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After performing our latest iteration of our piece minus Haydn B, we got some good feedback on what alterations we can make ready for the Assessment performance including Guitar tone, instrument levels & what we could add to fill the song out even more. I feel as if my confidence is starting to build up & I am now going to put all my time into my guitar parts to build my confidence in myself even more. I’m happy that we’ve settled on a track to use & it sounds even better each time we play it.

We’ve had two practices this week, one on Wednesday & one on Friday just to fine tune everything we’ve got. I believe we are good to go & ready for the assessment on Monday.

Ready for the performance of the new iteration of the track, we came in for the Monday session. We got everything set up & performed what he had come up with over the weekend. I had really bad nerves & made a few mistakes because of it, but overall I believe it went fairly smoothly. Our feedback was helpful as it discussed what could be changed with the drum machine beat & what Adam could do more of on the synth. At the end of the session we were told to bring a tech spec to the next session of what we would need for the following Monday.

Although I preferred the newer version of our second piece I still felt it couldn’t trump the first piece at all. I also felt it didn’t really fit into the Synth Pop/Dream Pop style we aimed for at the beginning. We discussed this as a group & decided to rework the first piece completely to fit this sound. We not only worked on the track as soon as the session finished but also booked a practice for the Friday & Sunday during the week.

After both sessions we had a more refined song, we changed the Drum Machine for Logic Pro X on my laptop as the we had access to more interchangeable drum sounds & we started piecing together the structure with various chord progressions & transitions.

I felt more confident with this track & was happy to work with it. Although the genres we worked within were not ones I had experience in before or listened to much, I found it really enjoyable to play & write stuff for the track.

I was unable to attend the 8th Monday session & Haydn B. was absent also, therefore the group was unable to perform. We did however organise a practice for Thursday evening booked by Adam.

We tried working on something different as some members were unhappy with the track we had last week. Although what we came up with was simple enough, I felt it wasn’t as unique as the previous piece. It followed the same instrumental line up & textural layers but felt more empty. From this we discussed getting a drum machine more seriously as it would fill the sound out a lot more. I booked it out not just for the band but as I wanted to use it for solo stuff too. It made what we had sound more fulfilled & more like a track.

Over the weekend I worked on the track more & altered the chord progression a little more with finger picking instead of strumming which complimented the beat provided by the drum machine massively. I sent what I came up with to the Instagram group chat & we were all happy with what we had & so they could practice in their own time, ready to perform for Monday’s session.

After the YFP week, which I used to tie all the loose ends of the band & form a rough presentation to give a better idea of how we would execute this assessment, we were giving the first half of the session to give these presentations. With Jess having recently left the course & Haydn B. away during the YFP week we only had the 3 of us to do so & didn’t have a finalised idea of what we wanted from the band, however we mentioned this & also mentioned how although we have rough ideas, we were waiting till we were all in the practice rooms to fully formulate & staple ideas.

Once the presentations were finished, we discussed Stage Presence & what it means to perform. This included stage confidence & what you can do to combat nerves which is something I suffer with quite drastically & want to work on to completely eradicate them.

We did a series of Rhythm games & warm ups to fight nerves & to warm us back into working within these sessions as well as get us more comfortable around everyone.

From this session we were told to bring an up to date iteration of the piece of music our group had come up with. We planned to meet up on the Wednesday afternoon & work on something. What we came up with was a very Spacey, Psychedelic piece with no drums, two guitars with heavy reverb, falsetto vocals & spacious synth. I liked the sound of what we had come up with & I took advantage of the reverb pedal & used as many of the features on it as possible to create something unique.

At the beginning of our 6th session was our performances of the Mapped Campus Walk piece. Aside from a few mistakes due to nerves it played out relatively smoothly & was fairly well received by the class. If I could do anything differently I would more time into our route with textures & dynamics in mind, working on both in more depth & not focussing so much on how the song sounds overall but how it’s representing the journey.

Once we finished the performances, we started discussing the module assessment in more detail, its criteria & what we are supposed to present by the deadline. We were asked to form groups, more so bands, within the class, discuss what influences & figure out what the band will be. This meant what genres the group would perform, what each member contributes, an identity & create a presentation to show all of this.

I formed a group with Haydn B. (Vocals, Guitar), Zara (Vocals), Adam (Synth/Keys) & Jessica (Vocals). Although it was ideal to have an actual performing drummer, I’ve wanted to stray away from Drums & focus on Guitar as it is my primary, first instrument & I want to develop it further whilst I work on my Drumming independently. We started discussing genres, what we could use to create a song such as drum machines & laptops & what our timetables were like.

