Freya Dalgarno Music

  Today we learnt about how to DJ using Serato lite. Above is an image of the desktop screen of the two pieces of music that me and Madison were mixing using the desk - we added reverb and effects to it and then also added our own special effects from the desk such as sirens. We also learnt how to loop specific parts of it and one of the main things I'd do was loop a small section of one of the tracks and turn the reverb up a lot to make it seem atmospheric. There's also a picture of the deck that we used, each side is used for each of the two tracks and then there's some overall volume and things in the middle of the deck. I struggled a lot with this task as I found it difficult to transition between the two tracks smoothly however, I did learn to be able to sync the two tracks up correctly and keep them in time. I think I'd want to revisit this at some point and get better at it as it was quite fun and I can see how it would be ten times more fun to make my own crate ...

 For one of the songs for my assignment (to write two songs in two different genres), I chose to write a pop ballad.  My process for writing this song was I first thought of a key signature that I wanted it to be in and I settled on D major. After that, I played through a chord progression and hummed random bits of melody over the top which made up my verses.  Once I'd come up with the melody for my verses, I also wrote melodies for my pre-chorus and chorus and none of it had yet had specific lyrics assigned to it although I knew I wanted a theme of light and using it as a metaphor and motif throughout the song to represent the happiness that the person brought to the singer. Pop ballads are typically about love songs and so I chose to use this theme. I spent some time singing through the melodies and trying to assign words to them that would fit the context and I managed to write some basic lyrics for my first verse, my pre-chorus and my chorus.  After this, I got s...

Refectory Gig We started by figuring out the foundations of the song and working on making sure that me and Madison knew the chord progression well and that Izzy and Emily knew the melody and the lyrics. We also spent a lot of this time working on being able to play it all in time with one another.  The next session, we solidified this as a strong foundation of the song and were able to go through the entire thing without having the words or the chords in front of us. We also added me and Madison singing "ooo"s of the root note of each chord during the chorus to give it a more dynamic sound.  After that, we began exploring harmonies in the song and where they might fit and added a few on the end of the song which were quite loosely put there as we didn't know them very well.  Then, we polished our performance. We added differences in the chord playing and riffs and stuff to make it more interesting to listen to and we got rid of the ukulele on the second chorus for a quie...

I think that a key aspect of the music industry that was consistent from the 1950s to the 2000s was people having a unique or different thing about them, typically in their image that they present to the public. The thing that developed over time about this was the way in which people chose to reinvent themselves and make themselves new and interesting to their audience.  During the 1950s, Little Richard was a key figure as he not only wrote really catchy and well developed songs, he also was known for unusual behaviours such as playing the piano with his leg up on the piano a notable performance of this is him playing "Long Tall Sally" (below). This showed his unique feature which made him popular among a 50s audience. It changed how people viewed how they could present themselves and made it seem more acceptable to be able to express oneself in spite of what other people thought. He did this because of his acceptance that he didn't fit in to the modern society at the ti...

Analysis of "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)": It has a 4/4 time signature which is typical of a pop song. There are very thick harmonies that are in 3rd intervals with one another. The instrumentation is synths, clapping, a kick drum and vocals which is surprisingly minimal for the genre. Throughout the song, there is a repeated sound effect that is seemingly very random - it is a loop and a pitch that bends up. There is reverb used to give the music more a sound like it's in a room and feel less robotic. There is a really catchy tune that is repeated a lot within a small range of notes - the small range allows for audience interaction which will make the song more popular as people will want to listen to it and it will also then spread through word of mouth. Interestingly, there is a minor bassline used on the chorus (which is in the relative major key) which gives it a unique sound. The chorus is also a very simple melody as it is mainly on the same note except for th...