#MD6320

[major-music-project]

This is an example of an AMV (Anime Music Video) that I created for my song Stasis. I would like to replicate this using different anime for my other two singles: Firestations and Ultra Violence.

[callumbashfordblog]

#1-What’s Going On

This year I’m going to use the uni blog to give updates on the creative process for my Major Music Project as well as other bits of thought and research as they relate to other modules. I’m going to take a decidedly more informal tone compared to previous blogging efforts to try and keep this more enjoyable to update as well as having a less restrained, more free flowing feel. My thoughts and inspiration have felt rather scattered as of late so I’m hoping that by writing out my process I’ll have a more solid grasp of what it is I’m really hoping to achieve. I’d love to say that I’m aiming to create an almost stream of consciousness writing style however I’m not too sure I could get the exact kerouacian tumble that phrase would suggest. 

For the Major Music Project this year I will be carrying on with the Teachers Day project started by Jacob Simmons and I officially last year but had existed within our minds as an artistic collective for a year beforehand. It now occurs to me how ironic it is that a project originally conceived to be a platform for experimentation from many artists has so far been the moniker for mine and Jacobs first EP and now solo work from myself. This isn’t to say that I’m feeling down on the project in the slightest, in all honesty its exciting to be creating music that is purely my own work.  After playing bass in bands the last couple years it does feel daunting putting out solo music however I feel that the anonymity of the ‘Teachers Day’ name (as opposed to ‘The Callum Bashford Solo Music Project’) helps me feel less personally exposed, like a linguistic mask that allows for free expression.

After the release of the first Teachers Day project (‘Should We Start to Worry?’ EP) I feel there’s a clear aesthetic sound that we started to carve so my Major Music Project will be expanding on that work. At the same time I want to expand into areas of music that we didn’t delve into before such as experimentation with ambience due to my ever growing love for the work of Brian Eno. I also want to use this project to explore my love for music for film, as of late Ive been returning to ‘Soundtrack for a Film That Doesn’t Exist’ (2011) by Joni Void an album I fell in love with at around 14 when it popped up on Bandcamps’ discover page. Voids’ use of field recordings and atmosphere hooked me in adolescence and was probably a key album in the development of my taste for experimentation (see Voids use of reversed drum loops on the track ‘Audrey’ and the outro of the Teachers Day track ‘The Sky Plus Pause…’ for an example of Voids’ influence[1]). 

An interesting aspect of the Teachers Day project so far is that it’s not had a musical definition, and this isn’t through a conscious effort to avoid definition, perhaps this is more out of ignorance than anything? After showing our first demo track, an ill formed foetus of a composition that would grow into the first track of the EP, back in second year to our tutor our influence was assumed to be largely trip-hop, a-la Lemon Jelly. Although nice to know that there was a place for our music to sit in the musical landscape, this came with slight embarrassment as it really felt that we were stepping into a world of music that we knew very little about. Before Teachers Day the most I really knew about trip-hop was Radioheads’ ‘Kid A’ (2000) and Aphex Twins’ ‘I Care Because You do…’ (1995) with the basic understanding that Bristol was key in its creation in the 90s but never having really deep dived the genre or some of its biggest artists such as Massive Attack. Oddly enough whilst making our strange little electronic soundscapes Jacob and I were obsessing over the poetry of Leonard Cohen and the song writing of Peter Doherty. I suppose this all goes to show that with the way we consume music now, being able to mix all manner of genres and artists into one playlist, newer generations of artists are taking more and more disparate influences and creating music in a similar way.

I hope this has helped give an idea of what is going on with Teachers Day and as the creative process unfolds I think it will become more clear exactly what this project really is.

[1] I feel it necessary to explain that this was an unconscious influence that I’m recognising in my own work in retrospect.

[anyasmith]

week 6

-26/10/22

[rosestiff]

Major Music Project: Padlet

https://padlet.com/s40019251/hmokiih2d15xybax

[leahgladwin]

MD6320 - Planning for the final project;

For our major music project me and Rebecca will be rehearsing over the next couple of months, well be getting ready to perform our new music by, being in the practice rooms, the recording studio, the mac rooms and we will be practicing and recording at our own houses on our own equipment.

Firstly to prepare for our final project, i will be writing basslines for some possible tracks, i want to play basslines that i haven’t experimented before in the past, i want to be able to play more genres including metal . I’m not too sure how to write basslines for these particular genre so i will have to learn how to do this from watching YouTube videos, listening to more metal tracks and just playing more bass in general.

