Follow this link to find our finished product.
https://kenny-55.wixsite.com/reimaginingplanets
We decided to create a website to present the work in this format due to being unable just yet to create a Virtual Reality experience. In this format we are able to showcase the work to the people involved with the creation of the 3D environment and anybody else involved. I was not involved in the creation of the website, Jack put this all together to present the work through the website Wix.
So we had our developed idea and we were enthusiastic about the project which was great, we had loads of ideas with places we could take the project. I started to reach out to musicians in the University of Lincoln School of Fine and Performing Arts. I contacted Ed Wellman a lecturer of the music department within the school. When presented with our brief and he seemed very interested in our project and mentioned that he was in fact hosting a trip to Nottingham to see the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra perform Gustav Holsts’ ‘Planets’ and we were invited. This trip provided a very good opportunity to listen closely to the whole of his work with no distractions.
Whilst on this trip i proposed our project to all the other musicians en route to Nottingham with us, and gathered a few people interested in helping out. After this i worked up on a official project proposal to send off to the rest of the musicians to inform and remind them of some details.
Whilst all of this was in development i contacted around 6 computer science lecturers to see who would be interested in helping out with the VR side of the project. I managed to get a meeting with Dr Jussi Holopainen and we discussed my idea briefly. We agreed that it was best that anything VR related would best happen once the music was finished, he expressed that he was concerned with the amount of people on board with the project as it becomes hard to control and motivate a larger amount of people.
Throughout this whole time my job was just to be on top of my emails and influence interest in the project and see who i could get involved. Ed Wellman had agreed to mention our full project proposal in one of his lectures the week after the trip to remind the students of the project. I made it aware that i was going to organise a meeting that week to introduce myself informally to anybody interested so we could further make arrangements for the project and make clear who was able to help with music.
Unfortunately my email did not reach Ed early enough which was my fault; therefore, nobody turned up to the meeting scheduled.
With regards to the success of the whole project i am quite disappointed with it’s destination; however, i have made many mistakes along the way that i can reflect on and learn how to do better next time. Throughout this post i will be highlighting some of these things.
I believe that a lot of the research we did surrounding concept albums was relevant and worth it’s time; however, the application of these resources was at fault. Both Jack and myself put in some good work to understand different aspects of concept albums and came up with many ideas that could have nicely shaped our end artefact. It was very interesting to pick apart The Incredible True Story by Logic and delve into some of his ideas.
One of the biggest things that completely derailed this project and it’s progress was the fact that there was no set in stone brief until the very end of the project. This meant that a lot of the work completed was unorganised and didn’t really have a clear direction. When calling out for help with musicians we didn’t specify simply enough what we wanted to achieve and what we needed help within the project. Our tutor Lee pointed out that if we were to ask simply enough could you learn this section of a piece and allow us to record it we may have made more traction with our clients. My problem is that i hyped up the project so much, it almost intimidated people away or even allowed them to believe they were not good enough for what we were looking for. Many of the musicians we were hoping to work with were first year university students which explains their uninterest or hesitation in our serious approach.
I felt throughout this project i was responsible for organising the vast majority of it. I reached out to all of the clients we got involved with and loosely planned deadlines for the project. After understanding that i did somewhat a poor job at parts of this role, i realise that my lack of organisation skills and planning let us down. I did some research into project management itself and understood what it was exactly i can do better next time. We did well at formulating plenty of ideas and getting on with the work; however, there was very little order to the process.
The book : Project Management for Musicians by Jonathan Feist
The book above mentioned that one of the first steps to project management was mind dumping which involves noting down all the ideas you have about a certain thing. both good and bad. we did this fine.
Next is to categorise all of these ideas into different sections for example research and production. After this comes the important part. Prioritising all of this into a chart so you can visually see what you need to do and when. How much time is acceptable to spend on a certain category of part of the work and when to move on, highlighting exactly what needs doing most and what doesn’t. This is something that we really skipped out on, and in essence we had no clear idea of how much time was too much or too little to spend on some things.
Towards the end of my project, i had wasted so much time doing things that didn’t really matter, all the important things got passed by.
