Beats, Confidence and Collaboration

Aims for session were to: continue progressing the music tracks, building confidence in the participants through facilitating working with others collaboratively, developing music skills, and incorporating lyrics and vocal recording.  Written by: Mike Rucinski (session music leader), Nature Beats Course, Wild Earth, Coventry      

We reviewed the track worked on in previous session, Nathan and Lewis identified the sounds recorded and added during last session, recapping how the sounds were created and talking to the group about they sound in the context of the track.  Feedback was positive, but group decided that they wanted to add vocals as Becky had written a song in her own time, based on her feelings about the course and how fast Christmas had come about (‘a roller coaster flying by..’’). So in light of this a new track was started and here is an account of the session and general progression made by the participants.

Becky copied lyrics from her phone onto a long piece of flipchart paper, so all the group could see and edit / contribute. From this a tempo was decided on, to which the new beat would be created. Group roles (to start with) were: Kenny - make beat to start off, Nathan - work with Becky on lyric editing and phrasing to make words fit the regular rhythm of the beat.

The beat developed gradually, with a leaves recording / sample cut up and played as a new rhythm on the midi keyboard by a guest to our group, Emma. Mike supported Kenny to edit together a basic Hip Hop break beat by moving kicks and snares on the piano roll in Ableton Live to change the feel of the groove. This continued, moving on to percussion, then hi hats, and on to Tyrell adding a voice sample (saying ‘beep’) which he had been jamming along to the track sitting at the back of the room. This was an energy tipping point in the room, with the ideas and confidence of the group sky-rocketing!

Keeping production on a vocal tip, Becky and Kenny practiced rapping various parts of the vocal while the backing track looped around in the background, testing record takes as they went along with other members donning the engineer hat to keep things moving. Kenny (a more accomplished rapper) bounced off Becky with ideas and the vibe and feel of the track was there! Eventually, bass and a simple melody were added to the beat and the tempo was slowed down to 111 BPM because lyrically the feel was right at a slower speed.

After a short break (of tea and biscuits), the group were super keep to record more and Becky had decided she wanted to try singing, something we were miles away from in previous weeks. Aided by Mike creating a MIDI note pattern as a rhythmic and pitch guide to follow (Becky: “it helped a lot!”). With less than five minutes to go and, and to top off a truly collaborative and creative music session, Tyrell sang and hummed the song chorus to layer with Becky’s original version. What a session!