My name is J.N, and I attend at GCE Lab school. I am taking a class known as Radio-rithmetic and learned about different genres, dissonance and consonance, and ways to edit music. We went on multiple FEs such as Chicago Recording Company, Chicago’s "The Drive" radio station, and many more. What we are doing for our final assignment or project is that we are creating a song or a remix of a song. I chose to create my own original song rather than remix or reuse someone else's song. Even though there are some samples of other musician’s songs, most of this song is mainly original. I am proud of creating the lyrics and the guitar chords/order of the song, and I am proud of the song in general. I hope you enjoy.
When I was first introduced to this project, I was excited. I always wanted to create a song of my own, but I was always a procrastinator to do so. Now that I have to as an assignment, I began to think about what song I would create. First, I wanted to create a completely original song of my own. I also wanted to get out of my comfort zone of a comedian. I decided to create, or at least try to create a sad and passionate song. Even though it didn't turn into what I hoped it to be, I am still happy about it. I took inspiration from Louis Armstrong’s "What a Wonderful Word" and songs from Rebecca Sugar such as "Here Comes a Thought".
When first creating the song, I wanted to start with the lyrics. I believe what creates a good song is the story. Of course, the lyrics were supposed to be sung by a female singer. But no one was available, so I had to sing it for myself. I used autotune in order to make the song sound more professional and more female based, since this part was made specifically for a female singer. I also used some delay in order to create a better intensity for the listener to hear. I am happy with the delay I first created, and kept it throughout the song.
After I created the lyrics, I started to make the audio and sounds. The first audio I made were the drums, since they were simple to create. I decided to use the 4/4 time sequence as my drum beat. The reason being was because it was the easiest drumbeat to create. It also allowed the listener to follow along with the song and the rhythm.
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| J.N, "Drum beat Sequence" Own Work, Dec 15 2016 |
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| J.N "G major scale" Own Work Dec 14, 2016 |
Later on, I decided to incorporate the main line of chords for all parts of the song. I would try out different pitches on chords to see what sounded good, but I still needed a higher pitch to make it better.
After I was done with the chorus, I made more modifications to the rest of the piece. I would try to add chords in empty areas. I did more voice recordings for higher intensity and a better echo. Finally, what I did last is that I used content from the internet in order to create an intro. I chose to use two piano pieces of the same song "Here comes a thought". The original was made by Rebecca Sugar, a well known story and song writer. But was arranged for piano by two different pianist, spywi and WeimTime (not real names). They both had different remakes of the song, yet I put them both together as the intro for my song.
After doing the intro, I was completely finished. There were still multiple problems such as myself being in a different room at the time to record, but that couldn't be changed. I am still proud of my song even with the errors, and I cannot do anything about that. Still, my song was finally finished after I put in the intro.
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| J.N "Song Graph" Own Work Dec 14, 2016 |
They also use tension and release, or consonance and dissonance as well when it comes to notes. Consonance is when a note sounds harmonious while dissonance is when a note sounds unstable. They are used for tension and release, with consonance as release and dissonance as tension. I use this throughout my entire song to give it a better taste for listeners. The main use of tension and release would be the repeating notes G major chord and E minor. GM would be considered consonance, since it is pleasant sound, while Em would be dissonance, since it is an unpleasant sound.
I really enjoyed creating my own song. It was fun to play around with Garageband, while trying to create my own song from scratch. If it weren't for my teachers, I would have created an entire song without any help whatsoever. One thing I learned from making this song is that you can't always get what you want, but you can change or alter what you have while creating the song. This stands true since I couldn't find a female singer, yet I was able to change the sound of my own voice. I wish I could have found better existing samples for my song, but besides that, I am happy with the song I made.
