We’ve looked at many genres and how the songs are constructed within them over the semester so far. I’ve expressed my interest in experimenting beyond singer-songwriter conventions and I want to document some of my attempts and difficulties.
So I’ve been trying to crack onto my track for the final assessment task but have really been struggling with the genre I’d decided to try my hand at: RnB/Hiphop. I love these tracks so much, I thought it would be a great experience to try emulate that in my own music. It turns out that when you write folk/pop/jazz songs on guitar and voice, it is really hard to turn them into any genre other than singer-songwriter. It might be easier if I was writing with more people than just myself. People with different skills, instruments, repertoire… One day hopefully I can do this with some others! For now, I’ve had to go back to the drawing board, refocus on what I do have and what I can achieve.
To illustrate my endeavours I will include a couple of rough tracks I tried to make into more RnB vibes…
Attempt #1
In this first one, I was truly just jamming to some ditties I’d written over the sem. I liked the different section but found no software instruments that truly inspired me further. At least I got to know a lot of the synth sounds as I was trying to find something appropriate.
Attempt #2
In this track I was trying to find an a good harmonic layer and figure out a drum pattern for an older original song. It was good practice to transcribe the guitar chords (that I wrote originally) to the synth strings sounds. I also enjoyed getting familiar with the more melodic electric drum kits offered by Logic Pro X. I would like to use one of these in the next project.
Back to the Drawing Board
I’m not disheartened! I’m refocused to my strengths and can still hopefully find a nice sample to use under one of my originals to spice things up a bit. I will definitely keep trying to get closer to RnB – can do this with my vocals, the instruments I choose and the groove I create.