The Making of OMG Cola! - Part 3
In part 1 and part 2 I talked about how we created the music for several different songs out of jamming together with digital technology... In this part we finish the song by writing words and using performance as a composition tool.
We took the three song ideas that came out of the previous sessions to the whole music group. They selected which one they liked the best and wanted to write words for (we ended up eventually using all 3 in the end over a couple of sessions). Using the idea of how the song made them feel we wrote words together. We wrote phrases and words whilst playing the tune and then used them by collating them into the song. This then informed which musical section would become the verse & chorus, etc…
LYRICS TO OMG Cola!
Verse 1 Playing drums at school Having fun, that’s cool Diamonds in the sky Stars are floating high
Chorus Oh My Gosh, I’m so happy Full of energy Young and healthy Oh My Days, Ice cream special I like the bass I feel my heart
Verse 2 Countdown to the stage Flying from the cage I feel very strong Until we stop the song
PERFORMANCE AS COMPOSITION
Technology: Macbook, Ableton Live, Launchpad
The song naturally created a loose composition but using the Launchpad we were able to create improvised sections and play around with how many times we did each part. It’s always useful in a more traditional band setting to road-test things live, to see if something goes on too long or needs to go on longer, see how things could be built up, etc… and it was great to use technology to be able to do this as part of an electronic band. This is where the freestyle sections came from in the song as we found in the live performances people would really enjoy the song & ‘breaking it down’ to a few bare elements before one final round of the chorus would be really effective.
Sharing with peers
From the point of performing it, the song gained a life of it’s own. It was performed at a Squidz Club where the rest of the group & the Do Your Own Thing session leaders heard it and really liked it and for the next few Do Your Own Thing sessions everyone was singing it! Some participants thought it would be a great song to make a music video for, and not only that but a dance routine AND a music video. So the loose elements we had were handed over to each group - the lyrics and the rough mix of the instrumental.
RECORDING
Technology: Ableton Live, Audio Interface, AKG C3000 Microphone, Pop-shield
From feedback from the Dance group we slowed it down slightly, so it was easier to sing along with & do the dance. This was easy to achieve in Ableton Live. We were lucky enough to borrow a really nice vocal condenser microphone from the rehearsal space we were based in, which made all the vocals sound great straight away! The group had performed the song so many times it meant that everyone was really confident when it came to recording the final version. This meant that little to no editing was done in the final mix. The sessions got quite rowdy but that all added to the overall sound of the song!
MIXING
Technology: Ableton Live, Audio Interface, Speakers
The song was mixed with Issac, a participant on DYOT and one of the drummers and one of the vocalists on the track. We had a small and quite basic set-up just running Ableton out into a good set of speakers and not too many people around us so we could have it quite loud! This process was really fruitful, Issac was able to focus on the music and what sounded good, taking out elements he didn’t think worked and adding in extra little bits or effects to what we had recorded. We then turned everything down and brought in each element one by one, starting with the drums. The volume would be increased and he would say when he thought it was loud enough, he had a very good ear and was very decisive!
What we made in our multi-arts creative workshop!
We had the song! We put this up online.
A dance routine was devised to match the words in the song and an instructional video was created to teach people how to do the dance routine.
This was then all put together into one big moment at the Squidz Club, where the video and members of the DYOT group taught the audience the dance routine, before the song was performed and everyone had a dance-off!