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Last MPX Session

For the last songwriting session with Music Potential, I we were asked to write a five year plan. This was to find out where I want to be in 5 years and how I'm going to get there. I went into great detail in this plan and I did a lot of writing. I was given good advice form the tutor Deci4, he drew me a diagram to help me see my plan more clearly to help me realise my goals. He also told em to put lists in my room about different tasks I need to do, different lists being in different places  to give more structure and better memory of what to do. After we made our plans, we had to present the plan to our peers. I told them the story of how I got to this point and then what I was going to do and how I was going to get there. I mentioned to them I feel like I am a jack of trades but master of none. They told me to focus on all the skills I had and practice more and eventually I would improve all my skills.

Barclays Money Session

Today I went to Birmingham to attend the Barclays session about money. It was a good chance to get help from professional on how to manage money. I needed this help because money is always a problem for me. The first thing we did was get introduced to the Barclays team and told about the structure of the session. We then got separated into different groups at random to do a task about how we treat money. I learned that I could manage my money a lot more. We then had to come up with a business and showcase it to a group of people in a Dragons Den type of scenario. I enjoyed this because I like Dragons Den and it was fun to come up with a business.

Music Potential Colaboration Session

This session was one of my favourites. This is because everyone teamed up form the music production and songwriting groups to make one big song. Everyone got a chance to leave their mark on the song, wehter it was helping produce the song or singing or rapping. I floated between the two groups; I did a few piano loops and then I wrote 8 bars to be rapped. Here is the rap I came up with:

Listen to the beat go down

Cause we're gonna bring a crowd

London Bham any town

Everyday we bring a crowd

We have a diverse sound 

You know we play it loud

Blind in the past but now I see

The music scene is where I'll be

I'll work it, work hard and earn

Along the way I'll learn it

Try and stop me you can't block me 

Give me your best you'll never rock me 

Cause in this world It's hard

To find your skill and art

But one day I will find my level

I know I have music potential

Everyone loved my rap and they decided to use it towards the end because of the mention of music potential they liked the pace and the producers started adding drum and bass to the track to match my speed. I enjoyed this day so much. An all round good day.

Second Employability Session

In this session, we had to do mock interviews. We were given the job specification of a hypothetical job and we had to prepare to be in an interview in front of the rest of the group. The job was a position an sort of manager for Punch Records. I found this specification easy to work with because I am a very creative person and felt like I had a lot of the skills needed. I was chosen to be the first to present so I got up and began to talk to the group. I had done things like this in the past on several occasions. The feedback I got was generally positive, but people were saying that my confidence seemed a bit weak and I was shaking a bit. This has always been a problem for me as confidence is not a strong point of mine. I didn't really feel nervous but it still came across.

Hyde Park

I was given the opportunity to visit Hyde park to meet the London MPX groups and see their live performances along with my groups performances. When we got there, it was very deserted because there was nothing going on. Waiting gave me a chance to converse with all the people form the course who I hadn't before. I met a lot of interesting people with different stories. Later when we were waiting for the event to start, a girl started performing on a small stage. She wasn't part of MPX but was very good. We waited more but then we all went to a big tent-like structure with a stage. This was where the MPX students were to perform. The performances were great and I was pleased to see the people form my group grow so much in their performance skills. I was a bit sad that I never had a chance to perform but I can understand why; my performing skills are not the best.

Music Potential 08/07/2014

Today I got a text saying that there would be no music potential session. I was a bit upset because there really aren't many sessions. However, I made the most of the day and practice my performance skills and piano skills.

Music Potential 01/07/2014

In this session we all really started to feel more confident. I know I did at least. We were all sort of free styling on three mics as we were being recorded. We also did our songs that we will potentially perform. The feedback I got was I still need to work on my eye contact and my movement. My voice is also slowly improving, I just need to practice a bit more. I look forward to the studio session I'm going to have with Decipher on Thursday.

Audition 29/06/2014

This session was an audition for the London performances. I was quite nervous for this because of how important it was. I went in a spare room and practice quite a few times to try and get my performance right. When it came to doing my audition I wasn't so nervous any more. The feedback was that I had improved a lot, Decipher said I have seemed to step my performance up by like 60% I wasn't quite sure what that meant but I think it was good feedback. They liked how I decided to sing an octave higher. I just need to work on my eye contact and movement too and keep practising.

My first employability session

Yesterday was my first employability session and I found it helped me understand the business side of this industry and it encouraged me to get going with promoting myself with professionally laid out social media like Facebook and Twitter profiles. They taught us the best things to include in such profiles and what not to include. I already had an idea of some of the things they were teaching but I also learned things too. Like how to get more people to like your pages.

Here are the pages I have made up until now:

(My Artist page)

(My Artist Twitter)

(My Band Page)

Music Potential 17/06/2014

In this session I felt I performed better. I came up with some good lyrics for the beat we were all listening to. I managed to rap a bit which I was surprised about because I have never been a good rapper. I also gave one of the songs I wrote to another person on the course and we went through it. It sounded much better with someone with a better voice singing it.
However, it was frustrating because it was hard to communicate how the songs vocals sound. I Understand the singer needs freedom to put their own twist on the song but I wanted it as close to how I envisioned the vocals as possible. This is the downside to writing for others.

