Week 10 - Time moving so slowly

Hello everyone!

I hope you’re all safe and well, and you’re coping okay with lockdown.

It’s been a relatively slow week this week. I’m finding it quite hard to adjust to coronavirus and lockdown, but I also want to get on and use this time as best as I can to write, record, produce and catch up on work. We’ve been given extensions for uni work too which does help to take the pressure off, but it's so weird working from home and trying to write every day, but it's so hard to be creative when your immediate environment is always the same. I’m such an outdoors person, doing stuff kind of person, so lockdown is hard for me, but it’s more important to stay indoors and stay safe to protect your life and everyone else's. There’s lots of stuff I want to do in the next few weeks especially with my social media accounts, something similar to what Nina Nesbitt is up to, she’s writing songs (or half of a song) almost every day and uploading them, which I’m loving and want to give it a go, as well as those videos of people making songs and beats from objects in their house. Might give some of those a go! I’ve not had much to post recently because not much is going on really.

Here's a little pic from our permitted walk:

Performance

I thought I’d start off with performance this week as this section is going to be very different from what it was before.

As all uni buildings have closed, so have the rehearsal spaces, and with the social distancing measures there are no more rehearsals. Luckily we had four out of the five songs pretty much down, but we’ve got to change our performance strategy now due to not being able to do a live performance. I’ve been trying to think of creative ways to include stagecraft into my performance, as it's a massive strength of mine so I want to incorporate that as best as I can, as I’m doing a split screen video with all my band members. At this moment in time I’m thinking of representing my stage craft through my facial expressions and funny stage craft in the video with placements and little segments. I don’t want to give too much away but I described it as a mix between a comedy tent and a music tent at a festival to my tutor…. So watch out.

At this moment in time I’m trying to focus on getting everyone’s parts and videos in as that is the main thing, I want the musical elements to be the best they can be. I’ve recorded my guide parts of a guide piano and guide vocal for each song and uploaded them to a drive for my fellow band members to add their parts to, it’s just so different having to direct band members over the internet rather than being there, and getting all the parts in separately, it’s very different to a normal performance environment but we’re trying to work with what we’ve got in this current climate.

ALLORA

It’s been a while since I’ve met up with ALLORA, obviously due to the current climate, however, I did send them a list of marketing ideas when we first started working together, so there’s ideas there for them to work with too which can easily be adapted for coronavirus/lockdown. Also, we’ve obviously haven’t been in as close contact as were before as we can’t create anything new but I am planning on sending them a “coronavirus marketing pack” with new ideas and timelines as well as a pack with marketing ideas and resources for after I move out of Leeds and home to London.

I do still have content to create for them too as there’s more videos to come out so keep an eye on the ALLORA section here.

Songwriting/My Own Artist Section

My songwriting and own artistry is something I want to really focus on during this time as well as my social media accounts and content. I am worried though as there’s not a lot going on so there’s not much to post, but I am trying to keep up with it and create content for you all - similar to Nina Nesbitt's as I mentioned earlier. It’s also a great excuse to start working on my songwriting again. However, I know it’s going to be slightly harder for me to record and write because I like going to the coach house at uni, it just helps to separate things and I often get anxious about other people hearing me, considering I sing quite loudly it’s a big possibility, but it’s something I need to deal with.

I’ve been really into Clairo recently, especially as I’m also going for the ‘bedroom-pop’ vibe, so I thought I’d take some inspiration from her. Her songs are quite emotion-driven too which is something I can get on board with as I’m quite and emotional and empathetic person, I do also like a bit of cheek and wit so I’ve been listening to a lot of Lily Allen as well as getting back into Marina.

I wrote a song called “In Your Company” which was greatly inspired by “Come On Then” by Lily Allen. I love this song, it has her classic wit in it, but really resonates with me and what I’ve been through, so I thought I’d try and write one myself. The lyrics are on the lyrics page here, and I’ve uploaded a rough demo to the demo page here, but I still to have a play around with it as there’s a lot of melody ideas going on. I also started writing a song called “my favourite almost” which is also in the lyric page here and the demo page here. I’m thinking of having a play around with loops next week as this is how Clairo wrote ‘flaming hot cheetos’ which I love.

I do need focus a lot on the production now as well, and carrying things on. I’ve got a list in my phone of all the songs I like that I’ve written and want to develop further, which I am aiming to do over the next few weeks as well as write more songs. I heard something a while ago which I think was advice that Jess Glynne was given, it went something like “you need to write a hundred songs to discover who you are as a songwriter”, as well as another quote I read somewhere once, which was: “the songs that get released and go on albums are the only songs that artists write, they’re their best songs” and that’s something I’m doing, just writing as many songs as I can and hopefully there will be a few gems.

I do also need to take some pics too and post them, I’m gonna try and do this really soon, I just keep putting it off and putting it to the bottom of my priority list, but I need to do it. I’m also waking up everyday and staying in comfy clothes so I don’t feel like doing it but I should and I will.

That’s all for now!

There’ll be a little easter catch up on the next blog post so it might be a bit longer than before, watch out for it.

Thanks for reading, check back soon as much more is coming!

Stay at home and stay safe xx