Project 4: Evaluation

My aims for project 4 were to write extensive and in-depth research tasks which will aid me during the project and help me acquire knowledge in the fields of sound design and compositional skills, write a song in a genre out of my comfort zone and collaborate with a vocalist. During all of this, my goal was to document all of my progress in session diaries. I was able to complete all of the tasks in time, handing them in on the deadlines, I stuck to my original action plan and proposal and which helped me complete all tasks on time and structure my free time to work on the project. 
Currently, I’m working towards a distinction which I was aiming for and I am very happy with the incredibly positive feedback I have received from my marker.

I have learned a lot in the last eight weeks, explored new techniques and broadened my musical horizon. A lot of this is due to the fact that I ventured into a new and unknown territory and went out of my comfort zone to write something very emotional, ambient and minimal. When I started off writing the instrumental is sounded very different to the final version it is now. I had to rewrite a lot of the parts after Lauren and I recorded the vocal. The instrumental suddenly sounded very overwhelming and didn’t fit the emotional message of the lyric at all anymore. It was a learning experience to accept that I had to scrap most of my previous work and start from the beginning again. It was quite a challenge to keep it minimal because I often tend to overdo things throw in instruments and effects just for the sake of it. This time around though I really wanted to put the main focus on the vocal still have a backing track which is simple yet could be listened to on its own. In the end, after putting an incredible amount of hours into this project I reached my goal and was very content with my work.

In the process, I collaborated with Lauren Walton who is an incredibly talented lyricist and singer. I myself am terrible at writing lyrics but I had an exact vision for the song and the story of the vocals so I set myself the task to write up a long lyric inspiration sheet about the story of the song. I gave this to Lauren and she then wrote the words to the instrumental and sung them. This helped me incredible amounts because I wouldn't have been able to tell a story like she did with the lyrics and thus, it was very beneficial for me to collaborate with her and play to both our strengths to get the best result possible for the song. With our combined efforts we were able to create a musical soundscape which takes the listener to a dark but beautiful place.

I also received very helpful feedback from my peers and tutors and through that, I learned how to take on constructive criticism and detach my feelings from the track to make the necessary changes that are needed to make it sound the best it can be.

What went well?

• Handed in all the work on my deadlines
• Received very positive feedback from my peers and tutors
• Very happy with my final audio submission
• The recording session went very smoothly and well
• I enjoyed spending a lot of time doing the research tasks and with a little help from Colin Doran I had no problem finding sources and referencing them using the Harvard format

What didn’t go so well?

• I often forgot to take pictures of the studio sessions to put into my session diary for evidence
• The first draft of the instrumental sounded quite cheesy and didn’t fit with the vocals at all so I had to re-write it to make it meld together with the vocals and lyrics
• I should have taken more time to reference my mix on different speakers

What did I learn from it?

• I went out of my comfort zone for this project and created a very ambient melancholy song with quite a minimal instrumental backing track to make the vocal the focal point of the song. I come from a background of producing EDM and orchestral/cinematic music so it was very challenging write something completely different.
• I learned how to get a really good vocal sound out of the source recording and then mix it to make it blend with the track.
• I had to make the choice to give up my original idea of the instrumental and start again to write something that would fit better to the vocal, this was a great learning experience because it often hurts to throw something away you spent a lot of time on but it was the right decision for the track
• I learned how to take on constructive criticism and cast my ego aside
• I acquired the knowledge of some new mixing techniques like using a compressor as a dynamic eq to get rid of problem frequencies that only appear at the loudest points of the track
• For both my research tasks I wrote a total of over 7000 words, I have never written long papers before and it was a very fun experience sit down and write that much, since I'm probably progressing onto degree where I'll have to write a dissertation but I'm very confident now that I can accomplish that task when it comes
• Analyzing tracks from the production perspective is something I do on a daily basis but writing it out and really delving deep into the creating of each single sound and the mixing techniques helped me cultivate more knowledge of different production techniques which I can now use in my own projects
• I learned how to Harvard reference