Week 4 - Party Hard but Work Harder

Hello! Thank you for checking back again to see what I’ve been up to! To be honest, I’ve been very stressed, it feels like weeks are flying by and deadlines are soon approaching, but all of the work will be worth it in the end.

It was one of my flatmates’ birthday so we did some partying and chilling, and I was a bit poorly again unfortunately, but it was only really a day thing which was good.

Cute little personal pics from the week:

Songwriting - My Own Artistry

I spent quite a bit of this week focusing on my songwriting - it’s one of the things which I love doing the most (apart from marketing and producing content), any spare moment I have I’ll be sat on logic or ableton, producing something or trying to come up with lyrics. Songwriting and performing was the original reason I chose to do this course, but it’s brought me so much since then.

I dug out some old songs and recorded some bits when I went into the studio on my own, I’ll put them in the demo page here. They were called ‘Lonely to Say the Least’ and ‘London’ A few of them still need to be completed and they all need to be properly produced.

Me and Merryn started to write a song last week called Sweet Tooth. We collaborated on the first verse, pre-chorus and chorus, and then I went off and wrote the second verse and pre-chorus myself and showed it to Merryn, to get feedback and she approved so I was happy.

I do have to say I love working with Merryn cus I feel like we bounce off each other really well, and we can be really honest with each other, she knows where I struggle and really helps, anything she needs help with I will always be more than willing to help with. We love collaboration.

I finished writing and recorded a rough vocal track for ‘Afterthought’ which I need to properly record and produce in the studio. I wrote basically the entire song by myself, Merryn helped to bounce ideas for one line, but I’m super proud of it all.

I had to write a lot of different pages of lyrics, and lyric ideas in order to get the lyrics for ‘Afterthought’ and I sat on it for a bit as well, kept coming back to it, but I’m very happy with how it ended up.

I also did some more lyric writing this week. I finished writing lyrics to ‘Overload’ and uploaded them onto the lyrics page here, as well as the full lyrics to ‘Afterthought’, and a melody, it’s pretty much done apart from probably a vocal re-record and some production.

I also pretty much finished ‘House Party 44’, which is now available over on the demo page, this also needs a bit of a re-record, and a little bit more production but I want to keep it quite simple production wise, so expect it to be out asap.

The first proper song is on it’s way though and it won’t be long! So please hold tight, thanks so much for sticking with me.

I do also still need to take pictures, I know the aesthetic I want, it’s just gone to the bottom of my to-do list as it’s under many many more important items and it can be hard to prioritise. I’ve posted two on my Instagram, which I’ve inserted, but there are more to come very soon.

I also literally spent a whole day songwriting on my own over the weekend. I find that even if songwriting sometimes feels like a struggle, and it can feel like a massive mind-field when you’re writing and producing on your own, it’s worth it to keep going because some things will flow naturally, some things will take time, but you’ll then have a wide repertoire of things that you can work on. Also, over time it will become easier and easier, and just by the law of averages, the more you have the better chances you have of at least one of them being really really good.

Rehearsals

Unfortunately February often means illness, and my pianist was super ill this week and had to go home, so we couldn’t rehearse with her and show her the new song, ‘Sweet Tooth’. However, I did teach it to everyone else. It was a bit harder to get a few times because there’s unusual timing for the chorus, but after a few practices of everyone, it’ll be good. We also went over the songs that we already have which is the cover of ‘Bags’ and ‘In My Feels’. I also still need to decide on a second cover, I’m currently thinking either ‘Pumped Up Kicks’, ‘Don’t Start Now’ or 'Mercy'.

I also need to have a play around with Ableton and add some samples so that I can trigger sounds during the performance and interact with it a bit more, because I have an image for what I want the performance to look like I just need to concentrate on it more so that it turns out exactly how I want it.

ALLORA

We finally got to do the shoot for their EP cover at the lovely Kayleigh's house, the pictures looked super good on the camera and everyone was really happy! I don’t want to give too much away about what the single is called, or what the album cover is like as this might be part of the promotional strategy later on - who knows? You’ll have to keep up to date on all of our social accounts to find out.

I also did some more work for them which they asked me to do, such as creating a posting schedule for them, the release date of their new single, and what we are going to be doing, releasing and posting in the weeks leading up to them. I then emailed this to them, and organised a date for the following tuesday to start filming (wonder what this could be? Hmm. Maybe follow @Allora.band on instagram to find out?)

Things are happening though, I’m very excited (as always!), but there’s still a very long way to go yet, but there is lots going on behind the scenes.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Make sure to check back again next week for the next installment.