Update On My Second Year Project & Techniques and Rehearsal Methods For A Solo Musician When You

What happened with being in a band?

At the start of the year I did not have a band to work with and as a result I was put into a group of three other people, two of which I have worked with before, however due to their focused ideas for the band it left me out of the song writing processes and meant at early stages of rehearsals I had no parts to play in any of the tracks and because of a lack of communication and inclusiveness from the band made it hard to know what was going on and where I could put my own input into their songs.

My new project

Because of these issues during the first three weeks of song writing and rehearsals it was recommended to me that I should work on a solo project where I would be challenged to play new instruments and experience the DIY musician technique where the tracks would be created on Cubase at a computer similar to how a new artist or band would showcase their abilities and produce a portfolio which can be used as samples to send to booking agents and promoters who could then offer you opportunities for gigs and festivals, this style of song writing also gives a musical resume for solo musicians to reach to other musicians to create a band or to join an existing band.

How I am song writing

- Taking inspiration from existing musicians that I find interesting and enjoy listening to for a variety of reasons.

- Thinking outside the box by combining song genres and cultural styles together which wouldn't normally be found together but that I think would work well.

- Focusing on guitar progressions within specific keys.

- Writing the initial foundations of the songs on guitar (as this is my main instrument) and then transferring what I have written onto bass and then returning back to the guitar to fill the mid range frequency section of the track and after that some lead guitar, synth on some tracks, and drums and other instruments to complete the track.

Research of other people's song writing techniques

Moog (Blair Joscelyne)

Moog is a similar songwriter to the project I am currently working on at the moment being mostly instrumental and the only main artist creating most of the music is himself, for these reasons he is one of the main influences on the music I will have produced and the way I create a variety of different sounds within my music in these two videos Moog explains how he records music for film scores and how he records with a guest artist.

Ken Hill

This songwriter chooses to start with the rhythm section when writing songs, He then goes into the lead parts of the song to break apart the repetitive sound of the rhythm sections, and then adds bass guitar to support the rhythm guitar and create a deeper dynamic texture to the lead guitar, Ken Hill then goes on to explain why he had not focused on drums until now as despite being one of the fundamental elements of a song the drums need to be appropriate for the sound and genre of the song, a rap song relies heavily on a percussive sound and an orchestra has very little to no percussion as it would be out of place within the combination of instruments. He then concludes by mentioning "ghost" instrumentation which increases the replay ability of your music and makes the listener feel like you do care about the music you are making, ghost instruments are short pieces of instrumentation that either use existing instruments or bring completely new instruments into the music and support important or specific emotions within the music and/or lyrics making it more meaningful for the listener to listen to and will keep them listening to your music.

Darren

The songwriter lists key points to remember when writing songs and has a more business like approach towards music production in which he identifies that letting people into what you're doing is a good thing to help you develop ideas to get feedback and that it is important not to aim to write a "perfect" song every time by making mistakes and not letting failure overcome what you are trying to achieve means that you can accept failures and not let it stop success, he also promotes the idea of being unique and flexible in song writing by using opposite effects like staccato and legato and finding new ways to do or say things to make your music stand out from everyone else's.'

Ken Chapple

Here a different songwriter explains how to find song writing ideas in everyday life and he also explains that it can be beneficial to creating and evolving new ideas, this approach to song writing speeds up the creative process and allows you to keep writing when there is nothing you can think of, and because he is using the outside world and everyday situations it makes the music that is created easier for the listener to relate to and this engages the listener to listen to your music again.

Evidence from someone else's research