E.P. Project Write up !

Hip-Hop Song Write up !

Original Idea!
So for my first E.P. Song I decided to make a track in a completely different genre which im used to
making. Putting me out of my comfort zone and seeing how well i performed in making this track. I
knew little about making this genre of music and thought that by starting a track for the E.P. project
in this style i would learn a lot more about this genre and what works and what doesnt. Maybe if it
went well i could implant this style of music into my other tracks. !

So I began to make the song and came up with a chord progression which was pretty simple and
catchy. You can see this chord progression in the screenshot below. As you can see the
progression starts on the D chord then moves to an F and then to an A. A rather simple but
effective progression which this track is based around. These chords start off the track and are
played by a Violin which has been run through and arpeggio. This section of the track is called the
Introduction and runs from bars 1 to 17, you can tell this through the use of automation and
variation added to the track to lead into the chorus section.!

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I found this chord progression to be catchy but maybe slightly repetitive and i could of added more
variation to it instead of relying on the melodies to variate the song. I used this chord progression
as it gave the song a more uplifting and happy vibe, i could of used some minor chords to make
the song a bit more serious and change the tone of the song. !

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I also choose this chord progression bc i had some ideas for melodies before i made the
progression so i wanted to make it around the melodies so that everything went and no clashes
and everything in the song was musically correct.I used plug-ins and other techniques to vary the
chord progression so it wasn't so repetitive and this worked to a point, i did vary the rest of the
song but the choruses are very similar which could be viewed as a negative point but i liked to add
more variations in the verses/Bridge parts of the song which are later on in the track. The chord
progression below was the original idea that i had and i wanted to expand on it by adding melodies
and creating instruments and generally producing the track to see what i would make in the end. I
thought that the layout and structure of the song was good as i took influence from many popular
pop songs with the two choruses, a bridge, then final chorus. The only thing i slightly altered was
having 1 long verse instead of 2 verses i thought this worked well as in that one verse the build up
was very sufficient and progressed the song on well i think adding an extra verse may have
dragged the song on too long, its length being around the 4 minute mark already i thought that this
was adequate timing.!

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Introduction!
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Before the chorus however there are

a few build up techniques i used to
add to the suspense of the track
which are. I added a part of the
drum beat which includes the kick
and clap in these drum patterns
shown below. Also There is a rising
synth which is added which has an
automated lowpass filter applied to it
so that it acts as a riser to build up
momentum going into the first
chorus. The kicks have short
intervals between them as i wanted
the kicks to be clear and punchy to
then lead into the chorus were more
percussion is added, The kick is one
of the main elements to this songs
and drives the song through most of
the different sections so i decide to
add it into the introduction but not to
have it too complex as in other parts
of the song it is heavily varied
compared to the kick pattern used in
this section of the song. The Clap on
the other hand isn't really varied and
is there to add another layer to the
song. I did this as the Kick drum is
very low on the frequency range
around the 100Hz mark so i needed
another drum part which was of a
higher frequency. I could have
choose Hi-hats in this section but i
found the claps to be much more !
effective.!

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Kick

Clap

Rising
Synth

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Choruses!
The choruses are the most busiest part of the
song as like in most songs but different to the
introduction it contains various other
instruments and melodies which drive the
choruses and keep the listener entertained.
This melody starts on
the note C then goes to
a B and then an A. The
second part of the
melody goes higher to
add variation and adds
to that uplifting feel of
the track this is done by
adding an F to the start
of the melody. !

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The Drum beat, like i said earlier, the drum beat varies a lot moving from just a simple kick and
clap beat to a more complex beat which contains Shakers, Hi-Hats and a Snare drum. However
theres lots of change to the beat but the kick pattern is fairly similar still keeping that short interval
between 2 of the notes however adding a third kick to almost transition into the next loop of the
drum beat. The Clap and Snare are ordered until the end of the loop were they follow the same
style of transition. The Hi Hats are varied between 2 hits and 3 and also there is a shaker towards
the end of every loop. Also in the chorus there are more instruments added to the chord
progressions and melodies which are pianos, Blip synths, Saws and other atmospheric
synthesisers. Some of theses are ran through an arpeggiator. The 2 Choruses ranged from bar 17
to 33, 67 to 83 and 99 to 115.!

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Verses & Bridge!

The bridge section in this song is the
main part where all the build up
happens the instruments are
stripped down to bare basics and
then added in one by one to then
transition into the final chorus. The
main segment which differentiates
this section of the song is the
electric guitar i used which starts on
an A goes to an E then to a F and
finishes on another E but in a higher
octave as seen below. Also i used
and arpeggiator in many parts of the
song in particular the bridge to vary
the melodies up so that it didn't get
to repetitive here were some of the
settings as you can see from the
right. The brigade spans over bars
83 to 99 and gradually adds
momentum as it goes along id did
this by filtering out a snare roll and
then automating it so that it almost
acts as a riser into the next sections of the song. I used this !
technique at the end of the bridge and over!
other sections of the song.!

