EXP Progress Report - Week 1

Week 1

Targets - My targets for the week are ; to make a start on researching the differences between the Alternative and Contemporary R&B and what artists categorise themselves as the different types of the genre. Furthermore I would also like to make a start on playing the keyboard part of the track that will be on the first track I will be doing for the EP. 

Summary - This week I made the synthesiser that will be play the keys in my first track. I named it Persian Rugs because part of my research was listening to alternative music, Persian Rugs is a song by the alternative R&B artist PARTYNEXTDOOR and the keys played in that song give me the same feel and made me think it gave the track as much space as the synth I made. Below is an example of the synth I made and the track the idea came from.

In addition finding the alternative R&B artists was made easy thanks to this website. http://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/alternative-r-b-ma0000013375. This website lists the artists who recognise themselves as alternative R&B artists so you don't have to decide whether they are contemporary or alternative using your ears. Furthermore through my research of differentiating whether some artists were alternative or contemporary, I genuinely found that the contemporary artists tended to be artists from older generations whereas the alternative artists were the up and coming artists. However there are still up and coming contemporary artists but the majority you'll find are contemporary. Moreover, whilst that website is handy for finding alternative artists, I disagree with some of the artists they classify as alternative and so do others. I struggled to find musical ideas that helped classify a song as one or the other type of genre.

Industry - Career Plan

Personal Statement
Throughout my life, I have always enjoyed engaging in Physical Education and would like to pursue my career in the field of sports science. I have always had a keen interest and have felt intensely when it comes to the practical and theoretical work concerning Physical Education. I am very aware of the importance of exercise and the related issues of diet and fitness on the prevention of injury in the human body.

I am currently studying a UAL Music Production Level 3 course. This subject appealed to me due to my background within music growing up and it sparked an interest with the industrial side of music like being involved with Pr companies. Although I study Music production and studied Music technology in school, from around year 10 my curiosity with fitness and health grew, I started attending my local gym around 3-4 times a week and altered my diet to achieve the targets I was hoping for, I noticed that I enjoyed this life style.

The style of music I produce now varies from hip-hop, R&B and Jazz, whereas it used to only be hip-hop and the slightest bit of jazz. Whilst I produce music, I'm also very interested in setting up recording sessions to record artists and bands. Furthermore this is a skill I think I excel in and took a liking to when I first started studying music in year 10, as it gave me the tools I needed to record artists closer to me like friends and family making it cheaper for them to start their career.

Fan Base
My fan base is mainly young people ranging from 15-25, this is a rough estimate as this age group tends to have most of the similar interests. Also this does not limit only this age group to listening to my music as you'll find people of all ages listening to my music.

Live Performance
As I'm a producer/sound engineer, performing live is not something I aim for, however having one of my produced tracks performed live is a strong possibility. As some of my tracks have vocals on them and all of them have instruments which can be played live. It would be fairly simple to set up a gig for one of my tracks and just have the occasional synth playing in the back in track.

Performing at the Nottingham Motorpoint Arena is in sight, the fee will be quite expensive as I'm a producer starting off but due to connections I've been promised discounts.

Marketing
For Marketing social media is my main platform, being 'tech savvy' has its perks when you are a starting producer. Twitter is one of the main social medias I use to promote myself and any events I will be attending, due to the ability to 'retweet', you're followers can share the promotion with their followers and its an on going cycle, so you're almost guaranteed to catch some eyes. In addition if you don't have the followers to support you, twitter also offers an advertisement button. You pay for having your tweet promoted onto people who don't necessarily follow you. The more you pay the more people the promotion will reach.

I have photos for my ep's and album covers for when I release them.

Releases
I will be releasing albums and singles within the next coming months, I'm working on fine tuning them till I am content with the product. These albums and singles will be released alongside the photos I told you earlier to be used as album covers etc. I will be releasing them through spotify, apple music and hard copies on cds.

Live Production

Traktor

Using Traktor and dj'ing was one way I worked on my technical development. I was taught how to beat match using the decks, use the hi, low and mid passing filters and a wide range of effects including flanger which would alter the sound of the original tracks.

Drumpads

Using Drumpads was another way I worked on my technical development. Learning to use drumpads was a bit challenging to begin with because, I had to choose a sample I would be putting into the drumpads or pick and choose using the scissor tool on logic a sound out of my own music and fine tune it so the sound would fit the drumpad. 

Looping

Using a loop pedal was also another way I worked on my technical development, using the keytar as the instrument and the loop pedal to record different segments. I quickly learned how useful this tool could be.

EXP - Midpoint Presentation for EXP

Description of Project - My project is called the differences between Alternative R&B and Contemporary R&B and what made them. my project will be an investigation into alternative and contemporary R&B, I will be researching the two different variants of the genre, for example what makes them different, which artists categorise into the two different groups, what makes it alternative and contemporary and why listeners weren't content with just the genre R&B. My project will be mainly research based and the end product will be a 4 track ep, two of them will be alternative R&B and the other 2 will be contemporary. I am creating these 4 tracks to see if I can understand the differences between the two genres and incorporate them into my own music. I shall also be researching whether there were any signs in the earlier signs of R&B that there would be a divide within the genre.

Example of Contemporary - R. Kelly - Ignition is a prime example for contemporary R&B, whilst not all contemporary R&B songs are love songs, a large number of them still are.

 Example of Alternative R&B - PARTYNEXTDOOR - Right now.

A big part in the creation of alternative and contemporary R&B is definitely due to time. Alternative R&B was almost unheard of during the 90's and only really started to become as popular as its counter part contemporary R&B in the late 2000's.

I have been reading articles and other information on the two genres and the general conclusion that most of these papers come to is that alternative R&B is the outcome of many fans and artists alike needing a change within R&B.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1367549414526730

But even within the two variants there are still huge differences within their own sub-genres, but that has to do with each artists preferences to their music.

Problems I have faced would be finding material to use as research and pinning key differences between the two sub-genres.