For this project, we were tasked with applying skills and resources we have to develop a music recording, mixing, and mastering. The goal was to use our music studio to produce music which we and or artists would collaborate on to make an excellent piece of work.
For this project, while we were given a list of musicians we coud workm with in the local area, i wanted to instead find musicans on my own. i did this by looking around in my own circles of friends and aquantinices and found several excellent musians, in particular I found two award winning theatre preformers in the MVHS theatrical Program.
Getting Talent
Una has been preforming in musicals for many years before coming to MVHS, preforming locally and at her middle school. Afterwards she preformed in our rendition of High School Musical, as well as Hadestown, and is the lead in our student rendition of The Prom. Part of the emphasis on the project was creative freedom, and specifically the freedom to produce songs throughout the allotted window of time within the music studio.The main reason I contacted Una was because of a rendition of a song she had posted onto her instagram. This song was a simple rendition of “The Sailor Song” By Gigi Perez, and this song speaks to me for several different reasons. For one this song is about love in a way which other songs usually are not, while other songs may be about wanting love but not having it, this song is about having a love and embracing that love, the original song is beautifully produced and both loud and quiet at the same time, and is overall one of my personal favorite songs.
Athena is an actor and singer that I have worked with on multiple shows, including Hadestown, she also preforme Heathers outside of MVHS. I, after producing the Sailor Song rendition with Una, wanted to create more music, after going to a theatre festival with many people in our department, I saw Athena’s rendition of LifeBoat from heathers, as she described to me, this song takes place after the characters friends all supposedly commit sucide, and this song is both a plea of hope and tragic. I thought that her rendition of the song was not only gut wrenching but also powerful, both in message and vocals, which at the competition nearly blew out my eardrums!
For this project we studied and learned how to mix and master projects, using reverb, mixing, and coimpression. I espically didnt know much about the importance of compression in music, playing with compression i tried to make the gutiar in Sailor song have extra strength and punch, whilst for LifeBoat I used it to make the voicer of Athena have a larger presence, or be “fatter”. We also uses EQ’s, to really emphaize the vocals of both Una and Athena, elevating their vocals and isolating them by reducing other ranges, which leaves mainly their own voice by itself, without imperfections from outside.
Product & Statements
“To me I feel like Sailor Song is a representation of how deeply you can love someone and want them to love you in that same way. the title of the song is a reference to how sailors love hard because they spend so much time away from home, and the lyric “love me like a sailor” really encapsulates what it feels like to want someone to love you in that way, which I think is just really beautiful. “
-Una Jebian on “Sailor Song”
LifeBoat is an expression of loneliness and solitude of a girl in a repressed society. It really contrasts her appearance up to this point in the show, as she has really always followed the crowd and kept to herself, and this is everyone allowing her to express the emotions she has inside. Playing Heather McNamara and being able to understand how she felt and expressed really allowed me to connect with her emotionally. Being lonely even surrounded by others is a feeling we can all relate to, and is exemplified beautifully in this song.
-Athena Hart on “LifeBoat”
Reflection
Overall I am really happy with both of these outcomes, these were really fun to collaborate on especially with the talent I received, I think I want to try and make products like these at a quicker pace since it took me a long time to really understand all the basics of Pro Tools however now I think that I could do so at a quicker pace. Overall I am really satisfied with this project and would love to make more like it in the future!!!