially over stupid things like certain people being childish and rude to each other.

It's waste of time and it's draining.

I've tried some sort of find middle ground in whole argument, but I couldn't get full focus or put my thoughts together.

Having anxiety plus getting overwhelmed by arguing wasn't a great combination.

I did ask few people, if they could leave outside of the room their egos and arrogance, and if they could speak to each other with respect, but also listen what others have to say.

I don't know if it worked and will be working.

Surely on a way to work this out at some point.

We did play our full set list (so far we're having those songs): sweet child of mine by guns n' roses, skater boi by Avril Lavigne, Don't Look Back In Anger by Oasis and Mr.Brightside by the Killers. All of them went quite well! I've tried to harmonise for don't look back in anger and mr.brightside.

We're doing progress! And I've worked on vocal harmonies for those two songs over the weekend, so I can't wait to try them on next practice.

Our songs order so far is: skater boi, don't look back in anger, mr.brightside and sweet child of mine. We did order like that, as sweet child of mine will be good song for closing the gig and also guitarists and bassist will have to change tuning for last two songs.

We did check time how long it'll take us to play all the songs and change the tuning, it's 18 minutes for now.

I have asked guitarists if they could practice at home with the timer changing tuning, it will have to be less than a minute. There is some idea in my head, as we do have three guitarists in our band, so one of them could stop playing by the end of the don't look back in anger, change tuning and open mr.brightside, so the rest will have a little more time, as I'm aware that there will be stress above everything at the performance.

It's easier to do everything at practice, it's way different on actual performance.

I did also thought of some short changes in other songs, so maybe we will be able to fit one more song, and do everything in 20 minutes (as this is our maximum timing for performance).

One main thing for me which is really important: I would like to organise everything the way and bring some ideas, that each band member will have their spot light even just for few seconds. As I've mentioned above, we do have very talented musicians, they should be seen, and it's a group project, so definitely everyone should be seen!

For now I just hope, there will be no more drama, we will properly lock in with work and will get this done. As when we start playing together and enjoying music, we do excellent work!

I did struggle a lot with this song. I couldn't connect my digital piano to record it, so I had to play everything on midi keyboard. I'll be honest. It was hell... First of all on midi keyboard I can't do dynamics, I don't have sustain pedal, so to make piano sound light and sustained, and smooth I did use two different reverbs. Another huge challenge for me was: on the piano I did play both hands, and they were combined together, my midi keyboard is way shorter, so I had to record my hands separately. Although I found a way! To make sure everything was on the spot while I was recording right hand, at the same time I was plain playing on my desk by left hand (basically tapping every note on the desk). Then I got some writers blockade and I couldn't think of any note or even word for over a week.

Piano samples aren't also the best, and left hand when played on lower octave was giving me high pitched noise, that was extremely annoying and it was overtaking right hand melody. I did tried equaliser and compressing (turns out it was sample default in general, I checked online opinions) but it didn't work. And other samples weren't the kind I wanted. So! At the beginning of the song, I have two channels for left hand with two different piano samples, and by using crescendo (press A, do points and change volumes) I kind of did overlapping in movement (I really don't know how else I would describe it, as I've never seen something like that, and that idea came to my head because I'm stubborn, and if I want something in my composition, I find anyway to have it than giving up and substituting. This is annoying sometimes). I kept my main piano sample which I wanted, but in the moments when the lowest notes were played and high pitched sound was extremely heard I was muting this part of the piano sample and putting up volume of another sample which didn't have this high pitched noise, and then I was going back to my first piano sample. So my second left hand channel was created to cover the lowest notes (as with the lowest notes I couldn't really hear the difference in general piano sound, which was my main point). I did keep second left hand channel on very low volume anyway, as it was slightly taking over other little high pitched sounds. Of course I couldn't get rid of them completely, but they're not the main sounds, as previously. This work (less than a minute of the whole track) took me around 2 hours. But I did it!

Adding strings was the easiest part for me. Of course mixing and compressing took a lot of time. And I have started learning a little bit of mastering! As after mixing, it sounded alright, but not really satisfying. I found master function and started playing around with it. It saved my life! Finally I got satisfied with the sound of this song!

It's not perfect as I would like it to be, but I'll have to find better library with samples.

I did this work (plus I wrote my own lyrics) in 9 days. 2-3 hours a day, as I had other things to do as well.

I honestly admit, at some point I thought that, my ambition took over me and it's a slight warning for myself and for my future. But also I have to keep in my head, that I couldn't create for a moment (week is a lot of time at this point when I had to keep my deadline). If I wouldn't have deadline to meet, I wouldn't even think for a second about being too ambitious. Just highly creative.

I enjoyed this task a lot.

And I do really like this song too.

