Groups & Arraignment Process|

3 Songs: 

1: Rearrange a song making  it different to the original.

2:Rearrange a song making it different from to the original.

3:Write your own song.

We wanted to create a story throughout our 3 songs to help the songs fit together and to also help the groups stay on track when working away from each other. 

We split ourselves into 3 groups.

Myself and Chloe- Rearrange a song

Reece and Ashley- Write a song

Donna, Sophie and Natalie- Rearrange a song

We made a mind map on what our story/theme could be. We used 'The World In Six Songs' as a stimulus to get us started.

Levitin, D. And Levitin, D. (2008) The World In Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature. United States: Penguin Group (USA).

We eventually went with 'Friendship', but when we all went away our songs that we had chosen all seemed to fit under 'Childhood/Growing up'.

Our Song

Myself and Chloe decided we wanted a modern song that was catchy and also represented us as people so the song felt a little bit personal, and we thought this might help us really get into rearranging the song. 

Our song was Miley Cyrus- 'We cant stop'

             

MileyCyrusVEVO (2013) ; Miley Cyrus- We Cant Stop'. Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrUvu1mlWco (Accessed: 18 January 2015)

I then came up with the idea to merge two songs together to make it even more different.

Myself and Chloe looked at songs that had the same chord progression as 'We Cant Stop', we found the Jessie J-'Price Tag' fitted really well, so we decided to start planning on how we were going to merge the two songs together whilst playing simple chords on the piano.

Jessie J- 'Price Tag'

               

JessieJVEVO (2011) 'Jessie J- Price Tag ft B.o.B'. Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMxX-QOV9tI (Accessed 18 January 2015)

This is how the we merged the two songs together, we also thought by writing it down would be useful for the others to learn the song.

Once myself and Chloe rehearsed the song and how we wanted it we got the others in to come and learn it, myself and Chloe discussed which people sang which parts.

We recorded the song and this is how it sounded.

I thought myself and Chloe worked really well together and we produced a really good strong sounding song, if we did have more time i think we could have preformed and rearranged it a little bit better.

We Cant Stop & Price Tag- Jess and Chloe

Keyboard Time|

Myself and Chloe still like to come in and play the piano. I have been learning new skills from Chloe and new songs on the piano, we were playing around on the piano today and we wanted to both do something on the piano at one time. This is what we played. Having Chloe to help me when it comes to piano it really gives me the confidence to keep learning, My progress from September till now has improved a lot and i plan to move forward and learn songs by myself. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKqQfQQIris

                  

xJustSingx (2015) 'Mine and Jess's 3 handed piano piece'. Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKqQfQQIris (Accessed: 18 January 2015)

Create Our Own Music|

Run-Leona Lewis

Reece-Bass

Chloe & Donna- Tenors

Myself, Natalie & Ashley- Altos

Sophie- Soprano

Hayley helped us work out which parts we were by how low or high we song. Once we had our parts we each practiced our parts in our groups,  We had a few attempts before recording our music just so we all knew when to come in. This was our final attempt at the song.

I think for my first time at singing i did really well, i think we all work really well as a group and i enjoyed it.

When Leaving the lecture i went away and looked at what bass, tenors, altos and sopranos are, i also looked at youtube clips of some examples.

Pitch Perfect is a perfect example for sopranos, altos and tenors when listening once i knew what each one was.

             

           Fung, R. (2012) 'Pitch Perfect- Bellas Finals'. Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?  
                                              v=cNSx1RdPl04 (Accessed: 18 January 2015)

Soprano   

Voice Type: Soprano, Range: B3 – G6

Soprano is the highest female voice type. There are many types of sopranos like the coloratura soprano, lyric soprano, the soubrette etc. which differ in vocal agility, vocal weight, timbre, and voice quality; I will talk about them in an upcoming article. All of the sopranos have in common the ability to sing higher notes with ease.

 Contralto

Voice Type: Contralto, Range: E3 – F5

Contralto is the lowest female voice type. In a choir, contralto’s are commonly know as altos and sing the supporting melody to the sopranos. This doesn’t mean that contraltos are not as important. On the contrary, because true altos are hard to find, a true alto has greater chances of a solo carrier than a soprano.

Tenor

Voice Type: Tenor, Range: C3 – B4

Tenor is the highest male voice type you will find in a typical choir. Though it is the voice type with the smallest range, it barely covers 2 octaves from C3 to B4, tenors are the most sought after choir singers for two major reasons. The first reason is that there aren’t as many men singing in choirs to begin with. The second reason is that most men, singers or not, fall under the baritone voice type.

