This is probably the best track that I have produced, the vocals sit the nicest in the track and the beat punches well. This time I used a kick drum & hand claps on top of the snare. This made the snare a little poppier, using the Ryan Tedder approach and also pushed the kick drum a little more. (LO3)

The vocals illustrate my use of melodyne throughout the process. In particular at 1:08, where I didn’t sing that phrase originally and melodyned it in afterwards and I believe that it is not noticeable and shows a real understanding of (LO4 and A&O5)

I benchmarked this track against several tracks. Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You was the original inspiration and I benchmarked it against Kanye West’s music

Glen Ballard, songwriter/producer that has sold over 150 million albums gave an interview in sound on sound about the most important assets of songwriter.producers and how to improve mixes of pop music. (LO3+LO4)

“When I collaborate with an artist, it is very important for me to understand what their goals are. It sounds like a question that doesn’t need to be asked, but it is a very important question. Some people want to be famous. If that is their number one goal, I am probably not the right person to be working with. I want them to be famous as a result of what we do. For me, the most important thing is the motivation of the artist and the commitment to making great music. So that is the first question. What do you want to do? When I get to the core of what somebody wants to accomplish, it makes it much easier to go out and do that.” – Albeit something that does not become relevant in my project, due to the nature of myself writing and producing for myself. It is difficult being both artist and producer, I am trying to produce pop music I enjoy and also want to produce.

“So don’t get obsessed with changing one thing. A special effect you’re looking for could take a day, and you waste a day chasing after something that isn’t going to make that much difference. I have learned over the years to try and keep focused on what really is important.” – Whilst mixing I have tried to limit changes and keep moving on within the mix instead of focusing on one aspect for too long. Otherwise I will spend a lot of time on one area which won’t improve much.

“I think a producer’s job involves many aspects. The most important thing that a producer can bring is judgment of material. A great song or a great piece of music is very hard to mess up. Your skills as a producer will only be elevated by the level of the material you are working with. If you are working with mediocre material, it takes a lot of work to make it palatable. Most of us have spent time on material that probably didn’t deserve that much time. “For me, it starts with that and knowing where to spend your time. It all goes back to developing a critical faculty in terms of understanding what really works. While it’s intangible, it’s something that you can develop an instinct about. I start with material. That is the first thing. If you are going to produce a record, what are the songs? If you don’t have any songs, that is your first order of business. If you don’t have anything that makes you excited, then you must find it.” – This is something that I find the most relevant throughout this process. I have had many ideas floating about but whether they are good enough to work on or not is a different matter. When I haven’t fully invested in the material it has become a lot harder to write and produce which is time consuming work when I could be investing in other tracks.

http://www.soundonsound.com/people/glen-ballard-songwriterproducer

 

To illustrate my understanding of (LO3) here are some examples of the sheer amount of writers/producers that are involved with contemporary pop writing. Examples from Harry Styles, One Direction, Taylor Swift, Little Mix and Kanye West. Kanye West’s list of contributors is huge, and does not include every track on the album! This level of contributors will be due to the qualities of each individual writer/producer, as explained by Joel little.

 

 

 

 

 

Joel Little was Lorde’s producer for her debut EP and album. He co wrote and produced the smash hit “Royals” with Lorde. Within this interview Little describes the roles of producers with artists and how he composes songs with them (LO1+3)

“The main role of a producer…there’s lots of different types of producer. There’s guys who just do beats, and then there’s guys who don’t touch any recording equipment or can’t play an instrument, but they’re kind of good at being visionaries and directing the whole process” This is the crux of the potential fall down of my project. I am doing everything myself. I recognise that I have strengths and weaknesses, and writing music/vocals in a genre that I have never done before is a big challenge. This is the exact reason why pop artists have several writers, due to the fact that some people are better at writing melodies than others and someone might be better than the others for producing beats etc.

“She’d bring in these lyrics…I was super impressed and then we started putting music to the lyrics. Lorde came in with the lyrics to Royals and we immediately came up with (hook) and then we couldn’t think of anything else that day, thought about it over night and then knocked it out.” I empathise with this due to the nature of this project being a lot of work for very little pay off at a time. It is very difficult, but being proactive in working and pushing onwards is what has to be done.

Pop Music is a genre of music that is popular and not appealing to the sub-genres of music culture. Pop music tends to use many many styles and themes borrowed from other genres. The main medium of pop music is the song, often between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length. The songs usually have a strong rhythmic and/or melodic element to them that the listener can grab on to straight away. Common variants include verse-chorus structure in a 32 bar form that has contrasting elements within the verse and chorus separated by catchy vocal hooks. The beats and instruments tend to be very simple with the focus on the vocal pattern. Production tends to focus on the vocals first and everything else after due to the vocal being the selling point.

The graph below is research into the Top 100 Billboard tracks of 2015 and mapping where they lie in terms of tempo. 120 bpm is the most common bpm of 2015, appearing the most times (6), the median value was also 120. I found this quite interesting that both Pro Tools and Logic open sessions at 120 bpm as a default. However, there is no correlation between song tempo and placement within the chart. As pop music focuses around the vocal, the tempo is not irrelevant, just not as important. However factors such as song tempo will bring a familiarity with the listener, which is important for pop music’s success. Interestingly, there is a direct comparison between a song’s tempo, its danceability and its commercial success. The more danceable songs were between 78 and 140 bpm. The top 9 most popular songs were between 108 and 150 bpm.

https://popmusictheory.com/song-tempo/