Evaluation:

Of course my idea and aim was to follow the instructions of task, but also use everything we were told to in our classes. I did adjust EQ's, I did pan, I dod compressing as well. I did learn one important thing, that we compress after EQs, never the other day around. I did also learn more about compression, as I've been doing it before, but without full understanding, I was following my ear more.

I didn't find it super challenging and difficult, but I've been doing all of that in my previous projects and I did my own research before.

Final effect in this project was exactly the way I wanted. I've balanced everything out well (of course in my opinion, it does sound good to me).

First time I don't really have a lot to say, as I just sat down and did my work. I have split this project on two days, as I had other things to do as well. But definitely I would do this in one sitting.

Lyrics:

Chorus:

We are dreamers

Careless dreamers

Don't wake us yet

We don't won't to go away

From this beautiful world

Created in our thoughts

Through inner eyes and opened hearts

Verse 1

While slowly closing eyes,

we can see our paradise

Can be funny full of crazy things,

Can be full of places we've never been

I see pure souls and hearts,

with kindness in their starry eyes

Some sun and river too,

calm wind and beautiful moon

Verse 2

Tell me what do you see?

Mountains, rivers, open sea?

Do the colours shine for you?

Are they golden, green or blue?

Tell me what do you feel?

Something simple, something real?

Lei it grow and let it stay,

Don't let take it away

I wrote lyrics in the evening, when I was supposed to sleep. Inspiration for the lyrics? I was listening to medieval music playlist (sleeping playlist). And I was thinking of medieval times, but with my own flip to it. Happy, kind people. Beautiful views. I was thinking of everything that makes me happy.

So I was in my happy place.

One thought immediately came to my head: every person has their own imagined world, that likes to think about or go there in thought for a moment, to have a break from everything in life or experience some happy moments. And doesn't matter what's in there, every person has their own dream world or dream life.

My song already sounds dreamy (I love to create music like that), so I thought that, I want lyrics about dream world!

First important thing that has been sorted out, our drummer. As our drummer is playing for the other band too. Of course it's not ideal, that we have to share him during our rehearsals, but we found compromise. As of course our band is priority, we have been placed together and we're working from few months, we compromised with another band, that we will have our drummer for nearly full rehearsal that goes with our timetable, and he can go to another rehearsal half an hour before the end of our class. So we will be able to practice properly, and for last half an hour we can do planning things about our performance or manage to get other things done without our drummer.

We did play our full set list fair few times today. Us vocalists, we have planned properly who's doing which part in songs, we planned when we're harmonising and what way we do. I brought vocal harmonies that I have been preparing for the past week, and they went well!

Guitarists split their parts between them too. So every person knows what they're doing.

We've started practicing the moment of tuning up between songs, and we did started planning how we will cover this moment, so crowd won't even notice at the actual performance. As for the first day of doing it, it went very well and smoothly.

We have been working very hard today and we all enjoyed it!

We do have marking week and break next week, but we will do rehearsal, and I've booked us today auditorium for next week. We will have more space and actual stage, so we can plan and try our set up on the stage. I'm not gonna lie, trying to sort out the auditorium for next week was a little cardio for me, as I wanted to make sure we will get it and I didn't want to stay out for too long from our practice.

By the end of the day I got message from our drummer, that he forgot to mention, that next Wednesday he's doing practice with other band. I did got a little annoyed, as I was checking few times with my band today if all of us can do next Wednesday. All of them said yes.

But! It's not the end of the world. I have already asked another person for favour and if would cover drums for us. In the worst case scenario if we won't have drummer that day we will still continue on practicing, our bassist can do drums (as he did that on previous rehearsal and for him learning he did very well) or I suggested that we can have metronome clicking in the monitors, all of us will have to remember where drums are playing and know exactly when they're doing their parts. So as I said it's not the end of the world, and there is always solution.

• I sang my own song, that I have written for this performance and I made my own backing track

• In my opinion nothing went well. I'm disappointed with my performance. I got huge anxiety attack that took over my body and everything. I hit few notes well, as I've seen video. Due to stress I don't even remember my own performance. I did well job on lyrics and my backing track.

2. So what?

   • That it does happens to all of us and it's not the end of the world. I definitely know that I have to practice more performing in front of people.

   • How did I feel while playing? I felt stressed, nervous, nauseous, I couldn't breathe. And all started from the moment when I noticed how my voice was shaking and from that I had domino effect. I couldn't control my breath, I couldn't control shake in my body, my throat tightened fully, so I couldn't hit high notes, as I planned to.

3. So what?

   • I will practice more performing in front of other people, as this was my main issue. Solo performing in front of many people and having all their eyes on me.

   • I'll do more breathe exercises, as it'll give me more possibilities to manage my breath during another anxiety attack for example. I will do more stretching exercises, specially for my throat, so again, it'll help me more during the performance when my muscles will start tightening. I will do more relaxing exercises and will find more ways of dealing with huge stress wave during performance. This practiced on regular basis should bring more improvement in my future during performances.