Week 7 (30/04/2018 - 04/05/2018)

Monday


Today, I am going to look at a book called "The rough guide to reggae" written by Steve Barrow & Peter Dalton 3rd edition expanded and revised.


RESEARCH


During my time composing a song in a reggae mode,  I have been trying to get the right feeling of reggae in the sound of my song. However, it is quite interesting to mix a Latin way of singing with a melody in reggae with the upbeats and the particular guitar strumming that it has.

After the continued development in the music industry of the reggae, It is remarkable the fact of accepting that the harmony roots of the reggae come from a particular way of composition.

"Just as the 'mainstream' solo singers maintained vocal styles established in the late 1960's, so the Jamaican scene in the roots era saw the continuing formation and recording of vocal groups." 

-Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton. (August 2004 by Rough Guides Ltd, 80 strands, London WC2R 0RL) THE  ROUGH GUIDE TO REGGAE THIRD EDITION  (page 203, Roots Harmonies, 1- 5 line from the  first paragraph)

Which means that the cultural way of singing this musical genre kept the essence of the genre. In some point, I am referring to this statement from the book, because I think that it will be quite useful for me to try to fit the lyrics of my song in this style of reggae way of singing.

 Also, I want to highlight that I am aiming to achieve the chords of my song into the reggae style. The only thing I want to do with this song is to fit a Latin style of singing with the melody of reggae. I would like to quote the following statement of the book THE  ROUGH GUIDE TO REGGAE THIRD EDITION by -Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton. (August 2004 by Rough Guides Ltd, 80 strands, London WC2R 0RL) that basically talks about the roots of the chords used on the songs of reggae:

 " Most harmony vocal groups of the roots period sounded Jamaican in every way - even if they partly achieved this through melodies and/or rhythms that sounded more 'African'. Mournful minor- chords melodies".
-Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton. (August 2004 by Rough Guides Ltd, 80 strands, London WC2R 0RL) THE  ROUGH GUIDE TO REGGAE THIRD EDITION  (page 204, Minor Chords and dreader harmonies, 1- 4 line from the first paragraph).
Tuesday

 Today, I rehearsed my song in collaboration with Ashley, Melika, Kiano and Paulo. They helped me today to get in tune, however, I forget every time the right key to my own song, which is weird.  Anyway, I keep practising I am getting a really good sound for my composition.

Wednesday
Today, I advanced a lot in the Billie Jean salsa version. Definitely, I have copied the melody of bass and I have added it to the trumpets and  The trombone's melody in syncopation against to the bass and the trumpets to give a more speedy and Latin intro.

 Salsa is about a lot of syncopation, but also it has a lot of cuts and staccato, which is used in the trumpets and the trombones to increment the intervals between the song.

 I have added the timbale and the tambourine at the chorus to get the difference between the bridges and chorus. In addition, as the piano has a really important role in salsa, I have added the piano melody in the chorus too.





Friday

 Today, I have worked on the salsa version song and it is almost finished, I just need to structure better the song and I hope to finish it for the next week.








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