David and I reviewed my composition “I am Lorde Lalala” and although still demo quality, this is a lot more workable than my previous track. David suggested tightening up the chord structure of the chorus and dubbing in real drum sounds over the top of the VSTs to give it more of a punch. This is a new style of production for me and writing/producing at the same time is new territory which I am finding difficult but interesting.
March 2017
Third Track – I Am Lorde Lalala
All of my tracks have working titles and for this track I tried to emulate pop singer Lorde’s style, hence the title. After several hours of working on the beat I used several synths and pads within Logic to create this demo. It originally stemmed from the bass drum and snare which were eventually tweaked. I have used panning and syncopation to emulate the Lorde drum sound which has been used on tracks such as “Royals” & “Tennis Court” which were both very popular in their own right. The track will be layered with another bass drum and snare with the EQ tightened up to make it sound sharper and more ear catching.
Tutorial
David and I discussed the track ‘Cool Relax’ and David believed that the track was not contemporary enough with the rhythm too jerky. I eventually agreed, although still believe that VSTs could be added in. However this project is about contemporary pop music and this mainly revolves around the beat and has a slower tempo. We agreed that the first track ‘Jungle Fever’ is far better suited and I should aim for something in a more similar style to that. We also discussed recording vocals and I am going to demo all the tracks first and write and record all the vocals together. David suggested that I record lots and lots of vocals and use Melodyne on them all to pull them all perfectly in tune.
Contributors – Pop Music analysis
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.
Song Composition – 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.