Final Piece

This is my final recorded piece. I think the final product came out quite well however there are things I'd like to improve in the future. I feel that if I had performed the piece live I would have been able to portray the happy feeling that I was trying to get across more effectively. I would have also liked to have added a drum beat to give the piece a rockier feel as I think it sounded more like pop than rock. A part from this though I think that the song suited my voice well and I have succeeded in what I set out to do at the start of the project. I now have a much stronger singing voice and am now heading in the right direction for further progression.

Discography

Adele (2008). To Make You Feel My Love [CD] London: XL Recordings

Sinatra, F. (1998) The Lady is a Tramp [CD] Capitol Records, Inc.

Paramore (2013) Ain't It Fun  [CD] Atlantic Recording Corporation for the United States and WEA International Inc.

Macdonald, A. (2007) This is the Life [CD] Melodramatic Records Limited

The Witches of Eastwick (2000) Loose Ends [CD] London: Exallshow Ltd

Orginial Song - Are You Going My Way Lyrics

Capo 3rd

Intro

D (8 Beats)

Verse

D (16), G (4), A (4) x4

We leave at 8 in the morning

When the summer sunshine is dawning

We're driving to the western coastline

Arriving at 10 past sometime

We don't know, we don't know

The sunglasses cover our eyes

On a journey to where the sun lies

And all the mates that we're meeting

In a new place that we are greeting

We don't know, we don't know

Pre Chorus

Em (4), G (2), A (2) x2

And I still sleep with the light on

When you're not home

And I can't sleep till the nights gone

When I'm on my own

Chorus

D (4), G(2), A(2) x4

And yo-oh-ohhhhh

Are you going my way

Yo-oh-ohhhhh

I'm driving down the highway

Yo-oh-ohhhhh

Are you going my way

Yo-oh-ohhh

Are you coming back to me

Verse

The flames in the fag keep lifting

But my mind it keeps on drifting

Cause I know that you should be here

But I just keep quiet and drinking

Without you, without you

I'm waiting up till the twilight

So I can see your face in the starlight

I'm holding onto the memories

Cause this place just seems so empty

Without you, without you

Pre Chorus

And I still sleep with the light on

When you're not home

And I can't sleep till the nights gone

When I'm on my own

Chorus

And yo-oh-ohhhhh

Are you going my way

Yo-oh-ohhhhh

I'm driving down the highway

Yo-oh-ohhhhh

Are you going my way

Yo-oh-ohhh

Are you coming back to me

Pop/Rock - Catfish and the Bottlemen

After all this singing and analysing I have decided that pop singing was my strongest of the 5 where as rock was my weakest. With this information I have decided to write a pop/rock song and I am looking at Catfish and the Bottlemen for inspiration. They are a newer band on the scene from Wales and there music has very much inspired my final piece. Being a very energetic band, all of there music is very upbeat and happy, even if the lyrical meaning says other wise, there record label stated that in there first tour they "saw them play over 150 live shows to hone their live set, which invariably sees frontman Van McCann climbing the walls and playing guitar as though his life depended on it, whilst fans crowd surf and sing every word." (BPI, n.d.). Most if not all of there songs have a repetitive riff that plays throughout the songs, in the verses and sometimes the chorus also, because of this I have come up with a riff that I will repeat throughout my song.



With the riff I have created a chord progression which will be played continuously throughout the song with the riff played over the top of certain sections in the verses and chorus. I have used this riff to give the song an uplifting feeling as sometimes my singing can sound quite morbid, hopefully this will lighten the whole song.

Once I had written and created my song I played each guitar part separately using a metronome to keep time and edited them together on pro tools to create my backing track, I then sang over the backing track to create my final piece.

Musical Theatre Singing (Loose Ends by Witches of Eastwick)

This was one of my favourite songs to sing of them all, I feel I had elements of really capturing the character singing the song however sometimes  I cut notes too short and it took away the affect that a longer note would have had. This is something that over time would improve as my vocal chords become stronger. I was also uncertain of the timing in some of the piano parts and this very predominant in parts of the song, especially the opening line, this means I was unable to capture an audience from the start as I was hesitant. My voice sounds strong in this piece and although could be developed further by working on my breathing to allow the longer notes and giving clearer phrasing I feel that I have improved a lot from when I started singing. Because of this I will be taking in to consideration the changes my voice has made over this time when choosing which genre to write my song in.

Musical Theatre

Musical Theatre song are of a very wide variety, so capture the essence of a musical theatre piece you must take on the role of the character singing. Many of the songs tell a story so if the phrases of the song is not sung correctly the piece wont make sense, each note you sing much portray the emotional content of the song. "In Musical Theatre, performers are expected to be able to demonstrate a whole range of appropriate voice qualities, regardless of range, shifting between them as the text dictates." (Follin, 2015) This basically means that you must have very wide range of knowledge and technique to achieve the perfect sound and that classical based training is not appropriate for modern Musical Theatre.

I left Musical Theatre till last as it embodies all of the other genres depending on what musical you chose a song from. So from what I have learnt through researching the other genres, my Musical Theatre performance should be one of my strongest. I have decided to sing 'Loose Ends' from The Witches of Eastwick as it is a piece I am very familiar with and would like to improve it further.

Jazz Singing (The Lady is a Tramp by Frank Sinatra)

With this cover I feel I was able to loosen up the timing of each fraise which was what I had set out to do from my research , however I still slurred my words slightly whereas I should have sung them in a more spoken technique. I did manage to create a flow between my notes by lengthening them and joining them onto the next note with fluidity which gave the final sound quite a nice jazzy tone. In the future my aim would be too loosen up the notes further and take the song in a whole new direction making it completely original like many jazz artists do.