To start the process of creating my song, I had to begin by looking for inspiration from a diversity of songs. I already knew what styles and genres of music that I wanted to pursue, based off of my own musical tastes. The reason for choosing to base my song on my own musical preferences was so that it would enable me to be more creative as well as more unorthodox when coming to develop my song using Logic Pro X.
To begin formulating different ideas I began by listening to various songs and pieces of music in genres that I really enjoy. My fondness towards experimental music convinced me early on that I wanted to create something more unconventional than the music that you would typically tend to hear on the radio, or from the charts. This is why I was drawn to do a piece that was labelled as something more unique and innovative, and I particularly liked the idea of writing something either for film or TV.
When I realised, I wanted to create an experimental song I had to research what exactly it is that makes a song experimental by today’s standards. One of the definitions of experimental is often considered as ‘a work of art or artistic technique involving a new and radically innovative style’ (Soul, 2015), suggesting that experimental music revolves around unfamiliar and innovative ideas that do not conform to societal expectations (EssayUk, 2020). Ralph Waldo Emerson states, ‘Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist’ – (Emerson, 1994) in other words we should use our uniqueness and individual minds to create things that are new and idiosyncratic. A promising up and coming band called Royal Blood is a strong example of music that can be considered as more creative, out of the ordinary and uses a more individualistic approach when creating their music. The two piece play an unusual combination of only bass, drums and vocals (Savage, 2014). The band achieves a full band sound by their use of heavy processing and FX from just drums and bass guitar. The prior definition of experimental music can also be inextricably linked to the piece ‘Water Walk’ (1960) by John Cage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSulycqZH-U (Embed Video Josh)
This song cleverly uses abundances of non-traditional instruments and sounds such as radios, water, bath sounds etc to create the sonic content of the piece (VocalMedia, 2017). This is an idea that I really liked and decided I wanted to incorporate this into my own piece in the future, perhaps with using different sounds.
Next Steps:
- Write Lyrics
- Create a Chord sequence
- Get a good recording of Piano
- Begin to create song in Logic
Reference list:
Emerson, R, W. (2010) Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self Reliance: A modern-day interpretation of a self-help classic. New ed. Dover Publications Inc.
Essay UK. (2020) ‘Conforming Vs Not Conforming To Societys Expectations’. Available from: https://www.essay.uk.com/coursework/conforming-vs-not-conforming-to-societys-expectations.php [Accessed 21st December].
John Cage. (2007). Water Walks – 1960 [Official Video]. [Online Video]. 2007. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-v1b9waHWY. [Accessed: 27th December].
Savage, M. (2014) ‘Royal Blood rewrite the rules of rock’. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28776636 [Accessed 23rd December].
Soul, A. (2015) ‘EXPERIMENTAL: A WORK OF ART OR ARTISTIC TECHNIQUE INVOLVING A NEW AND RADICALLY INNOVATIVE STYLE’. Available from: https://creativeartzcorner.wordpress.com/2015/12/31/experimental-a-work-of-art-or-artistic-technique-involving-a-new-and-radically-innovative-style/#:~:text=EXPERIMENTAL:%20A%20work%20of%20art%20or%20artistic,technique%20involving%20a%20new%20and%20radically%20innovative%20style [Accessed 21st December].
VocalMedia (2017) ‘Does experimental music mean giving up ‘conventional’ music?’. Available at: https://vocal.media/beat/experimental [Accessed 27th December].
Joshua Smith - Music Technology Blog 