Bibliography

Gerson, R. (2012) Breathing and singing: How the diaphragm works. Available at: http://www.singingbelt.com/how-to-sing/diaphragm-mechanics/ (Accessed: 7 January 2016).

How singing is created (vocal anatomy)  Available at: http://voicestudio.kristinaseleshanko.com/VocalAnatomy.htm (Accessed: 7 January 2016).

Patsy Cline  Available at: http://www.metrolyrics.com/crazy-lyrics-patsy-cline.html (Accessed: 7 January 2016).

Babygandalf  How to write a country song. Available at: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Write-a-Country-Song/ (Accessed: 8 January 2016).

Reflecting back on this semester

Reflecting back to the beginning of the semester, my main aim was to focus on improving my singing voice, I did this by having one to one singing lessons with the in-house Vocal coach Val Reid, with Val`s training and advice I gradually improved throughout the semester ,and now feel more comfortable and confident with my singing voice. I am going to carry on the singing lessons to help improve my vocals more as I still have difficulty accessing high notes and by carrying on with the lessons I’m hoping this will change.

The Final Performance

For my final performance, to challenge myself I wrote my own Country song, a different genre to what I’m comfortable in writing as I usually write Indie style songs. Before I began I researched a few articles on line to guide me, I came across an article which appealed to me, and within the article is a list of themes that most country songs are based on.

1-Trucks

2-Drinking

3-Rain

4-A failed relationship

5-Love (Babygandalf)

I used this list and chose the words drinking and love as the themes for my song. I then took out my note pad and wrote down a list of words I connected with country music and drinking, the word that stood out to me the most was Saloon, using the word Saloon I came up with the title to my song “The Single Man Saloon”. Once I had a title to the song I went on to write the whole song until it was complete.

I uploaded a recording using Audacity of myself singing the  finished song, which I played for the final performance; I used the instrument the Maraca in the background just to give the song a bit of a musical background, which worked well, however if I was to write a country song again I would experiment more widely with different instruments.

Overall I felt the final performance went well and I was happy with the lyrics to the song I wrote, but I could improve on my vocals, presently I am partaking in singing lessons with Val Reid to improve .

Lyrics- The Single Man Saloon

Verse 1 

On this cold night in December
In the light of the full moon
I make my way on over
To the single man`s saloon

Verse 2

I enter through the rear door
As i`ve got a touch of class
The cowboy's they all know me
And they know i'm bold as brass

Verse 3

So I make my way  over
In the hazy smoky cloud
Everyone is chatting
And the music's playing loud

Bridge

As i'm sitting in the corner
I see him standing at the bar
And I wonder who he`s meeting
If it's anyone at all

Chorus

So I take a slow walk over
And I hold my head up high
I want to go and greet him
But I can't i'm far too shy

Repeat Chorus to Fade

So I take a slow walk over
And I hold my head up high
I want to go and greet him
But I can't i'm far too shy.

Writing my song

Writing the lyrics to my song to change the technique I have repeatedly used in the past by writing lyrics based on my own experiences, I decided to use fictional based lyrics and write the song from my imagination, setting the scene in my head using my imagination of a country style Saloon was the focal point i used, i used a notepad and wrote down meaningful words that i associated to the scene eg: hazy, smokey and moonlight i then built up my lyrics by adding these words to start the first verse of my song.

Structure

Deciding a structure for my own song i looked at a few of country artist Patsy Clines songs and the structure that appealed to me the most was the structure of the lyrics in her hit song " Crazy"( Patsy Cline).

The whole song consists of three verses with three lines of the last verse repeated to a faded out ending after listening to "Crazy" i worked the structure to my own song .

The structure I used for my song was verse, verse, verse, bridge , chorus which I repeated the last three lines of to fade the ending of the song.

The assessment

For my individual assessment, After researching various Genres of music styles, I decided for my song I was going to challenge myself by pushing myself out of my comfort zone to write a country style song,To help me write a country song i researched country artists Dolly Parton and Patsy Cline and looked at the themes and the structure of their songs, knowing this would give me an idea as to how to structure and choose a theme for my own song,After researching these artists it was apparent both artists base their songs around love themes which inspired me to do the same for my own song.