Category: Brianna L – Songwriting, Music & Video Production

Day 8 Laurie Desch (June 2nd)

Today was the last day of WEP! It went by super quickly, and I wish I could have had even more time with all of my hosts.

Today I met with Mrs. Desch for the last time, and I showed her the assignment I had been working on. We reworked my song adding specifics.

Here is how the first verse changed:

Before:

Walking for miles and miles under the sun//Dancing underneath the stars in the moonlight//Wondering how long this trip can last//I hope it will last forever

After:

Walking for miles along the wolf peak trail//The city fades away with every step//As the sun sets at 6:44//We set up the fire and our tents //We don’t want this trip to ever end

This exercise was interesting, Mrs. Desch shared some of her new songs with me and they are AMAZING. She also shared more songwriting exercises to try. I have a long way to go to be able to create songs and videos.

I am thankful I got to experience the world of music production, songwriting, and video production over the last two weeks. It has allowed me to expand my interest in what I want to do in the future.

Day 7- Digital p Media (June 1st)

Today I headed to Digital P Media to learn about video production.

We were going to help with their project of documenting the creation of the park in downtown Cary. We brainstormed what we would be recording. We decided on recording the b-roll of an ice cream store called Fresh.

They showed us cameras they used to record and dressed up a camera adding the lens, microphone, and everything else it needed. We learned how to set up a scene and set the camera angle and lighting.

After Shooting the footage (and getting some ice cream) I learned how they import all the footage from the camera. It was an amazing experience and I definitely want to learn more about video production

I was surprised by how much goes into this job. It gives me more of an appreciation for the simple things we enjoy like music and videos, there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes.

 

 

Day 6- Laurie Desch (May 31st)

After an amazing weekend (I went to se Hamilton at the DPAC which was incredible), I met up with Mrs. Desch again. We discussed more details about songwriting, and she gave me some artists to listen to and an assignment. To write a song using specific details.

Here were the song I analyzed, take a listen!:

Joy Crookes – When You Were Mine (Official Video)

Aoife O’Donovan – “Age of Apathy” [Official Audio + Lyrics]

 

Day 5- Osceola Studios (May 27th)

I finally got back to the studio! It was one of the best days, as I got to see live recordings of both guitars and drums. It was interesting to see the dynamic between Mr. Hodgin and the artist as they worked on changing parts of the song and rerecording. Seeing the layers being added to the song was amazing. One thing that surprised me was the amount of time spent setting up, each part of the drum had to have its own mic which called for a lot of wires.

Day 4- Research, songwriting (May 26th)

Today I worked on writing over the chord progressions I had created yesterday. I challenged myself to not delete any of the lyrics I wrote and ended up with a page full of words that weren’t great, but at least it was a start.

I also began researching D.A.Ws to download based on the advice from Mrs. Desch and Mr. Hodgin. There are many options out there, Pro tools and logic being the professional ones. I decided to stick with a free one for now, settling on garage band.

Day 3- Chord progressions (May 25th)

Today I worked from home, going through some songs to send to Ms. Desch. I hadn’t written anything new in about a year, but I put together what I had into a folder to send for feedback. I also worked on creating a few more chord progressions on guitar and piano. When I ran out of ideas, I used a random chord generator to help.

Day 2- Laurie Desch, Osceola studios (May 24th)

Today I had my first zoom call with Mrs. Laurie Desch, a singer-songwriter, during our conversation I learned about how she recorded her first album and her approach to songwriting. One piece of advice that resonated with me was to not close any doors and be willing to collaborate with other musicians.

Afterward, I headed back to Osceola Studios. Today we got to see the more technical part of Music production as Mr. Hodgin edited the vocals of a French-creole speaker. There was a lot of attention to detail needed in the process. It was interesting the variety of skills needed for this job.

Day 1- Osceola Studios (May 23rd)

Today I went to Osceola Studios and met with Mr. Dick Hodgin.

It was a studio with lava lamps and lights creating a homey atmosphere.

Mr. Hodgin showed us the ins and outs of his job as a music producer. There is much more that goes into creating a record than I thought.

I learned a lot of new information: the difference between mixing and mastering, Bit rate & sampling rate, EQ, Tape vs. Digital, D.A.Ws, and much more.

The thing that stuck with me most was when Mr. Hodgin explained that a Producer is like the head coach of the whole project, they have the vision for where the song can go.

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