Song Writing for 17/6/2014

At the end of the song writing session, I was asked to bring in a song for the following week. The song would be sang by another performer in the course. This is okay because I am aware of my lack of vocal skills and song writing/ production are my stronger skills.
I had a look at previouse songs I had made and decided to remix 'Winter' a song I made for a demo album called 'Eclipse'. The old version of this song was poorly made with poor equipment. I just used Audacity and raw recordings from a rubbish laptop mic. This time I have used Fruity Loops to remix it to a better quality. Here's how I started it:

 












(Above) First I chose my sample instrument sound and placed it in the pattern. I couldn't find the string sample I was after and don't know how to add new samples or where to get it, so I settled for this sample.

 (Above) Then I started entering the notes into the piano roll.






  







(Above) Then I placed it into the playlist. First I left the colours grey but then I coloured them to organise them.














 (Above) I gradually added more to the playlist after making the patterns in the piano roll.















(Above) I didn't understand why the bass notes were overlapping with each other and distorting the sound so I played about with the fade out dial and fixed the note length.













  
(Above) I don't know how to make the velocity of all the notes the same so I made it as close as possible. Getting the levels of each pattern right is difficult and wastes time without knowing how.












(Above) The key change from the chorus to the verse is pretty tricky so I added few bars of percussion to act as a transition.










(Above) Here I started adding the vocals.












(Above) My vocals are not very strong on the own right now. I had a look at some of the effect I could assign to improve them. I still don't really know what effects to use. But I remembered the notes I took in the music production session about the best Fruity Loops effects to use.

(Above) I had a go at harmonising the chorus vocals to improve my vocals. For a first attempt I think I did well. I'm unsure about the levels for each recording though. I listened to songs I like for reference.

As I've finished the song, I think it is way better the the original demo, you can find it here (If you really have to). I think I could have improved it by improving my vocals, effect choices and overall volume level balance for each instrument.

Music Production Session (13/6/2014)

Following the success of my song 'Nightmare' that I showed in the song writing group, I was asked to try out the music production course too to see which course I want to study.

The lesson was quite interesting, we watched this documentary:



It was about the origins of House music and I learned how to make a basic House beat:

 
    (Above) A simple drum sequence
    of basic House music.

 I also learned more about Fruity Loops too; which effects are the best.

All in all I think I preferred the song writing course more because I had more interaction with people and it allowed me to improve my weaker skills as well as hone my strengths.

My first session (10/6/2014)

I really enjoyed my first session with MPX. I thought the studio was really nice and laid back but work got done too. I met a lot of cool people and learned what they are about while working with them. We were put in groups and asked to make a song with a given beat. We came up with this:

[Verse]

Success is what I'm chasing I know it in my heart
Just looking for brighter days lurking in the dark
I know I'm gonna make it cause its my favourite art
Whether we're together or further apart

Go hard from start to the part
I can't go soft not part of the vocab
Working hard I ain't a broke lad
Trying to get rich off this notepad

[Chorus]

Look how long its taking we just tryna make it
The times they are changing and still I am acheing

I'm just trying to see a bright day can't wait till my dreams come true
Don't know what you've heard about me but I ain't heard a thing about you
(Me) I'm up in the studio tryina get a sick flow
Trying to make a fresh new tuneX3

[Verse]
(Stiley)
Still here won't stop till I make it
Think that its easy you're more than mistaken
But I'm built for this probably kill form this
Probably lose money plus lose sleep for this

(Mr macee)
It looks like times ticking ,
so why you waiting for a good living , go get it
.. T.I did it
Here's a team full of music heads soon have to charge us to make a killing You with it?
 Interfere its Armageddon , i got dreams I've promised imma get em
Ain't really into lessons unless you can teach the basics of chasing These dreams,
no souls sold but we amazing, my team, my team.

(Ojr)
 I did it, vex when I'm down I flip it,
wouldn't let me through the window so I brick it,
 all these rappers think they can, I kick it, your flows dead I live it, you suck on the mic so brains I get it,
the deep shits over your head ur buried,
 I'm so heavy big ting from brum since devilman said your not ready and your not ready

I liked listening to my groups raps because I learned more about them. We did clash a few times because we were all so different to each other at times. It felt a bit awkward but I'm glad I persisted to leave my mark on the song.

We then all performed the song but we didn't practice enough and we were all uncoordinated with each other so we messed up a bit but it was alright.The other performances form other groups weren't perfect either but all had their unique twist on them.

Then we showcased our own made songs. They were al really good, some were amazing. My songs weren't too great as I had short notice on joining the course. I think I pulled through though and sang a song I made a while ago:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B27cpk0W_qYoa3h6a2J4YXBadDQ/edit?usp=sharing

My voice was not great with this song but people thought my lyrics and chord progression were really good. Next time I think I will sing in a higher register though. Also people didn't really like the beat, they said it was over the top and distracting.

I also showed a song I produced in Fruity Loops:

https://soundcloud.com/liam-fitzgerald-3/nightmareg

People said this song was great and I think my production skills out-shined my performance skills. I am glad this song was successful but I really believe my strength and ambition lies in my performance/song writing skills.

Welcome to my blog!

This blog is going to be a Journal for the Music Potential course. I will be updating it regularly with my thoughts from each session in the course.

I will show my work on this blog as well as thought processes and ideas leading up to leaving the ocurse. I will use a range of media to express my thoughts and hope my thoughts are well communicated.