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Skirmish - E.P. Song 2!
Original Idea!
So in this E.P. song i tried to do something a little bit more towards the genre of music i make
which is cinematic/film music and i created this dark track which is centred around this one chord
progression which starts on a continuos E note and then alternates between the notes B, G and
another E in a lower octave. You can see this chord progression in the screenshot below. These
chords start off the track and are played by piano which has various effects on it such as reverb to
give it that open effect. I found this chord progression to work well and i could of added more
variation to it by adding all the various melodies played by the other pianos, violins and other
synths. I used this chord progression as it gave the song a more dark and gloomy feel. I decided
not to add a third note as it took away to the dark feel to the song and brightened the piano which i
didn't really want, i relied on the melodies to mainly progress the track. !
The melodies i made were fairly simple but i focused more on the actual instrumentation of the
track and decided what synths to add to give the track that electronic edge and then what
orchestral pieces to add to the track to give it that cinematic feel in the end i chose a violin coupled
up with Saws and pads. I also again used the technique of using an arpeggiator but this time in a
different effect using the plug in to create arpeggios in a higher octave which alternates from the
current octave in which the midi file is and then you can programme it to your chosen octaves.!

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Bass Notes

Main Melody

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Introduction !
This part of the song is called the Intro and runs
from bars 1 to 17 which if you remember rightly
was also the same introduction structure as the
last song. I used the same layout as it worked well
in the first song and it seemed like a successful
formulae so i decided to keep it. Before the chorus
however there are a few build up techniques i
used to add to the suspense of the track which
are. Introducing new melodies which are also part
of the chorus one at a time so that the track gains
momentum and there is always something new
being added throughout the track. !

At the very start of the track you here the chord

progression as well as a melody together which is
shortly accompanied by another piano which has
been run through an arpeggiator. I could have
added all the piano parts at once but i decided to add them most of them individually so that the
song is more layered and so that you can clearly hear the songs progression through the
introduction, choruses,verses and bridges. You can see this in the image below, and as well as that
there is a drum fill just before the chorus to give the chorus that punchy transition to make it
obvious that more things are going to be added such as the drums. I developed the original idea by
adding this introduction structure as i was then able to create melodies around the original notes of
the progression. In the introduction you can see my ideas progress just in the opening 17 bars. I
didn't have any problems developing this idea as i had plenty of tools at my disposal, i used a
keyboard to figure the melodies and use the arpeggiator as previously mentioned to manipulate
them which gave the introduction another layer before the chorus hit with all the other instruments
which then varied the track even more. The suspense in this area of the track is definitely one of
the best introductions i had made in this E.P. project because as the chorus hits it adds another
element to the song as a whole. !

Choruses!
The choruses in this particular
song start at bars 17 to 41 and
77 to 93. This is a significant
change to my pervious E.P. track
as it has a far longer first chorus
and the overall structure after the
chorus is vastly different. In total
before the chorus hits there are 4
channels actively playing where
as there are 14 channels that
make up the chorus. !

Some of these channels are

added gradually into the song
using one of the techniques i was
talking about earlier which helps
with the progression and drive of
the track. You dont want your
listener sitting listening bored as
nothing much has happened in
your long chorus so i decided to
use as technique i commonly use
in most introductions or verses
and applied it to the chorus which
i think turned out very well as
every few bars something new is
added and the chorus isn't
ridiculously long its around about
double to triple the length of a
normal chorus so i was able to
apply this technique with no
problems. !

However even though this

technique works well if i had used
it for a second time it would have
made the track sound boring and
predictable so in the second chorus i made it shorter and
i made it so all of the elements of the chorus were played
from the very start which definitely is not what you
expect when listening through the song. I think this
formulae works well as is it follows the rules of never
have the same structure twice, a lot of common dance
songs do not follow this technique and therefore become
boring and repetitive so i didn't want my cinematic piece
to become like that so i decided to change the second
chorus so that it was different from the first. !

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Verse

Verses & Bridge!

In this track again i stuck to the original
structure of the first song as it seemed to
be successful by only having 1 verse but
making it longer to build up momentum
going into the final chorus. Different
elements are added in and taken away
such as. Only 1 piano stays which is the
main progression but he other pianos are
eventually added in later, the main synths
but some of them are removed such as the
saw synth and also the drums and some of
the violins are taken out of the equation
and are added in later in the verse to add
tension. !

