Journals (continued)

Class Three

Today’s lecture saw us get introduced and further acquainted with “Lyrics Essentials”, and with this we were taught many things that I’m sure will eventually assist us in the creation of songs once we receive our band details! As someone who has constantly struggled with lyric writing in the past, this lecture opened my eyes to lots of details and lots of potential ways to break down the issues of my writer’s block. While I still struggle to write lyrics that I’m pleased, I found myself able to almost completely dismiss the initial struggle with writer’s block that once held me back.

Class Four

Today’s lecture saw us get further acquainted to the use of Melody in our songs, and introduced us to ideas such as how we can use multiple melodies throughout our songs in order to give more character/mood/personality to the music we make. We looked at both Conjunct and Disjunct forms of melody in the class, and how each form differs from one another; one following an increase in semitones (conjunct), and another focusing on leaps/steps larger than semitones. I was incredibly intrigued, and definitely enjoyed both equally. I look forward to being able to utilise both forms of melody in my songs!

Class Five

Today’s lecture saw us get introduced to our Portfolio Assignment, alongside the idea of songwriting for a “Brief”: a customer of sorts that we may one day write songs for. The process is simple enough, requiring as much communication as possible between the brief and yourself to ensure that you’re on the right track with the song they wish to have written from you. For my assignment, I have chosen to write a song for a Brief that focuses on Mental Health Awareness Month, a globally celebrated month with the goal of raising support and awareness for those suffering from mental illness. My song will be called “Not Alone”, and I intend to create a Lo-Fi inspired song with extremely calm and gentle vibes, to be an easy-listening song singing support to those struggling.

Class Six

Today’s session was focused on Harmony. In this lecture, we learned about many aspects of harmony, such as adding colour to songs and how harmony can be used as either a “topping” to a song, or the base foundation of a song with chords being built from it. The most popular/commonly found chord progressions were shown and demonstrated to us as well, some of which sounded much more interesting and unique than others. My personal favourites were 1645 and 6541, as while they are similar to the more common progressions, there was something slightly different about them that piqued my interest. I look forward to experimenting with these in my band!

As part of our preparation for this class, we were tasked with writing a 30-60 second song for a brief that wanted a theme song for a child’s horror show. Mine was named “Agent Frankenstein:FBI, based on a concept of Frankenstein being made from the body parts of multiple famed scientists, being the smartest monster in the world and tracking down crime across the world.

Class Seven

Today’s session focused on giving us a further understanding of rhythm and rhythmic feels; learning of simple and compound metres, rhythmic subdivisions, and what genres typically use which metres/subdivisions most commonly/prominently. It was a very interesting session, and through learning more about each rhythmic feel, I have been tempted to further push the genre-advancing mission of my band into greater territories. As part of my preparation for this class, I found some songs of separate rhythmic subdivisions. Opeth’s “Windowpane” suited the ideas of straight eighths and also triplets, and Animals As Leaders’s “Song Of Solomon” demonstrated multiple rapidly changing odd time signatures as it energetically bounced through multiple shifts in the space of three minutes.

Class Eight

Today was a Practical session in the lecture, as we were focusing on Arrangement: the use of each instrument in a song, and how changing arrangement can very often assist in creating or altering the feel and power of certain songs. We also learned/were further acquainted with what role is/can be played by each instrument involved in the arrangement, and what genres these roles are often fulfilled or altered in. For example, a bass solo might be more commonly found in psychedelic or progressive genres over more typical popular music, and a guitar solo may be more commonly found in hard rock over folk/acoustic music. This lesson was incredibly fun and through the practical aspect of it, I figured out many more ideas for my band and what we could do in the future

Class Nine

Today we focused on imagery and lyrics, and how we can implement imagery into lyrics of our own, after looking at multiple examples of imagery types. These included Metaphors, Figurative Speech, and Similes. The differences between the three were heavily explained in case anyone needed assistance in determining whether they were writing metaphors instead of similes or vice versa. Through this session, I feel refreshed and open to new ideas in regards to metaphorical language and imagery-rich lyrics, a feeling I have not felt in a while due to a lyrical “drought” of mine. Thankfully, this lecture has helped me get back in touch with my lyrical side!