Me and Rebecca are going to get together a lot during the second semester so that we can show each other the tracks that we have written and practice them together. We are planning to get a drummer from our course to play with us for this project but we are not sure yet who this will be.

When we have gotten some of our tracks down, we want to use some samples like i have said in my previous post. I want to be able to sample some lines from some of my favourite horror movies as i want this to fit the aestetic of the kind of music we are making. This will include me having to find some of the best quotes and lines from horror movies so that i can then use the samples to write around and create some basslines around the sample.

I know a bit about how sampling works but i have no idea how to actually do it, so during the creative process of our final project i am also going to have to be researching how to sample properly, how i can blend this into tracks and what might sound good in these tracks. Im going to be learning about what kind of samples that i can use, i dont just want to use royalty free samples and looops that i find on google, i want to be able to pick them but i also dont know how to get them without paying/ making it legal, so this is something that i will also have to learn how to do.

[major-music-project]

Here is an example of a song I am working on, before and after getting feedback from my A&R team.

The first version definitely had some good ideas and gave me a solid foundation to work with for the rest of the song, but my A&R team felt that the build up was good but that the drop didn't feel impactful enough. To fix this, I added some extra effects to the bass tracks, and tweaked the hi-hat's EQ to remove some of the top end and make it sound a bit softer. I also altered the top line to fit the chord progression of the bassline which definitely fits the song better and adds more of a melody line which makes the drop more impactful.

They also suggested that the second time around I should add a variation of the drop, keeping the same underlying chord progression but adding a different melody line or maybe even some vocals. I changed the top line's melody whilst keeping the bass line the same as the first drop, and also added a vocaloid-type effect over the top of everything to give the impression of a human sung melody line while also keeping the electronic feel of the music.

Overall, I am very happy with the way that the song progressed and definitely gives a clear example of how my songs progress over time, especially when given helpful feedback from other people, this time my A&R team.

[major-music-project]

These three songs, Stasis, Ultra Violence, and Firestations, are three songs that I am happy with and are a completed product. These songs portray the moods and themes I will be exploring in this album, and are the three songs that I will be releasing as singles in the leadup to the full album release on the 2nd of May 2023.

[major-music-project]

In this video, I talk through my creative decision-making using my song Ultra Violence as an example. I talk about my songwriting, recording, mixing, and mastering process and the thought process behind all of this.

[major-music-project]

These are all of the bits of work from my Ideas folder. This folder contains riffs, chord progressions, drum beats, and various different sounds that I like and could potentially use in songs later down the line. I find it incredibly helpful to quickly record ideas that I have in my head and save them as individual ideas which I can then look back over for inspiration or help if I get stuck when trying to write new music.

[major-music-project]

Market and Audience Research

For my Synthwave album, I will be uploading it to Spotify, SoundCloud, and YouTube. Synthwave is a genre that is very community orientated, with a lot of original music being posted for free on these platforms. Because of this, I will be uploading to these platforms as SoundCloud and especially YouTube are very public community driven sites, and Spotify is the standard for music releases in the modern digital age so I will be releasing my music there are well. I will be promoting my music using my social media pages on Facebook and Instagram, as well as making a TikTok account to promote it there as well; this way I will be able to get a broad range of listeners from a variety of different platforms and try to reach as many people as I possibly can.

I plan on releasing three singles in the runup to the full album release on the 2nd of May. These three singles will be released weekly, with each single getting an accompanying animated music video that I will be putting together from various different Anime series that fit the mood and aesthetic of the songs that I will release on YouTube. This is common practice within the electronic music community and can really help to emphasise the tone of the songs, as well as making it more interesting for people to watch and give people something to look forward to in regard to the releases. These singles will serve as a teaser for the full album and get people interested in the album release and hopefully excited to listen to the full album on the day one release. These singles will be teased on social media before being released on Spotify, SoundCloud, and YouTube, with the full album being released on the 2nd of May.

Spotify also has a large amount of curated playlists for different genres of music, including Synthwave music. These playlists are a great opportunity for people to hear new music from different artists as they contain thousands of songs and have thousands of followers, with the songs in the playlists being rotated on a regular basis. If I were to release my music on Spotify, there is a chance that some of my songs will be added to these playlists and reach an even larger audience, with people then becoming fans and listening to my other work.

My music will be mainly aimed at Synthwave fans, as well as Retrowave, Chillwave, Cyberpunk, and Ambient music fans, and electronic music fans in general. Although I would class my music as predominantly Synthwave, it definitely has elements and influences from all of these different genres as well, which is why I believe that fans of these genres will like and want to listen to my music.