Bass

Voice Type: Bass, Range: D2 – E4

Bass is the lowest male voice type, and thus a bass sings the lowest notes humanly possible. I tend to think of the deep bass notes as comparable to those of a violoncello, though some charismatic basses can hit notes lower than those of a cello. A bass will be asked to sing anywhere between a D2 and an E4. A cello’s lowest note is a C2.

(no date). Available at: choirly.com/whats-my-voice-type/

Breathing Technique|

Carrying on from the last post..

Before we started to sing Hayley taught us some breathing techniques to help us for when we come to sing/ hold a note.

Alphabet- We had to take in the deepest breath and keep saying the alphabet until our breath ran out. We did this a few times to see if each time our breath improved. I almost got to say the alphabet 3 times before running out of breath. 

Breath Control- Hayley would have us control our breath using numbers. She would say we needed to breathe in for 8 and the breathe out for 8 and we would have to control our breathing so we didn't run out of breathe or have too much breathe left afterwards. we did this a few times using different numbers such as breathe in for 2 breathe out for 2, breathe in for 8 breathe out for 16 or breathe in for 8 breath out for 32. 

I found this really useful, and i can now put this ti use when singing. If i know a note needs to be held for a certain amount of time i will be able to control my breathing to help me hold that note. 

I went on further to look at Youtube videos to help me with my breathing techniques such as:

            (starmusicacademy September 23rd 2013)

                   

Singing|

You know that one person that thinks they can sing when they can't? Yep, thats me!

I always love to think i can sing when in reality i really cant, although i cant sing it still never stops me from  doing it! I will always sing when im by myself and i will always pretend im this amazing singer that belts out songs that come on wether its in a club, or my car or on my phone. Singing in front of people is a different story!

This has always been my worst fear when it comes music.. SINGING! I have always been apart of musical theatre productions where singing is evident but i would never sing alone. Singing has never been my strongest thing and I would love to be able to sing or even hold a note for that matter, but i can't. 

In my music lecture my worst fear had come.. it was singing. As a group we had to choose a song we wanted to learn. We all came to the decision of 'Run'.

This was the sheet of music we would be singing from. I was an 'Alto'.

We learnt how to read the music and respond with our voice. Hayley would help each person do their bit from the sheet before we brought it all together. 

This ended up being on of my favourite lectures! I learnt how to hold a note and what note on the piano  to hold it on. I sang alongside other people whilst others created the backing music with their voice and once it had all came together it sounded really good. I was really surprised and happy at what i had just done/created.

If i keep practicing this my singing will improve because i will be able to hold a note and have it sound good. I was surprised that you can learn how to sing not just be gifted with a voice and this has really opened my mind about singing.

Actually Learning|

Sitting pressing keys that you've memorised is not learning how to play piano! If anything its cheating!

After leaving Chloe and the horrendous piano session I started to question wether it was the right instrument for me to learn, I started to ask myself 'Is it going to be too hard to pick up? Will I ever pick it up? Will I have enough time to learn? ' Until I realised learning how to play songs off your friends is not learning how to play piano.. its learning where to out your hands on a piano and hopefully playing the song that your trying to learn.

In one of my music lectures I actually learnt how to play piano by reading music. Now when I look at the piano I can actually visualise where to put my hands to create to piece of music written on the sheet. 

I learnt:

   *What all the cords are and where they sit

   *What ' up an octave means'

   *What each note is called and how to play them 

This made it so much easier to learn how to play piano, I now think I can go away with a basic seet on music and play it on the piano just by reading it! 

This has made me much more confident about playing piano and even if I do learn songs off my friends least i know what cords I'm playing instead of just memorising where my hands go!

Watch & Learn...|

After my music lecture myself and Chloe stayed back to play/learn the piano. Now as you know i can barley play however, Chloe is fairly good at playing, She learned from a young age and can play certain songs such as 'Rihanna- Unfaithful'. Funnily enough this is one of the songs i have always wanted to play on piano as i love the intro to the song.

Chloe would sit and play the intro to the song as i would sit and watch and try to pick it up in my head... then it was my go!

Chloe taught me the first few cords and told me how to position my hand, i tried to play what she had just taught me but it was pretty much impossible, we would just laugh at how badly i had done.

I left it there for that session, i went away thinking it was going to be too hard to learn how to play piano when i have had no experience what so ever. Should i just give up now?