This assignment was challenging, yet took less time than I anticipated. The first barrier I encountered was figuring out the tempo. Initially, I was playing it twice as fast with much shorter gaps between lyrics, but the more breathable tempo sounded better. Coming up with the melody itself wasn't all that hard, but I'm also not too crazy about my melody. I'm not sure why, it just doesn't enthrall me. The very hardest part was thinking of a subject and then lyrics. I was in a bit of a bad mood when I wrote it, but I didn't want to write something negative because I'm generally pretty chipper, so I settled on something faux negative- the late pizza delivery. I don't really know how it came to me. Once I had that it took a while to come up with the verses, but eventually they came to me. 

Ryan Naylor Blues Assignment 1

I really had no idea how to approach this assignment. I left class and realized I had learned about different song structures but not really how to write a song (eg: how to come up with a good melody, how to write a chord progression that sounds good). As a result, I just ended up using chords I already knew sound good together from countless movie scores (yeah I'm a nerd like that). The end result doesn't really have a style that I could really name. I wish I could have been more creative with the chords and melody. I also would like access to more than one instrument. Maybe next time I'll draft somebody for a little english horn action. 

Ryan Naylor Assignment 2 "YOU DONE LEFFTTT" working title

The way I started was by trying to actually write something serious. I really don't like doing this because I don't feel the need to share my life with everyone, but it sure is a contrast from the previous assignments. I ended up writing about waiting rooms, which I've been spending an unfortunately large amount of time in recently. I put the sad subject matter on a cheery chord progression borrowed (and modified) from the Legend of Zelda, so if that isn't contrast I don't know what is. Also, upon second listening the chorus sounds like the Game of Thrones theme, which was unintentional. Basically I was trying to contrast my previous efforts and write something more representative of the darker parts of my life (I'm normally bubbly I swear! Bad times).

dudeguyryan