I’ll also be aiming to target retro video game and 80s Sci-Fi and Horror fans as the sort of Synthwave I create is also heavily inspired by retro video games and movies from the 80s such as The Thing, Halloween, and Blade Runner.

Below are some examples of work from Synthwave artists and also the curated playlists:

[major-music-project]

This is a link to my Padlet, talking a bit about my work and influences

[major-music-project]

Final Project Plan

My full length Synthwave album needs to be live in the public domain by the 2nd of May 2023. In order to achieve this goal, I will be outlining my projected project timeline for Semester 2 going forward. 

Below you can find a simple Gantt chart of my projected timeline

I plan to do my research and songwriting side by side up until February, meaning that I will be gathering inspiration and listening to similar artists, such as Xennon and Gunship, whilst writing my own original music. This will allow me to keep my reference points close whilst I create me own music to get the exact sort of sounds and music that I want to, therefore creating the best music I can.

I will then start to get these ideas down by recording them into Reaper in a rough mix at first. This means I will be doing my songwriting alongside the recording process as everything I will be writing will be electronic based. This will also give me a good idea as to what ideas will work well as full songs and what ideas won’t, so I can quickly narrow down my ideas into the best selection for the album.

Once the majority of the recording has been done, I will start to mix and master the songs I am happy with whilst also finishing off any songs that I might not be as happy with. This will allow me time to make sure I have the best selection of songs possible for the final release in May.

I will then continue the mixing and mastering stage right up until release on the 2nd of May, making sure that the work I will be putting out into the public domain in the best possible work I can do and making sure I am happy with it all.

There will be a lot of overlap between the different stages as one stage comes to and end and another stage begins, but I believe that this is how I work best and this timeline will allow me to create the best work I can on time and also allow me to create a full length Synthwave album that I am happy and proud of.

[major-music-project]

Major Music Project Description

For my final major music project, I will be creating a full length album in the genre of Synthwave. Synthwave is a genre that I have a lot of love for and also a lot of experience in when it comes to listening, writing, and producing music. I will aim for around ten songs on the album, with the album length being around half an hour to forty five minutes. All of the instruments I will be using will be electronic synths and drum machines, with the exception of human vocals and potentially some guitar work in the form of guitar solos. Everything will be recorded, mixed, and mastered by myself without the help of anyone else.

Below is my work in progress folder. Here I store all of the ideas I have for songs, whether it is full demos of just random hooks and riffs. It isn’t the most organised folder but it helps a lot when I feel like I’m stuck in the writing progress of a song as I have a backlog of random ideas I had that I can look through and get inspiration from. Some of these ideas have also been the starting points of full songs I have produced.

Below is what a typical project session will look like when working on it using the DAW Reaper. I have a template setup that I like to use when creating synthwave music as it already has all of my instruments setup with the correct effects and plugins, such as EQ, reverb, compression, flangers, etc. This allows me to quickly get into the writing and recording process without having to worry about setting everything up first, and allows for consistency of sound between different songs. Of course, I’m always adding new instruments and settings to my songs as my ideas and sound change and evolve, but this template is always a good starting point and a massive help in the songwriting process.

The TyrellN6 synthesiser is the main synthesiser I use when creating synthwave. It has a lot of really useful presets with lots of different sounds and instruments programmed into it, but it still allows me to fine tune everything on the synthesiser itself to really get the sound that I want for my music. 

I also use a variety of different plugins to get the exact sound I’m looking for. This includes using EQ, compression, reverb, flangers, and delays, some of which you can see below.

In terms of my inspiration, I take a lot of inspiration from retro futurism themes as well as the past in general, mainly the 1980s. Classic films such as Blade Runner and its soundtrack composed by Vangelis, as well as a lot of John Carpenter movies and soundtracks such as The Thing and Halloween, all played a pivotal part in fuelling me with inspiration when it comes to the atmosphere I want my music to give off.

The Synthwave artists Xennon and Gunship also give me a lot of inspiration for the way I want my music to sound, especially the sounds of the instruments. These two artists are at the forefront of Synthwave music and create incredible music that transports you to a different time and space entirely and I take a lot of inspiration from that.

When creating my music, it is very important for me to have a clear target audience in mind as I want my music to be able to reach a certain niche of listeners that I know will appreciate the sort of music I am producing.

The obvious target audience for my music is of course Synthwave and electronic music fans, as my music can be classed as Synthwave and is very electronic based. However, I also want to target fans of classic 80s Sci-Fi and Horror movies such as Aliens, The Thing, Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc. as well as retro video game enthusiast. I would class myself as both a retro video game and classic 80s movies fan and want to create a type of music that I myself would enjoy listening to; the type of music that has the ability to transport you back in time and space to a different place altogether and make you feel nostalgic for a time that you might not have even been alive to experience yourself. Music is an incredible tool that allows the listener to transport themselves away from their current surroundings and that’s what I aim to do with my music.

