EXP - Progress Reports - Week 7

Week 7

Targets - My targets for this week are to compare a new set of songs to use in my research and further develop the melody in my second track, add a bass line and add a few more instrumental elements which would finish the track.

Summary - This week I managed to get the second track finished, as planned i added the bass line and developed the melody the way I had hoped, I added more percussion and a mixture of both electronic and acoustic drums although due to my time management I feel I rushed the creation of this song. I still aim to work to 4 tracks but if any problems occur I might have to settle with 3 tracks and put a lot of detail into the third track, at the very least with 3 tracks I can still compare the differences and similarities between alternative and contemporary R&B. I also found more similarities and differences when listening to the set of music I had planned to listen to this week, which I will include in a different post dedicated to the comparison of the genres.

Next Week - Next week since I have been gathering the information on the differences between alternative and contemporary R&B I would like to put it into a case study, I have most the information spread across notes so all I need to do is type the information onto blogger. In addition I would also like to make a start on my third track, I plan to use the same synth I created based off the track Persian rugs as I feel that is my goto alternative synth for chords.

EXP - Practical For EXP

Final Product For EXP

 The final track "Exploration" this track was still in progress. I hoped to have finish this a week or two  before the deadline was finished but I ran out of time as the around this time our lesson slots were swapped for setting up gigs. Below is the chords and the percussions/drums for the song.

EXP - Progress Reports - Week 6

Week 6

Targets - My targets for this week are to listen to both alternative and contemporary R&B songs and compare the two genres, this would help me with musical ideas on the creation of my own version of the genres and give me a clear understanding of the differences. I also want to work on a background synth for my second track, so hopefully comparing the genres will give me some inspiration.

Summary - This week I managed to listen to a variety of different alternative and contemporary R&B songs and compare them, one of the two songs I will be using as my example I listened to is PARTYNEXTDOOR - Persian Rugs and the other being R. Kelly Ignition. I compared the two songs to find out the difference between alternative and contemporary, I also did this with a range of the different songs. In PARTYNEXTDOOR's Persian Rugs I found the chords being played had a two bar loop and were slightly out of time, they were the same throughout without variation. Musically the contemporary track Persian Rugs had a lot of space musically, the drums were fairly simple, they were electronic drums and the hi-hats were in semi quavers with effects that actively changes the rhythm. With R. Kelly Ignition, musically there wasn't much space for anymore elements to be added, the drums tended to be acoustic drums but were similar as they were quite simple drums, just a kick drum, clap and soft hi-hats in the background. Also R. Kelly's Ignition's chord sound like a piano rather than a synth that is playing in Persian Rugs, this is also the same for the bass line, which in Persian rugs seems to follow a similar pattern to the keys. This week I didn't manage to do as much on my second track as I planned however I was able to make a background synth.

Next Week - I plan to finish the second track by adding more drums to the arrangement, both electronic and acoustic, a bit more percussion and develop the melody further. I also plan to listen to another set of songs to compare and use as research which will help in finishing my next two tracks.

EXP - Progress Reports - Week 5

Week 5

Targets - My targets for this week are to make a start on my second track which will be a contemporary R&B track, I would like to make a start on the chords as that's how I find it easiest to start a track, furthermore I also plan to work on the drums for the track, I plan for the drums to be mainly acoustic drums as that's how I picture Contemporary R&B tracks and the tracks I have researched mainly follow this trend. Whilst I will be focusing on acoustic drums I also plan to have a small part of electronic drums as thats my style.

Summary - This week I managed to get the chords for the first track done, below is a preview of the chords. I've made a start on the drums but I doubt they will be the drums I include in the final mix of my track.  I didn't get much done this week due to being unwell.

EXP - Progress Report - Week 4

Week 4

Targets - This week i aimed to finish the first track completely, and make a start on my second track. For the first track all that needed to be done was the last section of hi-hats and kick drums. For the second track I aimed to start the chords and melody.

Summary - I finished the first track and below is a preview of the song. This track is to be one of the songs classified as alternative R&B, I'm classing it as alternative R&B due to the synthesiser playing the chords and use of electronic drums. Both contemporary and alternative R&B can have electronic drums, however I think most alternative songs will have electronic drums. I wasn't able to make a start on my second track as I was still researching traits that contemporary R&B contains.

EXP - Progress Reports - Week 3

Week 3

Targets - My targets for this week are to gather more research on peoples views on alternative and contemporary R&B, for example what people may think triggered R&B splitting into two genres. I aimed to look at online articles and other websites I could use.

Summary - I was able to find articles, one of which I found on the independent website and it explains there's more to alternative R&B than what meets the eyes or ears, below is a screenshot of the title. I found there was a trend the quite a few articles felt the need to explain that alternative R&B is a lot more complex than people might have originally thought, this may be because many people think alternative R&B is just the younger generations version of R&B, whilst in some ways this is correct, alternative R&B is a lot more intricate than that.

EXP - Progress Report - Week 2

Week 2

Targets - My targets for this week are to incorporate ideas from existing alternative and contemporary artists, last week without planning to I created the synth that was based off of the track called Persian Rugs. Furthermore as I didn't get as much research on the differences between the musical elements in the two sub genres, I aimed to look into articles online that view the music as the public does, this meant researching what people think lead R&B to split into these two sub genres.

Summary - This week I was able to make a start on one of my alternative tracks, I used the synthesiser I created last week and was able to play in some chords that give it the kind of feel I was looking for in an alternative track, . This gave me a good start in my track as for me it helps to start off the track with the chords. Furthermore this also inspired me to create a synthesiser that would play the melody, I named it breath as it gives a lot of space in the track which is what I find is common amongst alternative tracks. In addition I also used the Chinese Dizi Flute I found within Logic's sounds and altered some of the effects to give it more of a spacious feel. The synth Breath and the flute play the exact same notes. All screenshots can be found below. Also there is an example of the track below. Moreover I also found that over the years R&B was slowly losing its fanbase until artists like Frank Ocean and more alternative artists came forward.