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The bridge section in this song is

the main part where all the build
up happens the instruments are
stripped down to bare basics and
then added in one by one to then
transition into the final chorus. in
both the bridge and verse there
is a section of drum rolls which
are a variation to the normal
drums which can get a bit
repetitive playing over and over
so i varied them like I did with
most of the instruments in this
track.!

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Bridge

House Lupus & Bumfluff - E.P. Song 3!

Original Idea!
So for my third E.P. Song I decided to make an experimental track using samples from one of my
favourite television shows house. This Put me out of my comfort zone as i had to find samples on
youtube and the box sets and cut them up into little snippets to be used in the track i had to isolate
the speech and try my best to take out things like background noise and music. I had never done
anything like this before so i didn't have much experience in making this genre of music and i
thought that i would learn a lot more about this genre and what works and what doesnt.!

So I started to make the song and came up with a chord progression which worked. You can see
this chord progression in the screenshot below. As you can see the progression starts on an A then
moves to an G and then to a D. A rather simple but effective progression which was themed
around the theme music of the programme house These chords start off the track and are played
by a piano. This section of the track is called the Introduction and runs from bars 1 to 19, daily
similar to the last set of songs which had short introductions but slightly different in that its 2 bars
longer.!

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Like the first song I found this chord progression to be catchy but repetitive and i could of added
more variation to it instead of relying on the melodies to variate the song. I used this progression to
have somewhat of a representation of the programme but bc the House theme is in a different
genre the progression maybe didn't fit as well as i had hoped. I also choose this chord progression
bc i had some ideas for melodies before i made the progression so i wanted to make it around the
melodies so that everything went and no clashes and everything in the song was musically correct.!

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I thought that the layout and structure of the song was good as i took influence from many popular
pop songs with the two choruses, a bridge, then final chorus. The only thing i slightly altered was
having 1 long verse instead of 2 verses i thought this worked well as in that one verse the build up
was very sufficient and progressed the song on well.!

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Introduction !

In this songs introductions its sticking to the structure idea of having a

short introduction and also again it uses a technique of building up
the song before the chorus by thee addition of extra melodies and
instruments. In this case however there are some speech clips from
the TV show House which are being used to also help with this build
up in the chorus as they start to be used around the 9 bar mark in the
19 bar long introduction. However there are no drums in this part of
the song which is something i built up in the last song. !

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I believe that my improvements on my original progression are seen

mostly in the introduction as you can clearly hear the melodies that go
well with the progression played by the synths and violin. !
I first recorded them in via a keyboard seeing what notes worked and
didn't work and then i started to play around with the notes that did
work by putting them in a sequence. Then i began to sort out octaves
to put them in so that the song had some sort of dynamics to it. The
Melodies in this song are based around the original idea and vary
between the notes A,D and E. This can be seen in the image below. !

The arrangement of the introduction can also be seen to the right, in

this particular song as it is in the dance genre the suspense and
momentum of the track in my opinion needed to be well emphasised.
I attempted to do this with the addition of synth in the introduction with
synths that sound like they should be in the TV Show. This worked
well and i was pleasantly surprised by the build up working well as !
without the drums i original didn't think it would work but i tried
experimenting with my original techniques and found a way in which it !
worked !

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Choruses!
The choruses in this particular song start at bars 19
to 49 and 95 to 131. This is a significant change to
all of the other EP tracks as this track due to the
genres nature has a higher tempo around the
180BPM mark. This track has far longer choruses
and some of these channels are added gradually
into the song using one of the techniques i was
talking about earlier which helps with the
progression and drive of the track. !

In the pictures at the bottom you can see my drum

patterns and you can see how ive adopted them to
fit into this genre of music and how different they
are from my previous patters. For instance the HiHats are much more frequent in this track as it is
somewhat drum and bass influenced which
requires a higher tempo and generally more HiHats and kicks etc. The Snare is set in the style of
a simple beat and it hits on the 2 and 4th beat of
every bar. The drum pattern to the right is the kick
and is in a very similar style to the sabre drum but
is on the the 1st and half way into the 3rd beat
creating a nice sounding drum and bass pattern.!

Finally The vocals still continue in the chorus

section and are used to populate the chorus and
keep it entertaining and avoid it from getting boring
so i used a wide array of samples from the show to
help with that. !

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Verses & Bridge!
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in This track i thought as it is an experimental song that i could also experiment with the structure
of the song so what i ended up doing was this. I made the verse section very long but inserted a
drop type section instead of a bridge which lead tho the final chorus of the song and then there
was a brief outr and then it ended. Different elements were added in and taken away such as. I
decided to do this as a lot of songs in the drum and bass genre have different structures and
layouts therefore i decided to try this and in my opinion it worked because of the comical sample i
inserted in the drop which filled out the empty space.

Verse