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This is the final week of my genius hour project and have been fine tuning my song to reach its highest potential. I have memorized the song, but o work on this playing it perfectly is another thing. I have practiced it a lot, but I haven't been able to get it exactly how I want it. It's been a struggle to figure out and still be able to keep it how I want it. Another struggle I have had to juggle is being able to work on my project with the other things I have to do. People have been what has helped me to complete this project and get me to where I am today.
To me a song is just a poem. Usually poems contain a secret meaning behind them. My song’s meaning, is just about the joys in life. I know that sounds a little generic, but when I decided to change my project around week four I instantly knew what I wanted my songs meaning to be. I wanted to just show the world some, joy an add something good to it. With everything that’s going on in the world these days, a little piece and joy is a good thing. I hope my song will inspire younger musicians to write there very own song, so they can also bring something else onto this world just like me. People are the only reason that I have been able to make it this far. My Dad has really helped me with keeping my confidence up when I didn’t have anything I could think of to put into this project. The people I worked with on Wednesdays on the day we get this project at school have listened to my song and helped me have outside opinions. The last thanks I want to give is to my guitar teacher, Mr. Kipp Snow of Counter Point music. He gave me a lot of ideas for this project and helped me put them together to form a song.. People really are the greatest resource.
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This week on my genius hour project a lot of my steps for writing my song are done. I have even come up with a name for my song. It took me a lot of thinking, and thirty minutes on google to make sure it wasn’t already taken, but the name of my song is, Stargazing Bears. Now you might be wondering how I came up with this name. Well the answer to that is, I liked to look at stars when I was a kid, so I thought Stargazing would be a cool title or part of a title. As for the bear part I just named animals in my head and put stargazing before them.
Coming up with the song name was probably the hardest challenge I faced in the whole eleven weeks of talking about this project. The time it took me to come up with my song title showed me how the world kinda works. If something is yours you claim it, so no one else can take it. That was the biggest trouble I had with this. I had a lot of other ideas, but they were already taken so I couldn’t use them. Stargazing Bears might seem kind of like a weird name for a song, but it’s still the name I want my song to have. Other people have inspired me with other names, but the name I chose for myself was “Stargazing Bears.” The back story I’m going to use with my song name is that the bear is a spirit from the stars. It starts off with a bear whose mother was killed by hunters and that night he saw lights in the sky. Then he saw his mother amongst the stars. I thought of this because, I liked to watch this movie called “Brother Bear” when I was a kid. The Indians have folklore about how they have spirit animals and when they die they become a spirit so I just found that cool and it inspired me to work it into my song. This week on my genius hour project, my song is almost completely done. The deadline for this project is getting really close, but I should be able to finish this project by the deadline. I wish for my song to be heard by all kinds of people. To do this I will need to have a full band to play this song with me. Now I play with people at church so I might ask them if they would play with me. Since we have a base player in the band I would have to change up a few chords, but that is not that hard to do if you understand music.
I want to take a moment to thank all the people that have helped me get to where I am with this project. It has changed since the time I had started this project. When I started this project I was planning on learning four new songs. It fascinates me how much I have learned. Talking to the people around me changed how I hope to affect the world with my project. Instead of me learning songs countless others have learned, I can bring something new to the table with my song. Great artists have made countless songs that people listen to all the time. So what makes my song different than all the rest? Now, I have done what all song writers have done, take time and find inspiration to write their song. My inspiration is the people around me. People I have grown to know have helped me through this process of writing a song. Whenever I feel down and can’t come up with anything I turn to those people tp inspire me to rise above what I think I’m capable of. This week on my genius hour project I got a lot of work done and I think i'm getting really close to finishing up my song. I still have to write a little bit more of it, but I have finished a lot of it. I’m going to try and add a second bridge and work a little bit more with my chorus. I haven’t decided on how long my song is going to be, but I want to make it at least three minutes long. As I have said before in previous posts, this song is going to be all instrumental. I think it's going to sound really cool. My end goal of this project is I might try to do a video with other musicians I know, and play it together.
