Keep Us Safe Creation

The creation of Keep Us Safe

The beginning

When i first started working on the Nina Simone based track Keep Us Safe, there was no structure to the song. I had just started to work on any aspect of music i chose to with no plan or even clue of what key i was going to use, it sounded like the track below.

This is because I just had an idea of what instruments I wanted to use and no other plans. Below is what the track looked like within Logic. As you can see there's no structure or any plan or idea to help guide me. Furthermore the only Jazz related sound within the track was the horns, which had no structure either and didn't fit the rest of the songs.

In addition with the help from one of my teacher Charlie's, who spoke in detail about the different modes within Jazz, and after deciding what aspects from Nina Simone's Feeling Good I would take influence from, my work would come to look like the screenshot below. On the right side of the page I wrote down the key I was playing in to help ensure I stuck to that path, I also wrote down notes that would help produce the song, by making vague points on how I want the song to sound. This was helpful to me because it acted as guidelines for my song.

Furthermore the chords I used for the chords section which was the main bit that took influence from 'Feeling Good' were G minor, the C7 chord, Bb and D7 chords. At it differentiates between G minor and the C7 chord for the first 5 bars then for two bars it differentiates between Bb and the D7. This routine is the same throughout the song.

The melody was originally led by the trumpets and the keyboard, and still is in the midi version of the song  which is below. Using the same kind of idea as the antecedent and consequent phrase in Miles Davis's So What, I led the melody which starts on the keyboard into the horns which hit hard, giving the trumpets its own space with the exception of the drums helped made the trumpets the main aspect of the melody. However In the audio version of Keep Us Safe, I swapped the trumpets for the vocals as there was an issue with the recording of the vocals and we only had short time left to record the track.

The tempo of the song originally started at 100 beats per minute (bpm), I thought this was suitable at first, however after giving the score to the bass guitarist of the Keep Us Safe track and writing slow as an indicator on the score I decided it sounded better at 80 bpm. Furthermore the rhythm is held by the bass and rarely changes throughout the track, I chose to do this so the bass was calming and relaxing as a Nina Simone based piece should be.

The loudest instrument in the song would have to be the vocals for the audio version and trumpets for the midi version, this is done so the main piece of the melody is the most audible. I did this so the lyrics can be heard and so that the trumpet solo piece is as effective as it is. I had the bass and drums stay fairly quiet in the mix so that the way they repeat and are rarely changing wouldn't be cause much of a disturbance in the track.

The instruments used were; trumpets, keyboard, drums, bass guitar and vocals. The trumpets, keyboard and vocals play the melody being the loudest three in the mix, the keyboard also plays the chords that play just behind the melody but always with the keyboard melody but allowing space for the trumpet solo. The drums and bass carry the rhythm, being the quietest two instruments in the mix and being the most calming, relaxed instruments on the track.

The structure of the song, mainly follows, chords, keyboard melody with bass and drums underlying, followed by a trumpet solo with the allowance of the drums hidden under them followed by a different keyboard melody but the same chords and bass notes. This is done so the song isn't to complicated and is as comfortable to the ears as can be.

The lyrics in Keep Us Safe is a reaction to the police brutality happening all over the world but with the most reported issues in America. They were written by Eleanor in the level 3 music performance class and myself.

Below is the Keep Us Safe recoding process.