Project diary

project Diary

Week by week project diary

Week 1

Wednesday

Monday

During collabrative workshop I collated initial ideas for my composition. I had to say what I am planning to do for my project and why, what resources I think I'll need and why, and what obstacles do I think I'll encounter and how I will solve them. (attached below) After looking into a few potential DAW's I settled upon using Presonus' Studio One. It's prime version is free and is easy to use, it has an arranger feature so I can structure my piece effectively and I am able to record multiple takes before deciding the best one.

After taking a day's break I began to work on my composition and came up with a chord progression for the intro. I decided to use a VI-I-IV-V sequence in B minor which is Em7-Bm-Dmaj7-Em. I decided to take a few days break from writing to gather some new ideas.

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Week 2

Tuesday

Friday

Sunday

On tuesday in creative software we created a piece on the instrumentation we are using in our composition. I have settled upon keys, rhythm guitar, digital drums, lead guitar and synth.

On Sunday I developed a Chorus section with a key change to G major and a new chord progression which goes G-D-Em-C-Bm-A. The change in key keeps the song interesting and makes it more unique. I have also decided to have a quiet bridge afterwards before going into a reprisal of the chorus and then perhaps an outro.

On Friday I recorded large amount of Rhythm and Harmony sections aswell as altering the chord progression slightly for the verse. The verse chord progression is C-Bm-Dmaj7-Em. I have the intro and verse recorded for Drums, Rhythm guitar, Keys, and Synth. I also began experimenting with a third chord progression for a chorus section.

Week 3

Monday

Tuesday

On Tuesday evening I decided to go and work on the final rhythm part of my composition and am happy to say all the rhythm sections are now complete. I finished the bridge section I mentioned in my mid project review, I had to research different ways to construct the chords into different inversions to get the sound I wanted them to have and to keep it sounding interesting. I also added the final Chorus/Outro section where I reused the chorus chord progression but for the last part added the progression of G-F#-Em-C. The final structure of my composition is now Intro-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus/Outro. I will spend the remainder of the week tweaking a couple of synth/piano parts and maybe adding some variation on the drums.

On Monday I wrote a mid project review in collabrative workshop. This detailed what I have done so far, the things I've had to learn in order to progress with my composition, what challenges I have faced and how I've over come them. I have attached of copy of my review below.

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Friday

Week 4

Wednesday

Monday

On Friday I finished my composition, in doing so I finished by the week early deadline I set myself. I am satisfied by the final piece especially seeing as it is my first time attempting to write music and the fact I completed the entire writting and recording process alone. I recorded a counter meoldy line as I mentioned previously and constructed a video to acompany the music in DaVinci resolve out of royalty free stock videos. This was also my first time attemprting to edit a video. I have uploaded my composition to youtube and embeded it into my google site.

On wednesday I recorded a test melody on my composition. I have decided that I should add a second lead guitar to play a counter melody. This would compliment the rest of the composition.

On Monday in music theory we wrote descriptions of our compositions. The main features we had to describe were the tempo, key, feel, chord progression, time signiture, instrumentation and sounds. I have attached it below.

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A final word

Week 5

By week 5 my project was complete. All in class tasks had been submitted and my composition uploaded to youtbe and embeded into my site. This project taught me a lot about areas of music I have never experienced before, I have gained knowledege which will be useful in the future as it makes me a more diverse musician. I feel my final piece could have been better but overal it was a good experience and I will likely try something like this again in the future.

You can read my final evaluation here.

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