Interviews

I have received an offer from ACM, I am planning to attend the interview but I am also intending to defer for a year and continue making music at home and going to studios. I would like to be able to pursue a career in music without having to go to uni and get in debt, but if I'm feeling demotivated in music by the end of that year I will go to ACM.

Commenting on Others tracks

Harrison Gig Evaluation

Gig Evaluation

After doing the Harrison Gig I have reflected upon what I accomplished and what I didn't. We got there at 5 to set up. I helped set up the mics and carry some of the instruments on stage. We then waited for the performers to arrive and set up their own instruments. The set up of the instruments and mics was probably the longest process.

Once we had set up everything we began conducting a soundcheck. This involved us setting the levels for each performer and then taking a picture of the mixer so we could remember the levels for each act. This was important as someone who had done the gig a few weeks before explained to me that someone didn't bother with a soundcheck for their performance and the guitar ended up overpowering the set.

The performance went well, we took it in turns standing in the middle of the room testing if it sounded alright and generally there weren't any complaints, we just had to turn certain instruments up every so often. The only problem we had was the fact that the lights turned off half-way through someone's performance. It didn't mean the performer was completely invisible as the coloured lights were still working, it was just a bit dark. This was fixed in 10 minutes.

Studio Session Plan

Session Plan For Tuesday

Session starts a 13:45

Dean and I Arrive at 13:45 

Set up desk and mics for drums by 14:00

Joseph arrives at 14:00

Record Joseph on drums when he arrives

Finish Drums by 14:30

Rerig mic set up for guitar through amp recording

Be done with the guitar recording by 15:00

Use the rest of the time to listen to and manipulate the sound using analogue effect's

Then pack everything away by 15:45

Communication in industry

Twitter:

Social media is a great way for musicians to promote and connect with their audiences, twitter being one of the first to gain proper traction and remain fairly popular even today is a good one to look at.

Twitter allows users to pin one tweet to their page so that is essentially the first thing people see when they look at your profile, this allows artists(like Gus Dapperton above) to promote their latest singles and albums as well as any important event or concert. It allows keeps people updated with the artist.

Twitter lets you post any type of message you want and displays it in your followers feed, Gus Dapperton putting up something like the image above lets people know he is active as a musician right now touring and it also lets them know he is doing shows which if they didn't know before increases the chances of them buying tickets.

Instagram: Similar to Twitter Instagram has been around for a while and is probably the most popular form of social media for a wide demographic. It allows you to post pictures, short videos as well as stories.

Whilst Twitter is mainly about posting tweets and updating people, Instagram solely relies on visual imagery. This is probably a large reason as to why it is more popular among younger people as it is much more interesting to see an image than read a short paragraph about what's going on in an artists life. You can be much more creative with images.

Instagram also has a feature called Stories which is essentially taking a short video and posting it to your profile and it is only viewable for a day. This makes it feel like the artist is communicating with the audience and letting them more into their lives.

Youtube: Youtube is probably the most popular form of sharing videos and creating videos on the internet right now. It is useful as it doesn't have a real limit on how long you can make a video, which gives artists the option to release vlogs showing what they do in the studio or just their day to day life. They could release a whole documentary covering the making of an album. Having this option makes youtube have the capability to connect with your audience far greater than any of the other forms of social media I have mentioned if done correctly. I believe this because a raw, unedited video of a band rehearsing a song, recording a guitar track, then mixing and mastering the track feels much more real than any post you could put up on twitter, and it gives you a proper insight to the creation process.

Youtube has also basically turned into the place you go to watch a music video, with how easy it is with modern technology to view and listen to any song or video from any point past the 50 basically people stopped watching mtv. Youtube makes watching a video so much quicker and you are also so open to any form of music from anywhere in the world making you open up your mind to new types of music.

To conclude I believe Youtube is the best place to really communicate what you're doing as an artist in terms of vlogs and documentaries but you don't see a lot of people do it as it takes a lot of effort and isn't really worth it. But when it comes down to music videos it is probably the place you can go to release them right now. You could argue that social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter are more efficient at promoting artists music as these music videos they release wouldn't be as popular without them, but I'd like to think that it's a situation where all these different forms of media sort of promote each other. People generally stumble across a spotify page or an artists music video before checking out an instagram profile, if they like the musician they'll follow them on social media. Both forms are essential.

Portfolio final

Finished Tracks

Song 1:
The first song was made by me and Joseph and was heavily inspired by Gus Dappertons song "Ditch". The lead synth is the main thing that is similar to the song as well as the fact that it is extremely synth heavy. Every single instrument on the first song is synth.

