Anarchy: A Review|

A Visual Journey (Sheeran and Butah 2014) was the book the inspired\helped me to rearrange a song. This book helped me to push ideas that I was unsure of to make me more confident when it came to making music.

I also looked at two other books that helped me understand music. This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession (Levitin, D. no date) and Listen to This (Ross, A. 2010)

 When rearranging the song Island (2009) ‘Mumford and Sons- ‘Little Lion Man’. I really struggled to change the melody, I found that the melody still sounded the same but the tempo had changed a little bit; therefore, I changed my song. The song I then chose Juusemo (2009) ‘Sex pistols- anarchy in the uk’. 

I found this song had a meaning behind and it was rather memorable, I thought I could really change the melody and make it different with the right help, a few of my friends and I got together and sat and worked out how I wanted the song, I wanted a piano and a guitar still but a completely different melody, When playing around with the chords on both piano and guitar I eventually found that B, F sharp, E, F sharp, B on the guitar and piano sounded the most effective and it also complimented the meaning of the song. I got the guys to play and sing the chords of the song I chose and once it was all pieced together it sounded really good and it was different from the original which is what I wanted.

When playing my song I thought it communicated the initial meaning behind it to the audience really well, I think the dynamics I chose helped me communicate this across. Because I chose a slow, supernatural melody using guitar and piano it helped me to create a professional feel to the song, Because the song was originally a rock song I think what I did to the song really made it sound like it was an original.

To take my piece further I think I could have added harmonies into the chorus just to help pick the song up a little bit, I think using my own voice for the harmonies would have also pushed a personally touch across too. I also think to push my song further I could have added in a violin as the sound of a violin would have enhanced the song and brought it too life, if I were to use a violin to improve my song I would have had a solo where the violin just played, I think this would have made my piece extremely interesting.

Overall I think my song was a strong piece of music but I would have liked to add a lot more personal touches to the song to really push my ideas forward.

Bibliography

‘A Visual Journey’ Sheeran, E. and Butah, P. (2014) Ed Sheeran: A Visual Journey. United States: Running Press Book Publishers

Levitin, D. (no date) This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. United Kingdom: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

 Ross, A. (2010) Listen to This. United States: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

My Final Song|

I slowed the song right down so you can hear the words and really listen because the lyrics because it has quite a powerful meaning behind it, I changed the melody completely and when working with my friends it was easier to control how I wanted the song to be and the friends that helped me have had some music background which made it a less stressful process. I think my song is really effective and because its completely different to the original it makes it sound almost like a different song, I feel as though you can listen to the lyrics more by what I have done with the song and I am really pleased with what I have created.

The Sex Pistols|

Anarchy in the UK 7″

TYPE: Singles

LABEL: EMI

RELEASE DATE: 26th November 1976

Anarchy in the UK

Cook/Jones/Matlock/Rotten

Produced by Chris Thomas

Engineered by Bill Price

Recorded at Wessex Studios, London,

October 1976

Vocals: John Rotten  | Guitar: Steve Jones | Bass: Glen Matlock | Drums: Paul Cook                                          

                                                   

   Anarchy is society without government or law. This is a good example of The Sex Pistols' anti-establishment attitude. The Punk scene was picking up, and a lot of young people were fed up with the British Royalty that ran the country.

  This was the Sex Pistols' first single, and it caused quite a stir in England with its lyrics advocating violence against the government. Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols was not released until a year later, partly because of distribution concerns: after hearing "Anarchy In The UK," some organizations refused to ship the album.

John Lydon told Mojo magazine July 2008 about writing this song: "It flowed quite naturally to me. These are just long, long-term motivations that are there and you can't, can't, can't ever underestimate the sheer driving energy poverty will bring you. Being denied everything and access to everything. Government, schools, the lot, tell you that you don't count. You are scum. Go with flow or else. That's an incredible driving energy, to be better than their estimation of you."

Rotten, J., Cook, P., Jones, S. and Vicious, S (1996) Never Mind The Bollocks. United States: Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation.

