Waverly O'Neal Capstone

Music has been my passion for as long as I remember, however, it didn’t take me long to learn that I needed to work towards a more practical goal. All my life, I have struggled with deciding whether to pursue my passion or settle for something stable that will still satisfy me. This battle only worsened when I got to high school, as I found myself frequently wondering if I’m made the right choice in schools or was going on the right path. This continued until half-way through my junior year, when I had a meeting with the college counselor, with whom I shared some of these concerns. She gave me this idea of producing an EP and really encouraged me to do it. I’ve been working towards it ever since. I also wanted to be sure that music was something I could actually do for the rest of my life, not just a silly passion that would be ruined if I had to spend an enormous amount of time and effort on it. So I looked for a producer and locked down a deal as soon as I could. Some things went really right, and a lot of them went left. However, this project has taught me a lot about my strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, it’s given me a little more confidence in my choice of career. Don’t get me wrong, I know I have a long way to go, but it feels good to have finally taken my first step in the right direction. Bibliography: "Searching Forproduce My Music?" Produce My Music with World-class Musicians - Online Recording Studio. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://studiopros.com/music-production.php?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=WabHub - Musicians&utm_term=produce my music&utm_content=producer musician. At first, I looked for actual music companies to hire a producer. This website allowed me to contact professional producers and ask them questions about the process and pricing. This helped me gain a little more insight on the direction I wanted to head in for the album. Google Search. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://www.google.com/search?q=how to write songs&oq=how to write songs&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.9076j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8. I thought a good place to start with songwriting would be to research techniques. I watched Youtube videos and read a plethora of how-to articles. These resources made the songwriting process a little faster and a lot less stressful, as well as provided tips and tricks that helped me get through writer’s block. "Produce a Track From Start To Finish - The Ultimate Guide." MusicTech. April 03, 2019. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://www.musictech.net/guides/essential-guide/produce-a-track/. Part of my goal was to gain more knowledge about the components and necesseties of composing/producing. I also need to learn more so that I could communicate more efficiently with my producer about what I wanted from him during session. This site took me through a detailed step-by-step run down of the steps you taken to make a song and how you go should go about navigating the process. "Web Player: Music for Everyone." Spotify. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://open.spotify.com/browse/featured. Spotify was my immediate go to whenever I was stuck on anything at any point during this project. More often than not, when I would listen to music I would note the different elements of the track that I heard. This helped get the juices flowing when I needed to make my tracks sound fuller but I had only created a guitar riff or bass line. "Meet Google Drive – One Place for All Your Files." Google. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/. Google Drive held many components of this project during its creation. I had a song doc that I used to keep a sort of song journal that I could update and share with my producer so he could get a feel for the kind of sound I was going for. I also kept all the draft track files and demos on a separate doc also accessible to my producer as well as my mentors. It made updates and communication easier as well as eliminated trivial recaps that waste valuable session and meeting time. Rolka, Jeff. "Jeff Rolka." YouTube. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/user/jtrolka. Since I was the recording artist on my EP tracks, I had to start acting like it. This meant practice, practice, practice as much as my schedule would allow. This channel was introduced to me by my vocal teacher and I practiced about 3 different exercises about 3-4 times a week. "The World's Favorite Online Thesaurus!" Thesaurus.com. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://www.thesaurus.com/. This source also proved to be a major help during the songwriting process. There were many instances in which I couldn’t think of the right word, needed to a similar word with more syllables to fill out the verse, etc. In any case, a thesaurus was necessary to ensure that I delivered the right message using the right words with the right connotation. "Song Lyrics & Knowledge." Genius. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://genius.com/.