After creating a Spotify playlist to exchange influences, we came to an agreement that we wanted to perform within the realms of Indie Rock, Synth Pop & Dream Pop with influences such as Tash Sultana, Turnover & The Marias. Although 2 of the members were unable to practice during the YFP week (Week 7), we decided Wednesdays were appropriate for us to practice, that Adam would book out rooms whilst I would book out equipment, Haydn B. would work on lyrics & Zara would record the sessions. We used the name ‘Wavy Gravy’ as a working title whilst we focussed more solely on the music itself as opposed to identity. One thing I want to develop from these sessions is my stage confidence & presence.

In our fifth session, we looked at narrative & rhythm, how words work around a song & may or may not cling to particular beats whilst leaving others empty. This also involved song repetition, variation & structure, the different sections of a song & what they all build up together to make. We also looked into polyrhythms as a class. This is an area of music I’ve worked with previously in my solo projects & really enjoy working with.

We were tasked to perform a serious of hand claps in different time signatures to see how they syncopate or overlap & what sounds & rhythms we received out of it.

This spawned this weeks task which was to take a walk around campus & sonically represent the areas we walk through with music. We had to display the textures of the environment, the size, the colours – every aspect with dynamics, structures, rhythm. It was within the same groups we had for the last project & we started planning instantly amongst ourselves. We decided to get a practice in on the Friday & Sunday, as well as mapping out our walking mentally.

We mainly worked with dynamics & textures, although we didn’t have Kayde in the Friday practice, we still managed to come up with a good structure to follow our walk. We did manage to all get together for practice on the Sunday & tied all the loose ends.

On our 4th Monday session, we started out by performing our song following the ‘Groovy’ criteria. What we came up followed the tropes given to us during the last session & sounded authentic. Although there was a few mistakes on my behalf & the absence of Robyn, I was happy with the outcome, we got some good feedback & criticism. This was all helpful as I haven’t played within these genres boundaries or working with the tropes associated so I had to kinda learn off my own back how to fill out the Explicit Beat Layer & what sounded authentic.

Once all the performances were finished, we started looking into melody. We learnt what a melody is, how melody is a combination of rhythm & pitch & that it’s a musical unit. We discussed unstable & stable notes, the concept of contour in a song, chord variations & worked within these fields in Logic to get a better understanding of them.

We were then tasked to ‘Write an original diatonic melody, in any major key, that contains four two-measure
phrases, with the following creative restrictions:

1. the first phrase must begin on a stable tone and end on an unstable tone.
2. the second phrase must begin on an unstable tone and end on a stable tone that resolves the last note of the first phrase.
3. the third phrase must begin on an unstable tone and end on an unstable tone.
4. the fourth phrase may begin on either a stable or an unstable tone. it must end on a
stable tone that resolves the last note of the third phrase.

This interesting as scales & chords are something I want to develop my knowledge on in the duration the course. It was interesting to hear to the affect that unstable & stable notes can have on the overall tone & mood of a song. I worked on a synth-pop esque track as it sounded authentic & was out of my comfort zone. Overall I am happy with the outcome.

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SONG CHOICE: ‘NIGHTCLUBBING’ by IGGY POP

The Explicit Beat Layer is established instantly with a lo-fi drum machine, setting the rhythm for the song & creating tension ready for the other instrumental layers to be introduced on top of it. After establishing the tempo, a synthesizer drops in & follows the bass drum of the drum machine & working within the melodic layer. Both of these elements establish a lot of the overall vibe & sound of the song, as well as almost foreshadowing the sluggish, slightly seductive haul that is the track.

The Functional Bassline Layer follows after this with a simplistic bassline, soon to be followed by some synthesizers working within the Harmonic Filler Layer. At this point it feels like it has all slowly been built on top of the Drum Machine Loop & has shown each step of this structure building. I really like this as it almost gives each element & instrument so far its own introduction & chance to establish itself.

We’re then introduced to some Piano that is acting as the Melodic layer & foreshadows the vocal harmony. As we’ve seen each layer been built up, it feels like this is the final piece that fulfills the songs instrumentation, each layer complimenting each other & bouncing of each hit of the Drum Machine loop. The synthesizer working as the Harmonic Filler Layer drops out allowing plenty of room for Iggy’s vocals which follow the Piano riff.

After a few lines, a guitar solo sweeps in to replace the lead vocals in place of Harmonic Filler Layer, joined also by the droning synth. The instrumentation also adds another note to its progression during this section to really establish the solo & spotlight it.

As the solo concludes it reveals the instrumentation which is reduced to the Functional Bass Layer (Bass guitar), Explicit Beat Layer (Drum Machine) & Melodic Layer (Synthesizer). This feels like a breather & also creates tension for what’s to come next. When the multiple layers of vocals come in, one vocal layer follows the Piano riff still (Hamonic Filler Layer) while the rest work within the Melodic layer. The vocals drop out allowing another guitar solo to shine above the instrumentation in the Harmonic Layer & carries the song out.

The Harmonic Fill Layer felt like it was being fulfilled throughout the song as the vocals & lead guitar both took turns to work within the layer. It also felt like a call & response between the both of them too.