Choosing A Song|

I got together with a few of my friends and discussed some artist that we could look at.

I thought about doing something like the Sex Pistols something that todays generation wouldn't be too familiar with and something that was completely different from what I was first originally going for. When looking at different Sex Pistol songs I thought it would be really effective to slow it down and change the melody and make it my own but still using the words of the original song.

 When we sat at discussed my ideas for how I wanted it to sound we all started planning, we tried adding instruments like the keyboard but changing the sound on the keyboard making the chords sound different and effective and also the ukulele and a Cajon box for a background beat.

When trying each instrument out we came to the conclusion of the guitar being the most strongest instrument that fit nicely with the lyrics, we changed the tempo and played around with how it was going to be sang, we played around with it for hours to get the best possible song.

‘Sex Pistols-Anarchy’-Was the song I chose to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbmWs6Jf5dc

                              

Juusemo (2009) 'Sex Pistols-Anarchy in the uk'. Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bucVwI0RfEg (Accessed: 18 January 2015)

Little Lion Man|

Looking at Ed Sheeran and his music for inspiration I realised if I did choose to do one of his songs it would be really difficult for me to change the melody or tempo as his songs are quite slow and paced to start with and I also didn't’t want to pick a song that was to cliché. I then thought about picking a song that was fast and upbeat something that used a lot of instruments meaning I could remove all of the instruments and change the instrument. The song I chose was ‘Little Lion Man’- Mumford and Sons. I love this song and thought it could really work if I took all the instruments out and just played a melody with either a guitar or piano or maybe both.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7bHe--mp1g

                  

Island (2009) 'Mumford And Sons-Little Lion Man'. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLJf9qJHR3E (Accessed; 18 January 2015)

Myself and Chloe sat on the piano and worked out how I wanted the piano chords to be and when I wanted them to come in, and I had another one of my friends to play the guitar.

When putting this together we found that the guitar still sounded too similar to the original and the piano was to high for the guitar so when I edited them together they didn't’t play nicely in sync together and we found that Chloe's range would’t reach either of them as one was to high and the other being to low. This meant I had to change my song .

Piano Chords

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Chloe singing Little Lion Man

Assessment Ideas|

Assessment.


When given the choice to either rearrange a song but change the melody or write your own song I found it easy to choose as I don’t think I would be able to create my own song as well as if I changed the melody to a song that already existed. So i decided to rearrange a song!

My initial ideas were to look at artists that inspire me to get an idea of what songs to use and once I had chosen my artist/song to recreate the melody of the song I wanted to layer it up using a software on my computer. I want to record someone singing and once I had changed the melody I was then going to record each individual instrument then layer them up to create my song.

I had a piano and guitar in mind and maybe some body parts to help create a beat to really make it personalized. I made some notes on this and used this as my starting point to get started. 

My Musical Inspiration|

ED SHEERAN

Ed Sheeran has always been my musical inspiration since he realised his first song  ‘The A Team’  Sheeran, E (2011) The A Team.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAWcs5H-qgQ

                 

Sheeran, E. (2010) 'Ed Sheeran- The A Team [official video]'. Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAWcs5H-qgQ (Accessed : 18 January 2015)

Ed Sheeran:  Well, I listen to a lot of Eminem and a lot of Damien Rice... those would be my influences from that side. As far as songwriting, my inspirations came from love, life and death, and viewing other people's situations. Kaplan, I. (2011) ‘Redhead redemption: Ed Sheeran’.

You can see this in all of Ed’s songs when you listen to the words. This is just one of the reasons why Ed Sheeran is my musical inspiration.

Ed Sheeran also released a book called ‘A Visual Journey’ reading this book makes me more inspired by him as it allows you to look further into his life story and his musical journey.  Sheeran, E. and Butah, P. (2014) Ed Sheeran: A Visual Journey. United States: Running Press Book Publishers 


This was a passage from his book, it inspired me to love music and inspired me to keep trying.