Week 9 - LOCKDOWN.

Hello! Welcome back! So, this week has been INSANE. The whole country went into lockdown on Monday - which I think has been a long time coming. I’m not made to be in lockdown, but it’s for the safety of everyone in the country so I’m more than happy to comply. This also means I have more time to do work. However, the lockdown obviously now means that all university buildings have been shut, so all of the facilities you could imagine we might need for a music performance and production degree have been taken away. So yes, we get more time, but it makes life a little harder. I’m also the type of the person that likes to write and record away from home quite often, so it’s gotten a little more challenging, but we can do it!

The situation is getting very serious though, so please everyone stay safe, stay inside as much as you can, and stay in contact with loved ones as much as you can.

Here's a pretty picture of the moon from my bedroom window this week to keep you all going:

ALLORA

Obviously, the lockdown situation has meant that I can’t have anymore meetings with ALLORA for the time being, and that the band members have gone home, which has kind of put a hold on the work I’m doing with them - to a degree. I’m planning on starting a revised marketing plan for them next week, in terms of what they can do whilst in lockdown, and whether any release dates will be moved, etc. I’m going to give them options so that they can decide what they want to do, and what works best for them given the current situation. This is when social media communication comes in handy.

However, I’ve finished cutting and serious-editing (as I’m now calling it) Caty’s interview, I’m going to finish meme editing on Monday, with hopefully finishing the promotional video on Tuesday, ready to go out on Thursday or Friday.

It’s strange, I’m still thinking about “the best time to post” and “posting schedules”, which obviously is still applicable to a certain degree, however, quite a lot of it is based around your audience, and their weekly routine, which has not effectively gone straight out the window, for the most part. Some of the people that are working are working from home, so won’t be on social media much from 9-5, but there isn’t much commuting time, and the key workers that are working, generally, the pattern isn’t as regular as it might be. This just means I need to keep an eye on my insights a bit more, and see how they’re changing.

Songwriting/Personal Artistry.

Spending all day inside means that all I want to do is write and record, so I’ve been doing more songwriting than I had the previous few weeks, but I still need to find my best songwriting method. Obviously it’s not going to be the same each time, but I think I was actually more confident with it and more effective at it last year. I listened back to my song ‘Fool’ from last year, and I really liked it. I think I spend too much time being concerned about the key, the chord progression and the production when I’m writing, and I need to sit at a piano, write a song, and then add all the bells and whistles on top later. Although, sometimes that is the best way to write for me, I think I’m also feeling very pressured, and uninspired, so it’s a little bit of a mental block at the moment. Also, I feel like I’m not listening to music as much as I have done the past few years when I’ve been writing, which doesn’t help.

Although, this week I focused on trying to write a bedroom pop/Clairo-esque song (which came with almost buying a Fender Stratocaster - which may still happen, I’m very tempted). I was particularly inspired by her early work this week though, such as ‘4ever’, ‘Hello?’ and ‘Pretty Girl’, although her album is sick, 10/10, would recommend. It went okay, I’ve gotten a few half-songs out of it, which I need to keep working on.

I rediscovered Lily Allen’s ‘No Shame’ album again, which is an absolute masterpiece. I love it. I realised that I only listened to ‘Come On Then’ once, and I love it. I love it. Everything about it. The lyrics really resonate with me, and something personal I’ve been through quite recently, so I tried to write a song quite heavily inspired by this. The lyrics are currently on the lyric page here, the song is called ‘In Your Company’. I’ll put a preview of it on the demo page next week, as I’m not quite sure about the top-line melody.

Since I’ve been spending more time writing songs, I’ve realised that top-line writing really is not my favourite. I think it’s like every part of songwriting though, sometimes it comes quite freely, and sometimes I really struggle. I have noticed, though, that I struggle with melody writing more when I already have lyrics, which isn’t effective as I love writing lyrics, I do it all the time, but I think melody and lyrics kind of need to come together.

This week I realised that I don’t have the drum beat to ‘Feeling Alright’ that we wrote in the overnight session. I wrote the drum beat on Ableton Live and Pus, then exported it as a wav, which I then put in Logic. But when I went into uni to get the files last week, I didn’t get the wav or the Ableton file, mainly because I didn’t really think I needed it so it didn’t pop into my mind, and with all university buildings closing, I now can’t get it. It’s not the worst thing in the world though, it’s quite easy to fix, I just hope I can roughly remember the rhythm as I really liked that drum beat.

Obviously, I still need to focus on the production side of things too, I might dedicate Wednesday for Thursday next week to that, and get as much done as I can, so I can start focusing on writing and producing new songs, without old ones hanging over my head. I’m not aiming for them to be perfect, I’m going for the bedroom-pop/DIY aesthetic anyway.

Here are some time-lapses for you all. The first one is from trying to record the rest of 'Feeling Alright', and the second one is me trying to finish 'Don't Go', which is one of the songs that was inspired by Clairo:

Performance

As all university buildings have closed and lockdown has been initiated, the performance aspect of these blog posts are going to change quite drastically. My performance assignment has changed quite a bit, so I’ve been rethinking what I can do, in order to show off my stagecraft and communication skills - as these are my strongest when performing live. I’m thinking of making a prerecorded video which involves these aspects, as the idea of a live stream has pretty much gone out the window, and I’m actually quite excited - very daunted, but also excited.

I am also trying to get videos from my band members of them playing each of their parts, but some are being more responsive than others. This also means that I need to do base tracks for each song so that each band member has something to play along to in the best and most logistical way possible. Hopefully this shouldn’t take too long, and hopefully it works okay!

I've been loving what Nina Nesbitt is posting on instagram at the moment. Incase you haven't seen, she's been doing a lot off different music production and writing during lockdown, which she's been posting on there. It's been almost every day, and some are really funny. This is something I really want to get into next week, so watch this space and follow my instagram @sabsmusic_.

That’s it for now, thanks for checking in again. Come back next week and see if I’ve bought that Stratocaster (it’s quite likely that will have happened - but no spoilers).

Stay safe everyone, and stay indoors as much as you can - obviously apart from your one government approved exercise of the day and going to get the essentials, or work if you’re a key worker (we love you, we support you, and we thank you for all your hard work!)

Speak soon,

Sabrina