Blog 3 (Week 1 Reflections)

 

I do not have a video but I have audio recordings, so I've uploaded a video of a black screen with the audio recording I made. This audio recording capture when Angus, King and I were working on a song that we wanted to fit the "indie" category. This album is meant to be tailored towards as wide of an audience as possible, whether or not that'll help the popularity of the album, I do not know, but I do know as a group we want to find our sound and want to branch out as much as possible to find what we like best. Since this is our first time really working together there are a lot of facets of our creative minds to explore and that is exactly what we are doing with this project. Specifically, in this song attached above, we had just finished coming up with the chord progression and Angus had pretty much finalized part of the vocal melody. We were messing around with the speed of the strumming and rhythm to see if it sounded a little better if we were to speed it up. In production, I think I actually sped it up even more than in this. I first started with strumming my guitar as we sat outside on my front doorstep. I wanted something that sounded indie, so that meant lots of seventh and diminished chords. I think I started with a c-major seventh chord but I don't know enough chords on the guitar to find one that sounded good after it. I ended up switching to a d-major seventh chord to start it out. I didn't know what to do after that so I strummed random chords until I found one that sounded good after the dmaj7. The chord I ended up on going with was Gmaj7. After that I went with the Cmajor chord for 2 bars to finish of the 4 bar phrase. It's a super simple chord progression and even simpler fingerings on the guitar but I think if we do it right it'll be a super catchy song. 

Comments

  1. Rachel MullenMay 27, 2021 at 9:50 AM

    Donovan, I loved reading your blog posts and listening to the audio recording that you uploaded. The tune of that song and the acoustic guitar reminded me of Ingrid Michaelson's music. I can tell that you, Angus and King have good song-writing chemistry and aren't forzing something that doesn't come naturally, or isn't already there. Have you seen the show "Song Exploder" on Netflix or listened to the podcast "Song Exploder"? (https://songexploder.net/). It's all about how musicians come up with the ideas for their songs, and I've enjoyed watching it. I imagine you've seen / heard it, but I thought I'd share it anyway! Keep up the great work, and I look forward to visiting with you soon. - Mrs. Mullen

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