This Monday with my guitar teacher I got some really cool advice. So what I did was I played what I had written for him and he said I was doing good. He showed me some changes to how I was playing some of my notes, but making it the same sound. This made it sound better and it plays a lot smoother. This experience of writing my own song has given me a chance to explore possibilities that I probably never would have done on my own. I’m really excited. This Wednesday on my genius hour day I got to get more practice in on my song. I believe having lots of people around me criticizing me on what I could do helped me make a better song. Great bands like The Eagles or Lynyrd Skynyrd didn’t just make a good song in a day. It takes time and effort to create a song that will be loved by everyone. This is my dream with this genius hour project is to do that. This week on my genius hour project I was able to get a lot done. I was able to write and finish the base core of my song. From here on out it's smooth sailing with this song, I hope. I have decided that for my song is going to be an instrumental. What this means is that my song will not have any lyrics, just music. I think these are cool because, there’s no lyrics to interrupt and it has a cool flow. I’m not sure if I want to write chords for the base and try to make a music video where I have a band playing with me or not. That would be fun though.
I have memorized what I have written so far for the chorus. I have also started working on some of the bridge of my song and trying to find what I want that to sound like. I’m writing my song with the acoustic guitar as the main instrument but, i’m not sure if I want to add others in or not. I know mostly every song has more than one instrument but, I want to try and see if I can do it on my own first. I really have enjoyed this project because, it lets me branch out and do something I never thought about doing, which is writing my own song. I tried this in the past but, not in as much detail as this project is letting me do. This Monday with my guitar teacher, Kip Snow, I was able to explore more into my song. He helped me try and find a melody or tune for my song. I still haven’t found it yet but, this process takes time. Today I went to church and practiced with my youth band and I told our youth leader about how i’m writing a song for a project for school. He asked me to play it for him, so I did. He helped me a lot after I got finished. He pointed stuff out me, to help me improve my song and my guitar skills. Specifically he told me I needed to make a note clearer and showed me different ways to strum the chord. This helped me get my song in better working order. This week on my Genius hour project I had a rough time finding time to practice and get stuff done. It’s been a busy week and I haven’t been able to time it right, but I have still been able to get a few things done. When I have had free time I listen to different kinds of music so I can continue exploring the world of music and song writing. Writing a song has been more difficult to do because, I haven’t been able to come up with a core or purpose of my song. Almost every song in the world has a purpose or reason for why it was written.
This Monday I was not able to meet up with my guitar teacher so I had to take things into my own hands. I practiced a little bit and experimented more on different songs and played different little toons to help fine tune my skills. Knowing how to play music from all different kinds of genres can help you be a better guitarist in my opinion. This helps you get an idea of what you want to do. So that's how I’ve been trying to write my song and make it how I want to. There are limitless options when it comes to writing a song. It’s just been more difficult than I thought it would. This Wednesday on my Genius hour day at school I wasn’t able to practice very much at all. Circumstances prevented me from having a space at school where I can work while not bothering the people around me. Right now I’m feeling a little frustrated by a lack of time to do the project. T knew there would be a few speed bumps when I started this project, but it's been tougher than I expected. All I can do is push through it and keep working as hard as I can. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish my song by the time it is due. This week on my Genius hour project I worked more on the song that I’m writing. I don’t have a name or lyrics for it because, to me coming up with lyrics is harder than writing the actual music for the song. I have been thinking about making my song with just music and no lyrics in it. Some cool songs don’t have music, like the Metallica will have songs that have no words. I like those kind of songs because, sometimes words interrupt the flow of your song, but if you just have music it's just a straight beat of chords without stopping.
