here are my group journals *copied from what we wrote on google docs*
- you know journals are secrets in a way, but hehe pshhh don't let anyone know! just read it on your own! :) -
—YELLOW
Tricea, Qi Ying, Tony, Ryan
Tuesday 21st May 2013
Today’s lesson was wonderful! We started off with a double period with Mr Hunt, during which we learnt more about composing short phrases of songs with sustained chords (sus), major chords, minor chords as well as chords involving the 7th note and the 9th note on top of the 3 keys from the chord itself. Personally, I feel that major chords are chirpier and sound more lively. In addition, we also learnt about adding hooks and riffs in our songs that we composed to make it sound catchier, more repetitive as well as enable others to recognise our self-composed song easily. After that, we were given the freedom to choose our group members for our task this afternoon! We spent many hours trying to come up with the lyrics, the melody and needless to say, we still had to familiarise ourselves with the playing. We moved from one music studio to another - the Tchaikovsky to the Strauss back to the Tchaikovsky and again, back to the Strauss. The Strauss studio had a somewhat musky smell that made a little hard for us to concentrate at times, however, we soon got used to it. After spending many tireless hours on our very own masterpiece, we finally decided to go home at around 6 p.m.. As much as we wanted to leave earlier, we still had our end goal in mind - which was to at least complete every single thing we needed to do for our end masterpiece before we allowed any group member to leave. In the end, although we felt extremely tired after a whole day’s of work, we do feel a sense of accomplishment. As of now, we are still considering whether we would like one of our group members, Ryan, to play some accompaniment on the cello. If he does, our song will consist of 3 different types of instruments and 4 pieces of instrument in total, namely, 2 guitars, 1 cello and 1 piano. We really hope that all will be able to go well tomorrow. We really enjoyed working together as a group today and felt that every single member was extremely cooperative and thus, making our work much easier!
Wednesday 22nd May 2013
Today, we learnt about song structure - how we could make use of the verse, bridge and chorus to write our song. In addition, we could also attempt to add in chords of various patterns into our song. For instance, the oom cha, oom cha rest cha, divided chords, repeated block chords, broken chords etc. This exercise allowed me to be able to Following that time, we were given the time to further develop our music, this time round to make it be a total of 1 minute! It sounded as if it was a tall order, but we managed to get it done after we put in our hard work and concentrated well. We also managed to come up with suitable piano accompaniments (in single notes extracted from various chords) to play. We plan to go to school earlier tomorrow to rehearse and practice our song once more. I find that my group is able to communicate well and we listen to each other’s thoughts during our songwriting process. I feel that I can improve by voicing out more of my opinions.
Thursday 23rd May 2013
Today, we started off by coming up with some chords to use for our song. After that we improved on our song and changed some parts of the song. Coming up with chords and all was extremely fun and I also learnt more about how we should use the oom cha type of chord patterns. There is not only one fixed chord structure for the oom cha, but we can use structures ranging from oom cha cha, oom cha rest cha, oom cha rest cha cha. These types of chord patterns can give the music that we compose a more catchy rhythm that will be easier for others to recognise and remember our song. We were given useful feedback to help us improve on our song this afternoon. We will continue to work on our current song. We feel that all members are able to work well and cooperate as a group, and we are also able to talk to each other outside our class hours such as at night. Also, Miss Sim came to look for our group around 4 p.m. to tell us how we can improve on our song and recommended us to listen to two songs, namely, Nightlight by Sam Willos and Reunion by Yokokanno. She also advised to not make our song too depressing and have some life in it.
Friday 24th May 2013
Although today is a public holiday, we experimented out some chords using the piano and for some of our group members, because we do not have a piano, we also used softwares such as Garage Band. Such softwares actually do help a lot because we can make use of them to play some instruments that we do not have using softwares.
Monday 27th May 2013
Today, our Music IDE period with Mr Hunt will only start in the second period so in the first period, technically, we had a free period, so we made use of that period to practice our piece, till we were slightly late for class. We planned to have our song played solely on our piano today because we decided to change our song in the end. After that, we realised that using the piano may not be such a good idea because playing chords are heavier and after some thought, we came up with a guitar chords to use. Lesson started at 0840. Today, we learnt how we could try to harmonise our vocal parts in our songwriting by using certain techniques like call and response, echoes and many others. Our task was then to include some of these elements into our masterpiece. We were contemplating between using the new lyrics or the old lyrics but in the end, we decided that using the old lyrics would be better since we were more familiar with them. From this, changing our song lyrics again after today would be too inappropriate as we would have lack of practice in the end. We feel that we were able to get the opinions of everybody when we make decisions that are very important, in this case, to select our song lyrics. Also, we could try to sing out louder. When we sang the chorus, there was a bit of echo because we were not sure of our lyrics. Memorising the lyrics well so we would not forget them on “stage” would be necessary.
