Composing blues was really hard. I got stuck in a writer's block and kept on writing pop songs (hopefully I can use them for later). I always thought my process would be to write the melody first and lyrics second, but it was easier to do the opposite. Eventually, to pull myself out of the block, I listened to a lot of 12-bar blues songs and realized that I was complicating things by trying to do a complex accompaniment. I gave up on writing my own accompaniment and decided to just use the track, even though I really didn't want to. I transposed it down a few steps to better fit my voice and did some fiddling with the melody. Once I got in the blues mindset, it was easier and flowed much better. If I were to do a rewrite of this song, I would write my own accompaniment in a less stereotypically bluesy style and speed up the tempo.

Laura Smith, Blues Assignment 1

When writing this song, I found the supplied lyrics to be inhibiting. When fiddling with melodies, there seemed to be too many words in both the verse and chorus. I couldn't come up with anything that was long enough to fit in all the lyrics. I find a lot of inspiration from Sara Bareilles' piano accompaniments, so I kept her in mind when experimenting. However, it wasn't until I listened to "Everything" by Ben Howard that I came up with the piano line for the intro and verse. The subsequent piano parts came out of that first piano line, and the melody came along at the same time. So, getting the song started took a while, but once I got it started, I finished it pretty quickly. Recording took a very long time because I kept trying to do separate tracks for voice and piano. However, this didn't work because there were slight variations of timing due to slight differences in expression recording to recording, so the tracks put together didn't sound good. I eventually decided to do a single track. If I were to do this again, I would probably enlist the help of someone who is good with Garageband and recording in general to make it sound more professional.
I'd describe this song as a pop ballad, even though my voice isn't very poppy. It's in 4/4 time, E flat major, and the tempo is on the faster end of moderato. Because I drew inspiration from Sara Bareilles' slower songs with piano, this song is similar to her piano ballad style.

Laura Smith Assignment 2

Laura Smith - Sandy

For this song, I felt like the "If you've only done piano ballads, maybe you should try country!" comment was meant for me. So, I listened to Dolly Parton all weekend for inspiration. I got my guitar fixed and everything, and I fiddled around on it, got a chord progression, but could not come up with anything else. I then briefly tried Irish music, but that did not work at all. So, I switched to piano, but I specifically did not do a ballad. Contrast is present in my song in multiple ways. The intro/verse piano line is like a repetitive force that beats into your head incessantly, which reflects the description of my intolerable friend! Then, the chorus goes into a rhythmically slower descending line, then immediately back into the verse line. The structure is pretty simple: intro, verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus. My lyrics definitely have an attitude, and I chose not to do any specific rhyme scheme. Sometimes it rhymes, sometimes it doesn't, but I think it doesn't have to because it's so fast and more of a rant than a poetic set of lyrics. The lyrics seem sarcastic and a little snarky when paired with my upbeat piano accompaniment. I wasn't originally planning on sarcasm being part of the contrast, but I think it works, because it adds some humor (I hope) to an otherwise angry/frustrated song. This was fun!

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