This Monday with my guitar teacher we talked about the rate on how i’m writing my song. What i’m trying to do is learn each piece of my song that I write then start writing the next part of it. One thing i’m thinking about doing is to collaborate with another guitarist I know. At church I play with the youth band and our youth leader, is a really good guitarist. I might start working with him on writing my song because, I think the more people that are giving you feedback the better song you can write. This Wednesday on my Genius hour time at school I started experimenting with other songs. I put bits and pieces of different songs together and tried to play it. With a few tweaks to it so I can get different sounds and figure out what I haven’t figured out what my song is going to be about but, it takes time to write anything. Like a book it takes time and effort. A song is just like books, because songs are just poetry with music. This week on my genius hour project I looked deeper into songwriting and have already started writing some of my song. I have been looking on the internet for tips on how I can start writing a good song. One of the tips I read was that if you get blocked and can’t come up with anything you should consult other songwriters. So what I like to do is go on youtube or Ultimate guitar lyrics to play along with people singing their song which helps me find the pattern of how I want my song to sound.
This monday with my guitar teacher is where I got some of the song started. I told him the ideas that I had come up with for my song and how I wanted it to sound. He helped me find the right chords to my song. So, as of right now I have my chords to the chorus of the song. Which is one of the most important part of a song done. I have used the style of The Eagles and how they write their songs to start mine. In my opinion songs that are written like that usually tend to sound better and people want to listen to it more. This week on my genius hour day I listened to different songs by different bands, using different styles to help me reach my Ultimate goal. Which is to write a complete song and have it listened to. Being able to work with others helps me be able to picture the song i’m playing in my head. Helping me to understand the core of the song and how it is played. This will Ultimately help me to my goal and being able to finish this project. This week on my Genius hour project I changed things up. I haven’t been able to get done what I planned which was to learn four songs. So I went to my guitar teacher for advice on what I should do about it. He gave me the great idea to write my very own song. It will be complete with all the chords and it will have lyrics. I just felt like I needed a change of pace since I wasn’t really learning the songs that well and not hitting the deadlines I set for myself. So I have been listening to a variety of songs and trying to figure out what stuff sounds good and how to combine it together. I’m not sure how I’m going to start writing my song, but I know I can do it. I have been looking up ideas on google and asking people I know that have written a song before. I feel like by doing this instead I can open up more opportunities to my musical talent.
This past Monday I worked with my guitar teacher to help me come up with the song. We went over a chord patterns to find a few that I like. With the song I might go with a slow jam or something like that. I really like the idea of writing to, since it lets you create a new thing and bring it into the world. I hope my song will be enjoyed by everyone. This Wednesday I looked even deeper into songwriting. I looked up and listened to all sorts of different songs so I can discover more of what I like. Being able to work like that and playing along with the lyrics helped me understand the song itself. I also looked up videos about people talking on how they mead a song and how they made it. This is what i’m going to have to discover and quickly. This week on my genius hour project I worked more on Hotel California. I started working on parts of the solo of the song and i’m getting even closer to finishing it. I have also started working a little on Sweet Home Alabama and how the lyrics match up with the chords. I am mainly trying to finish Hotel California, but setbacks can happen.
On Wednesday I worked with another classmate to play along with the song. I believe having more people with different instruments can help develop a better musician and help me learn the song better. Doing this has helped me to understand the song Hotel California and I would like to keep doing this process for all of the songs I will be learning. Playing parts and listening to Sweet Home Alabama has helped mu understand some of that song and how it is played. Knowing that Sweet Home Alabama is such a popular song and that about everyone has heard it. I can ask an outside person to listen to me, play my songs and get an opinion on what they think. This week I want to try and get Hotel California completely done and start working on Sweet Home Alabama. It is taking me longer to learn Hotel California, because songs written by the Eagles are usually complicated, because they are usually repetitive in chord patterns and how they sound. Hotel California Has been a challenge, but I think I can get it. |
Jake RenegarProject title: Playing Guitar with passion! Archives
December 2017
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