Blogging With Cyrus

After completing the basic songwriting process, it's time to pass my song over to a producer and also produce a song pitched by another songwriter.  I've decided to produce a song by one of my course mates, Grace. While admittedly her song is pretty short and maybe even incomplete, it definitely has lots of potential. This essentially means that I have lots of space to edit and make some changes to the song. Topliner: Grace  Grace has shown me the basic melody of her song. Although I will make certain changes to the song such as extending the intro and verse, it still gives me a rough idea of what the song is about. And good news for me, Grace is also willing to write the lyrics. So in summary: Topliner: Melody: Grace Lyrics: Grace  Producer: Myself Now since Grace's song has lots of room for modifications, it gives me more freedom to edit the song while maintaining the simplicity and the light and happy vibe of the song.  Producin...

For this post, I'll explained about the construction of my melody as well as other things that I've added to my song. The melody is played through a lead synthesiser. The full song is at the bottom of this posts along with the lyrics. Without further or due,  I'll walk you through the song section by section.  Verse: The melodic form of the verse is essentially an AB. The B section starts as soon as it changes to the IV chord.  Chorus: For the chorus, the form is an ABC and it is repeated once.    After the first chorus, the melody remains the same for the second verse and chorus.  Bridge: The bridge of the song is pretty simple, it is an AAAB.  Final Chorus: The third and final chorus is pretty much the same as the other two. But on the repeat a note is raised, which is a really common thing to do for final choruses.  Outro: The outro of the song consists of a repeat of a ...

So in the last posts, I briefly explained about the construction of my song in the form of words and pictures. Hence in this post I'm gonna attempt to elaborate on things further with not just words and pictures, but also with short clips! By the way, the key of this song is C. *Before I start, I've posted my song and explained the form of it 2 blogs before this one, so please do check it out:  http://cyruskmk.blogspot.com/2018/09/my-song-structure-so-far.html The Funky Bass Line: The bass line is played by a simple fingerstyle bass because for this song I think it will be more suitable than a synth bass. Before I started recording, I made sure to check that the tempo was suitable and I did some adjustments and finally settled on 95 bpm. I then activated the metronome or click by pressing 'K' on the keyboard and played the bass line. I recorded the bass line for 4 bars, cycled it to make sure it sounded decent, then copied and pasted it instead of playing t...

Before proceeding with this blog, I suggest you go back to my previous blog to take a listen to my song as for this blog it's time to get technical! Getting Started: I begin my construction by adding at least 5 new tracks to the project. After adding the tracks, I brought out the Library and Channel Strip which can be done easily by pressing 'Y' on the keyboard for the Library and 'I' for the Channel Strip. Or I could just locate the symbols at the top left of the window. From there I can test and choose the instruments that I want and Logic Pro X has such a wide variety of options. Please excuse the extra fingerstyle bass. Also, I can adjust the tone of the instruments by clicking the Smart Control symbol on the top left or by pressing 'B' on the keyboard. Drum Presets: For the drums I chose a preset that is already in the software. I begin by selecting a drummer  (Jesse- Funk Rock) followed by a beat p...

I'm currently working on a song based on the same structure as "Helpless' by John Mayer, and it is as follows: Intro - Verse - Chorus - 2nd Verse - 2nd Chorus - Solo - Bridge - 3rd Chorus - Outro with fade out *The song is at the bottom of this blog Role of Instruments: Foundation: Drums, Bass Lead: Vocals, Guitar Fills: Trumpet, Organ, Guitar Rhythm: Organ, Trumpet, Guitar Structure: *Note that the guitar parts are not added in yet as I am planning to play those parts myself rather than letting Logic Pro X do it for me. Intro The Intro of the song starts off with a funky isolated bass line based on the C minor pentatonic scale. The drums come in shortly after that. So basically a groove is establish. Verse As I have yet to come out with the melody of the song let alone the lyrics, the verse so far has the same funky bass line except this time it jumps to the IV chord and plays the same bass line but in F. There are also fills from the org...