[anyasmith]

week 5

today’s lecture is about finding an audience for your work

the audience for my work is my future class and hopefully students who are revising. this means that my project should have relaxed and undistracting tracks to help encourage learning creativity and studying

this got me thinking as to why ambient music helps you concentrate and study and all the science behind this:

a study by florida national university found that studying while listening to ambient music reduces stress and anxiety and therefore improves performance, focus and brain function. according to the study, the minimal beats and rhythm of ambient music and the ability to blend into the background, it allows the listeners senses to become less active, resulting in a lower blood pressure and heart rate.  (florida national university, 2019)

binaural beats is an illusion in the brain caused by listening to two different frequencies in each ear. For example, if sounds in your left ear was at a frequency of 132 Hz and in your right ear 121 Hz, your brain falls into synchrony with the different of 11Hz. 

this auditory illusion has been proven to have many health benefits such as reduced anxiety, lowered stress and increased concentration. binaural beats in the frequencies of 14-30 HZ have been linked to increased concentration, problem solving and improved memory. binaural beats in the frequency of 40 Hz has been helpful in enhancing training and learning. (cafasso, 2021)

these beats have been used within and alongside ambient music to help increase the benefits for studying 

Does music help you study: Science says there are many benefits (2019) Florida National University. Available at: https://www.fnu.edu/benefits-studying-music/ (Accessed: October 19, 2022).

Cafasso, J. (2021) Binaural beats: Sleep, therapy, and meditation, Healthline. Available at: https://www.healthline.com/health/binaural-beats (Accessed: October 19, 2022).

-19/10/22

[anyasmith]

week 4

this week i decided which one of my ideas i would use for my final project and started to do some research surrounding this. 

i decided to use the study beat idea and will create an ep of ambient study music

in order to do this i did some research to find our what ambient music is, what elements i would like to include and also key features of this genre. 

ambient music is a genre of music that focuses on the atmosphere of sound, mood and texture rather than traditional melodies and rhythms (masterclass, 2021). it is a rare genre as it can be traced back to one artist, brian eno. while he was recovering from an accident, eno was listening to harp music but he put the amplifier’s audio too low. instead of correcting his mistake, he began listening in a different way and discovered that, due to the low volume of the harp, the music became part of the general ambience of the room. (dale, 2020)

5 key elements of ambient music: (masterclass, 2021)

emphasis on atmosphere and texture

gradual exploration of timbre- lingers on notes and chords for long periods of time. variation is created by shifting timbre or introducing new instruments

minimal harmonic progression- simple chords to build atmosphere 

de-emphasised melodies

space for improvisation

MasterClass (2021) Ambient Music Guide: 5 Characteristics of Ambient Music, Masterclass.com. Available at: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/ambient-music-guide (Accessed: October 19, 2022).

Dale, J. (2020) An introduction to ambient music, Org.uk. Available at: https://sites.barbican.org.uk/ambientmusic/ (Accessed: October 19, 2022).

-12/10/22

[anyasmith]

week 3

during todays lecture we created our own padlet pages to help us plan and visualise our project ideas. this is a platform where i will continue to add and change things through. it gives me the chance to visualise things and will help me with my project idea

for my major music project i had 3 main ideas: study beats, educational songs and an ep

study beats:

this is the idea to create background study music ep

around 5 minutes for tasks

different styles for different tasks (slow silent reading task, upbeat for group tasks etc)

for my future class

examples: https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/morning-focus/pl.a0d4254c599b4ee49b068a90852618e0 

educational songs:

carpet songs to help with certain topics

used to help me when i was younger

for my future class

light and upbeat

example: https://padlet.com/anyasmith/y4d8gwv5dihzvdec/wish/2327407331 

ep:

genre ideas: r&b, alternative, christian pop, interlude

aimed for teens/early adult

examples: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/oceans-where-feet-may-fail/591075444?i=591075501 https://music.apple.com/gb/album/take-time-interlude/1503721742?i=1503721899 https://music.apple.com/gb/album/golden-hour/1631223933?i=1631223935 https://music.apple.com/gb/album/kilby-girl/1517139758?i=1517139762 https://music.apple.com/gb/artist/rex-orange-county/1171059232 

https://padlet.com/anyasmith/y4d8gwv5dihzvdec

-05/10/22