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For a recorded performance where a few people came to watch

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Reflection on all tasks

Each task has made me realise how many different ways one can write a song. I will definitely try to use the methods I have learnt to write more songs. I would like to explore more in what songs I can make using these methods, as it’s new and different, and I’m learning a lot about myself through doing so. Becoming an artist/musician, it’s important to explore the different things you are capable of doing and see what feels right. I do think it’s important to, every once in a while, do something out of your comfort zone (not what you’re used to) and make something different, that’s not in your style, to challenge yourself.

The task I enjoyed the most was the hooks and a capella songwriting task. I think it’s because I’ve always been quite fascinated by a capella. I found myself being limited in some ways, as all I could use was my voice, but also found that there were so many different ways I could do stuff. I would like to develop my a capella song and maybe even write some more in the future.

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Final Performance Write-up:

We performed with only a few mistakes, that didn’t really interrupt the performance. Sophie introduced each song, while I played the guitar, so that we made some kind of communication/connection with the audience that we were starting. Sophie said what the songs were called and for the first one, she even explained what the song was about. I do think we should have done the same with the second song as well, as there’s only so much you can do to interact with an audience when sitting down. We performed sitting down as we wanted to match the energy of the songs, neither being songs to jump or dance to with the way they were being performed (all acoustic). We sat near the middle of the stage, next to each other (with enough space between us, so that I didn’t knock Sophie with my guitar or anything).

What could be improved:

You can hear the nerves in Sophie’s voice a little and I hit a few strings I shouldn't have, with more practice we might have been more confident. At the beginning of the song ‘You’, Sophie forgot how it went for a few seconds and thought I was playing the wrong chords but I tried to assure her I wasn’t and carried on playing and waited for her to remember. Luckily, this happened at the start of the song and not in the middle, as that would have interrupted the flow of the performance. I would have liked to have looked up more at the audience to have more stage presence, but the lights were blinding and I had to keep looking at my strings so that I didn’t play the wrong chords. I could have asked for the lights to be moved and then I may have been able to look up more. .

How we wrote the songs:

Me and Sophie had been trying to write songs for a few weeks, but we only had some rough lyrics and chord sequences. We didn’t meet up much during this time, but we communicated through messages, keeping each other updated. As time got closer to our performance, we decided to meet up and try to carry on writing our songs. We sat outside and pieced together some lyrics and chords, coming up with a vocal melody as we went along (for the song ‘Happier’). A similar process happened with the song ‘You’, this one was pieced together in the studios and we even played it on the piano to find the chords we wanted, as we found it easier on the piano than the guitar. We kept changing the bridge/ending for both songs, unsure of how to move them to an ending and to be satisfied with the songs. We spent a lot of time changing chords around to make things fit together better. Sophie had written the lyrics with only a little input from me. We arranged the structure of the songs together. I came up with the chord sequences with some input from Sophie. We rehearsed the songs quite a few times when we met up in the studios before performing our final performance.

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