I put an arpeggiator on the synth bass that begins the track during the chorus to add some more dimensions to the sound.

As you can see by the gain staging I done in the image below, everything is very quiet and a lot of the channels are panned very widely to each side of the speakers. This is because there are points where everything is playing during the song so it all needs to be relatively spread out so it doesn't sound too crowded.

Song 2:
The second song was made by me and Zeff inspired a lot by Bon Iver's acoustic songs. I wanted a lot of different layers to the music so I have 4 different guitar channels. One playing the intro melody consistently through the song, the other playing a simpler melody, another playing the simpler melody speed up and an electric guitar. There is also a lot of delay on the guitars just to add another sound to the mix. The electric guitar wasn't recorded well so this is something I need to take into consideration next time.

The beginning is the guitar melody reversed and cut up at places. Zeff tried it and it sounded really nice so we used it the intro.

Song 3:

This one was made by me and Joseph and started off when I recorded the guitar on it in my home and then Joseph helped me make the full track. I wanted it to be reminiscent of The War On Drugs' long synth intros and I think I accomplished that to a level. I've learned I quite like synthesizers so I'm going to continue working with those a lot. 

I then went to the studio with Dean and recorded the piano you can hear on the track rather than the midi one that was on the previous version.

Song 4:

This is one of the songs that consists of a lot more logic instruments rather than synths I've programmed myself or live instruments. It is probably my least favorite one I've done for this task. I just find it very boring and typical. 

I attempted to make it more exciting by adding a synth melody to try and get a memorable part for the song but it just doesn't really fit. I made this a while ago so I'm not really in the same frame of mind anymore I was when I first made it.

Identity

As an artist I will go as Jack Perry right now, I play guitar to a degree and sing terribly and want to get around to directing music videos and films. I'm planning on making a lot of indie and anti pop, as well as any genre I feel like. I enjoy the idea of genre mixing, I like fluidity. I consider myself interesting as I have no actual clue what I'm planning to do in music yet, I say I'm making indie but I haven't actually made a song that resembles anything close to indie, I think a lot of this is due to my many different inspirations such as old rock, soul, old school hip hop, trap, britpop etc.

I want to project a very do it yourself type of image, taking inspiration from a lot of indie artists about right now. A lot of them use a VHS filter to give off an old school vibe which is something I am definitely going to be using in videos. I don't want things to look complicated but I want to also be able to put as much effort into making the videos look good as I can and be interesting.

I want my fanbase to be any and everyone. I don't want my music to be set for a specific person, I don't want to limit myself. Certain songs would probably be for a certain demographic but I want to be able to show anyone my music and have them understand it in someway, old or young. But young people would probably be the group I market myself to, as I feel like if you want to make any change in the music industry thats where to start, then if you get the attention let everyone get into it once you're mainstream.

I will be releasing an EP hopefully by the end of the summer, as it's my first project I've ever released I'll be releasing it on soundcloud and youtube primarily, but if it gains any sort of attention, I'll release it on platforms like bandcamp which offer payment options. I've realised in this age of music being consistent is what matters most, I'd like to have one year where I release 3 albums and just flood people with as much music as I can but obviously I need to have some sort of platform/audience before I attempt anything like that. As I mentioned before I want to direct, so directing my own music videos for this project as well as friends would probably be a good place to start.

I mentioned my inspirations earlier but only by genre. The person who got me into music and playing guitar was Noel Gallagher. I just connected with the first 2 albums Oasis made as well as The Masterplan as I think I was probably a bit lost back then and wasn't really into much in terms of hobbies, so I found something to get into which lead me down looking into the Manchester music scene which has a rich history of musicians. Then I got into Bowie who is probably biggest inspiration so far, as he was so versatile in all aspects of life, he wasn't afraid to change in music or his public persona which after seeing someone do the things he done and acted the way he did during interviews gave me more confidence and made me pursue music in college. But at this point in time I identify with someone like Kevin Abstract, he's a gay rapper born in the American suburbs attempting the challenge of being gay in what was a very homophobic place in music at one point and definitely still is at times. I'm not gay or a rapper but being from the suburbs around a lot of people who have no care for pursuing any type of creative subject and always feeling like a bit of an outcast in schools I could definitely relate with him. He is still finding his sound and is very successful at pulling off a combination of pop and hip hop, before getting into him I never thought I'd be attempting vocals like I am right now but Brockhampton got me around to trying it properly.