I stopped writing in 2014 and resumed in 2023 :)

2023 and beyond

Week 1 Theme - 7ths.

I haven't written and recorded a full song in about a decade, rather depressingly. Commiting to an idea and following through is scary. When I try to expand on or record ideas, it feels like the life is just sucked out.  However, I want to write beautiful music. Desperately.

I YOLO'd a lot of this song and relinquished control. In the last couple of days I threw away all self-judgment and just focused on COMPLETION. It's incredibly rough, but - it's a full song. I'm proud of myself :)

Feedback welcome :)

2023-05-17 Song A Week - New Beginnings

Week 2 Theme - Substitutions.

I've realised that a song can be repetitive IF performed well (the repetition was just me trying to finish the song. the realization came when I tried to make it work). Critical to that is an expressive melody. I tried overdubbing the violin melody with vibrato & dynamics, plus manually tweaking the MIDI CC afterwards.

I'm envious of those who sing well or play melodic instruments like violin. Also - 99% sure I ripped off the melody/chords from another song...

Feedback welcome :) 

https://old.reddit.com

2023-05-24 Song A Week - is it fine to hope?

Week 3 Theme - Under the Sea

I did this almost entirely on Dorico. The aim was to be more deliberate in my composition. The previous two songs I winged at the piano.

Unfortunately I wasted a lot of time failing to find suitable VSTs for the MIDI files/trying to record live versions. I ended up using the in-built Dorico audio so did zero MIDI automation. 

Time was REALLY tight due to having several instruments (rather than just piano + solo instrument). I had to cut a lot of corners, but hey - I hit the deadline!

2023-05-31 Song A Week - Aquatic Travels

Week 4 Theme - Mountain Top.

Each week I set limitations for myself. This week, I restricted myself to the piano only and tried sticking to a motif. This was to avoid relying on verse/chorus and layering instruments. I also wanted to make use of empty space (maybe excessively).

If I had more time, I definitely could have added more variation rather than blanket repetition, plus expanded on the contrasting section + outro.

2023-06-07 Song A Week - A Breath of Mountain Air

WARNING: your ears will explode when autoplay queues up the next track/advert.  I desperately need to allot time for basic mixing and equalization...

Week 5 Theme - 9ths. 

I use extended chords in everything, especially stacked 4ths/5ths. To change things up, the main riff uses a minor 9th instead. I rarely use these and struggled with direction. Only at the last minute, did I realise what to convey - a battle theme. Everything fell into place but it was absurdly rushed!!

All I can say really is that this is a mess 😂 But hey - it's 5 minutes to midnight and here's my song.

2023-06-14 Song A Week - Dissent in the Outlands

This is the least effort I've ever expended on a song 😅

Never before have I written anything with so little effort and time. Every track I've written in my life, I've put my all into (within time constraints). At the very minimum I'll spend hours + loads of time tweaking details.

This, I spent a couple of hours on... It's what I get for having spent all week just chatting shit. I spent lots of time TALKING about writing music and spent little time actually writing. All I can do is own the terribleness... At least it's better than not having written a song???

2023-07-12 Song A Week - Simples!

Follow me on my quest to output music at indeterminate intervals :)

Here's what I wrote a decade ago, before forgetting how to write music: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PWP9q0ARdc7ITedtZ_3d-kr6vWQUhB01

2023-07-12 Song A Week - Simples!

Owen She-Yin