Mr Hunt’s comments.
Guitar too loud, voices need to be much clearer, words inaudible.
Guitar and voices: need to be much more confidently coordinated.
Needs more energy and zest in the singing. Don’t depress your audience!
At present, with one group member absent for two days, much work will have to be done when your group is complete. You’ve managed well at 75% capacity but now need to focus on transforming your song.
Later today, we worked on your chorus about flying up to heaven. Try to make this stand out from the rest of the song but still in a recognisable style and rhythm and with same tempo.
Tuesday 28th May 2013
Today, we spent most of our time trying to come up with suitable lyrics for our chorus as well as try to express ourselves better when we sing. We decided not to mutter our words but in the end, we kind of messed up the entrance of the vocals. This aroused due to confusion and messed up our song, but I am sure that this would definitely not happen in our final piece. I also feel that today, we accomplished many things. We could work well as a group by cooperating and we managed to come up with new lyrics for our chorus that fits in well in the song and also managed to practise when exactly we need to enter our song. We also recorded one round of the whole song once through so that we could keep listening to the song when we go home so as to familiarise ourselves with the transition from the solo section to the verse and back to the chorus and so on.
Mr Hunt: give yourself time to practice the whole song through. Don’t get bogged down in one detail. It is one thing to know how the song should go, but it is another matter altogether being able to perform it well. Now focus on improving your performance. Clear words please! And support each other.
Wednesday 29th May 2013
Today, we started off by listening to our films from our videos we took yesterday. I found them rather embarrassing. However, we should get used to it. After that we split into our respective groups and Miss Sim took our group from 1000 all the way to 1. She helped us a lot and we tried to incorporate other instruments into our music. We gave a try in adding the cello and the Cajon in our music. In the end, we decided to add in the Cajon into our music to give the music the rhythm. Also, instead of just having Tony play the guitar, Qi Ying will also play the guitar now. Tricea will be playing the Cajon and much as we wanted Ryan to play the cello, the cello was faulty so we could not use it, which was quite a pity, so he will provide vocals, and also background. We also came to the conclusion that adding the keyboard to our piece would be unsuitable because our song comprises mainly string instruments. I hope that we are able to continue to work and improve on our song after listening to our recording and watching a video of what was taken of us yesterday. With more cooperation together, I believe that our group will be able to achieve our final goal. More time spent together as a group to practice our piece, I believe, would be able to allow us to reach our final goal earlier. Singing up during the recording of our final piece is essential and I also feel that I should not be conservative when singing. Confidence is one of the main factors to being able to sing our song loudly and clearly for everyone to hear. Also, we feel that more work on the coordination had to be done after listening to our video today, so we worked on that today. In the meanwhile, we are still looking for an available cello that is working.
Being able to listen to ourselves sing this morning was a great idea, because we only know how the others sing and perform but do not know how we perform and do. Thus it is harder for us to see for ourselves and judge how we think we can improve on our song.
Thursday 30th May 2013
We started off our day by having an hour for preparation of our recording later on. We planned to use the out-of tune-cello, but found it a little hard to coordinate our playing as we only had around 15 minutes left when we made that decision. Also, we decided that Ryan and Tricea would be the vocalists, Qi Ying the guitarist and the drummer and Tony the guitarist. We spent some time practising with one another and later we recorded our song. It was a great improvement from our piece the other day, which greatly impressed the teachers. We hope to be able to do even better tomorrow during our final filming and masterpiece. We think that we should try to sing out louder and clearer too for the audience to be able to hear us loud and clear.
Mr Hunt: There has been much progress. Well done. The new section is a great improvement. Tony, you may want to check out on youtube some singing technique lessons to help you with the high notes. You seem a little tense when using the higher register. E.g. try this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2Y_9PK438Y Don’t be put off by the operatic style of this teacher. All technique is the same whatever style you’re in. And words!!!! (Still not clear, especially you Tony!)
~ till we next meet, goodbye! :) ~
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