EPK Essay and Production log
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Collaboration theory: Summarise key theories and concepts of the 20th and 21st Centuries, relevant to your creative collaborative practice. (COI, SID, CID) Theories and concepts in creative practise of the 20th and 21st centuries should’ve been dealt with in Tim’s lectures. Here you should compare your collaborative work with some theoretical models (academic or otherwise) that have happened in the past.
Our song is titled “Down by the river” the genre of our song is Electronic dance music (EDM) / pop (popular mainstream music). EDM originates from the 1960s. The Beatles introduced the use of electronic instruments to their productions – most notably the ‘Moog’ synthesizer that was used on their Abby Road album in 1969. (The DJ Revolution, 2021) The elements of pop within our track are catchy verses and repetitive drumbeats. The theme of our song was a Super Villain vibe we portrayed this well with the use of heavy synthesisers which are a dormant stable of EDM music. Our song was a female lead vocal made to empower and uplift all generations
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2. Evaluate modes of collaboration across a range of disciplines, making reference to key practitioners and practices. (COI) List examples of successful collaborative projects from the past, whether they were remote collab’s or “in person”, etc. List what worked and what didn’t work in these and compare with your own project.
I believe a useful example of a music collaboration is 30H!3 song- Starstrukk featuring Katy Perry. The version had considerable success worldwide, peaking within the top ten charts in several countries (Wikipedia, 2009)
In my opinion, Katy Perry's powerhouse voice worked well with 30H!3 distinctive sounds. This song is an excellent combination of EDM / pop fusion. The same could be said when It comes to our group EPK our voices complimented the EDM vibe and overall pop feel. That being said working with the EDM sound proved to be challenging to some members of our group because it was an unfamiliar genre to them.
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3. Evaluate collaboration skills involved in the development of creative projects, considering professional values and practice. (SID, EID, COI) As discussed in class, i.e. communication, time-keeping, brainstorming, etc. List professional values and practice. Highlight your best skills and the skills of the collaborative partners in your group and evaluate how they’ve worked in your group.
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Some effective methods of group collaboration are things like ideas sharing, communicating, contributing to the workload, and dividing tasks, time management, having mutual respect and being open-minded to opinions and suggestions. When it comes to group collaboration, I feel I have used these skills by organising my team, ensuring each group members skills were being utilised and pushing our group to have team meetings. I also contributed to writing lyrics for the track ie my pre-chorus, adding vocals to the chorus and placing down some ad-libs and harmonies. One of my best skills was coming up with melodies. One of my highlights was adapting to different styles of music. I was also impressed by Rhyannes arrangement of our vocals. She worked all our ideas together well. One of the things we were all proud of was that our chorus incorporated each of our voices together.
4.Evaluate key specialist roles and skills sets in the development of creative projects. (PID, SID, EID, COI) Again use your group as example and list the specialist roles as applied in your project. Point out your specialist role and describe in detail.
My EPK team’s specialist roles were as followed: The production team: Jade -produced and mastered our final product, she also wrote the lyrics and melody to our chorus as well as featured on the chorus. Kieran- He incorporated electric guitar into our song, Emma- she re-worked and played the piano, on the track.
Performance team: Sylvana – She wrote lyrics and created her melody for the second verse. Aghigh- She wrote lyrics and created her melody for the second pre-chorus. Rhyanne wrote the lyrics and constructed the melody for the first verse and I – wrote lyrics and created my melody for the first pre- chorus. We all sang on the chorus and rhyanne and I also added harmonies to the chorus as well as ab-libs.
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5. Evaluate a range of methods for project planning relevant to creative practice. (SID) How did you plan your collab project? List some other methods of planning and evaluate them
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When it came down to recording the chorus for our track, our plan was for Jade to record her vocals first and use it as a guide vocal where the chorus was Jades creation. We will all take turns to place our vocals on the track until the song is completed. Lastly, Rhyanne and I will place harmonies and ad-libs to the chorus then send it to Jade to do the final mixing and mastering.
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6. Evaluate research methods relevant to creative practice. How good are the various methods you have used to research the collab project? List others that might have worked better.
One of the methods Jade used in our production process was recording a demo of the chorus with her ukulele through her phone and forming our production track in a DAW in a videogame called LittleBigPlanet 3 on her play station3. She recorded our tracks on her phone and re-created the sounds with the subtractive synthesis in Logic pro. Moving forward, to improve on researching the collaboration project, I feel that we could research material that fits the genre of our track to add to our sound.
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7. Production Log: A diary style report of the project. From first meeting with the group until completion of the song(s). • Production AND song writing (incl. Lyrics) skills you have learned and applied. • Who did what in your group, communication, writing, recording, mixing etc.... • Rehearsal/preparation for final performance • Describe your experience and expectations of this project and how it worked out • List new skills that you have learned, technically, musically and personally (interaction with the other group members) and how you have implemented them • Include photos and/or screenshots of your group/Logic project
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Production Log:
Week 2
I was asked to collaborate with the production team and other members of our class to produce an EPK. We created a large team of seven members. We brainstormed ideas and spoke about each other’s skills.
Week 7
This week we meet up with our EPK team and came up with a concept. We decided on a theme and genre for our song. We then delegated tasks to each other to ensure our collaboration runs smoothly and created a team WhatsApp group to stay in Contact. I felt good about this meeting with my team where roles were communicated clearly.
Week 8
This week Jade sent us all the backing tracks for our EPK to allow us to write lyrics for it. She produced it well I feel she really brought our ideas to life and executed it well. I came up with some lyrics for our group EPK song and shared them with the other members of our group via our WhatsApp group. Jade also had written some lyrics to contribute along with Sylvana and Aghigh. The performance team needed to schedule another meet up to merge all our sounds and lyrics and see what we could come up with collectively. We scheduled a writing and recording session in the next 2 weeks.
Week 10
This week Rhyanne re-arranged all our lyrics for our EPK project and structured them all together, we just had to wait for our group meeting next week to come together and create melodies and record them on our track.
Week 12
This week I meet up with Jade and the performance team to record our vocals on our track. Unfortunately, due to the new Covid rules, our performance has been cancelled so we will not get a chance to perform our EPK in our classes. Because of this, we were unable to rehearse or prepare for our group performance. Hopefully, we will get a chance next year.
Working on the EPK has been challenging at times, where we had such a large group and in the beginning, we were all confused as to what we were supposed to be doing. In the end, we all come up with a good plan and I feel we all executed it well, however, in the future I feel we should be more productive and organise ourselves better to ensure that we're not rushing and doing things last minute.
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Reference list:
The DJ Revolution website, 2021
https://www.thedjrevolution.com/the-history-of-electronic-dance-music/
Wikipedia website, 2009
