In his
book, “The World in Six Songs: How
the Musical Brain Created Human Nature” (2008), Daniel
Levitin identifies six fundamental song functions or types (friendship,
joy, comfort, religion, knowledge, and love) and goes on to show how each in its
own way has enabled the social bonding necessary for human culture and society
to evolve. My own song could be classed as a song of friendship, joy or love as
I think many of Levitin’s categories interlink.
My main lyrical
inspirations were John Lennon and Lea Michele. John Lennon once said “Songwriting is about getting the demon out
of me.” (Flavorwire, 2012.) Though my own experience is
very different, I feel a certain empathy with Lennon as I know he writes songs
for his mother who passed away. I chose to write a song in memory of my best
friend, who I lost in a car accident five months ago. Writing about something
so personal to me was daunting at first and I spent a lot of the creative
process frustrated because I couldn’t put my feelings into words and I also regularly found myself getting upset
as it’s still so raw for me. However, I think pouring all my feelings and so
much emotion into my song brought me closure and just made my work more
passionate.
I started out by writing down all of my feelings, which I eventually compiled into my first verse. I also made a separate list of personal jokes and memories that I shared with Rachel, which became my second verse. In an interview with ‘Billboard’ in 2014, Lea Michele said the following about her song “If You Say So” which is a tribute to her fiancé who died in 2013. “Listening to it, it's therapeutic and difficult. It will always represent the most devastating thing that's ever happened to me in my whole life. But at the same time, music is therapy. It's been therapy for me in the entire grieving process and in my entire life.” (Billboard, 2014). I also feel that writing my song has been therapeutic for me. I think writing about my own experiences makes my song much more emotional. My lyric “It still makes me angry that, we don’t know who to blame” was inspired by Ed Sheeran’s lyric from ‘Small Bump’ “Torn from life. Maybe you were needed up there but we're still unaware as why” (Plus. 2011) and is about questioning why that person was taken when it wasn’t there time.
I started out by writing down all of my feelings, which I eventually compiled into my first verse. I also made a separate list of personal jokes and memories that I shared with Rachel, which became my second verse. In an interview with ‘Billboard’ in 2014, Lea Michele said the following about her song “If You Say So” which is a tribute to her fiancé who died in 2013. “Listening to it, it's therapeutic and difficult. It will always represent the most devastating thing that's ever happened to me in my whole life. But at the same time, music is therapy. It's been therapy for me in the entire grieving process and in my entire life.” (Billboard, 2014). I also feel that writing my song has been therapeutic for me. I think writing about my own experiences makes my song much more emotional. My lyric “It still makes me angry that, we don’t know who to blame” was inspired by Ed Sheeran’s lyric from ‘Small Bump’ “Torn from life. Maybe you were needed up there but we're still unaware as why” (Plus. 2011) and is about questioning why that person was taken when it wasn’t there time.
When creating
my melody I enlisted the help of my boyfriend, who is thankfully a musician and
also my guitar tutor. I had written a ballad and so I knew the mood and the
feel I wanted my song to have, I just didn't know the chords to create this.
Together we tried out several chord progressions until I was happy we had one
which fitted the lyrics. As it’s a ballad it’s written in ¾ timing, like a
waltz and is reminiscent of Aerosmith’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing’ which has a similar feel. The song benefits from the slower pace and the lyrics are clearer. It also differs from the stereotypical 4/4 pop song timing. When it came to composing the melody of the song, I chose to use chords of G, D, Em and Bm for the majority, with slight variations, altered lyrics and a key change for my final chorus. I did this so that the melody of the song remained simplistic and consistent and allowed for the lyrics to take precedence. The majority of the vocals were my own voice but I thought having Luke coming in on the bridge and chorus brought a new dynamic to the song and our contrasting voices sounded better together. It also made way for a harmony.
I recorded the song using Cubase, which is professional recording software. For the vocals I used a Shure SM-57 microphone which is a dynamic microphone with a cardiod polar pattern – meaning the area around the microphone picks up sound. Bon Iver recorded the whole of his ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ album on an SM-57. It’s a good microphone because it has a large frequency range, from bass up to vocals. The guitar and microphone were fed through an M-audio fast track 2. When editing my song I duplicated the guitar tracks and equalised them differently to create a richer sound. We then panned the alternate tracks left and right. The vocals were gated and then equalised before we compressed them and finally ran them through a reverb effects channel. Gating them removes unwanted sounds at quieter parts of the track but still lets main audio through. Equalising removes unwanted frequencies, bringing clarity and tone to both the instruments and vocals. Compressing ensures the audio doesn’t peak and create digital distortion.
I recorded the song using Cubase, which is professional recording software. For the vocals I used a Shure SM-57 microphone which is a dynamic microphone with a cardiod polar pattern – meaning the area around the microphone picks up sound. Bon Iver recorded the whole of his ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ album on an SM-57. It’s a good microphone because it has a large frequency range, from bass up to vocals. The guitar and microphone were fed through an M-audio fast track 2. When editing my song I duplicated the guitar tracks and equalised them differently to create a richer sound. We then panned the alternate tracks left and right. The vocals were gated and then equalised before we compressed them and finally ran them through a reverb effects channel. Gating them removes unwanted sounds at quieter parts of the track but still lets main audio through. Equalising removes unwanted frequencies, bringing clarity and tone to both the instruments and vocals. Compressing ensures the audio doesn’t peak and create digital distortion.
To improve
the song, I would have spent more time recording the vocals. My voice wasn’t at
its strongest at the time of recording and I know that I could have sounded
better. I also would have taken the time to ensure that Luke and I were singing
the same thing, as we recorded separately we each put our own spin on the song,
for example Luke held notes that I didn’t and vice versa. This was also an
advantage however as when Luke dropped down a key and I automatically went
higher, it created a nice harmony. I would also like to experiment with piano
chords as I like the sombre feel a piano can bring to a ballad and it would have
given the piece a classical element to it.
Bibliography
Levitin, D
(2008) The World In Six Songs. USA: Dutton Penguin. p.7
Hawking, T. (2012). 25
Great Songwriters on the Art of Songwriting. Available:
http://flavorwire.com/306045/25-great-songwriters-on-the-art-of-songwriting.
Last accessed 16/01/14
Ayers, M.
(2014). Lea Michele Q&A. Available: http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/5923073/lea-michele-interview-louder-album-cory-monteith-glee.
Last accessed 16/01/14
Discography
Lea Michele, "If You Say So". Louder. 2014
Ed Sheeran, "Small Bump", Multiply, 2013
Aerosmith, “I Don’t Wanna
Miss A Thing”, Nine Lives,
1997