I managed to at least create a few nice pieces of music with elements of Holsts score within them, but with better management the project could have been a better success. Lee introduced me to one of his methods of work when i mentioned cracking on with just one thing at a time, and this complements the idea of having a pool of work you need to get on with. By understanding you mood you are in and the amount of time you are able to crack on with something, you are able to capitalize on this and set yourself on a task that fits in with your current mindset.
An example of this approach may be arranging pieces of music rather than composing, or splurging away on relevant ideas to add to a pool of things that can later be arranged into place. Instead of just setting your mind on one thing for hours without end this approach may help. Instead of organising a specific thing to do in a given time slot, this way you can just allocate work and break times and take in consideration of your priorities from the organised chart mentioned before.
It wasn’t just poor planning that let me down, it was my ability to delegate jobs to other team members and keep them motivated and in check. I let a lot of the work hinder above my own shoulders as i was happy with my approach and worried that Jack wouldn’t do as good of a job. In the end, doing this all alone and not encouraging Jack to take up some of the work. Whilst saying this i do believe Jack could have done a better job at reaching out and doing his part in the production process.
In the end we did manage to record some orchestral instruments such as the piano and timpani; however, we did not really do much research into this at all. We simply spent time figuring out what sounded best with the equipment we had, which at the time was a C1000 AKG mic and a contact mic. In all essence i don’t believe this approach was too bad as i very much believe that using your ears to determine what sounds best instead of set techniques is whats important. After all of this the experience was also valuable.
So to conclude even though a lot of this project was a complete flop. I have learnt a lot what to do better next time.
Project Objectives
Collaborate with other to create a virtual reality showcase for a concept EP.
Create a concept album with a radio drama narrative feel by incorporating influences from the album ‘The Incredible True Story’.
Create recorded music pieces that are inspired by Gustav Holst’s ‘The Planets’
Learning Outcomes
To have learnt how to create a mini-concept album taking inspiration from key sources of research.
Used professional music arrangement and remix techniques to reimagine selected pieces from Gustav Holst’s ‘The Planets’.
Identified and used professional project management skills to produce a creative product within a team.
To have learnt how to record some orchestral instruments effectively.
So after all of my collaboration attempts, they failed due to not being quick enough with communicating our proposals. We had to start our project and it was quite late. I came to an executive decision to start some of the music myself at home by using my own mini studio. A MIDI keyboard, microphone, guitar, speakers and interface was enough to at least get the ball rolling.
Ed was kind enough to provide us with a copy of Gustav Holsts’ Planets’ Score which i printed out and started working on the first piece. My hope was that i would be able to get musicians on board to do small recordings of little motifs used by the original score. I would then be able to arrange them in our own original way. This was we could essentially create our own pieces inspired by Gustav Holsts and pay credit to his work.
Unfortunately due to lack of time left i had to crack on with a lot of the pieces myself. I managed to start each of the pieces off by using Holsts’ score and then i tailored the ends to a more abstract approach.
I created pieces from planets Mars and Venus with a little help from Jack to do guitar parts. A purchased Native Instruments virtual instrument called the string ensemble was used for many of the great string sounds which enabled the piece to breathe a bit better rather than using the standard Xpand 2 plugin for strings. Some ambiences have been recorded such as by using a fan. Recording this at a close proximity this makes a nice space shuttle ambience which is placed underneath Mars to add a desired sci-fi effect.
Sibelius has been used to recreate the start of Holst’s Venus score quite closely; however, some instrumentation has been removed and changed to make it transformative. In both Mars and Venus the tracks start with a direct tap into Gustav’s work, this is then torn apart and driven into my own compositions to create a more ambient floaty feel as if you were drifting through space past the planets. The only recorded parts in these pieces are the guitar and ambience; however, the piano was all recorded live with an Midi keyboard and adds a good human touch to the pieces. The majority of the composed sections were also composed live and improvised over current recordings after a gathered feel for what to play.
Jack and I later both hosted a studio session to crack down on the Mercury piece where we recorded a piano and timpani drum with condenser and contact mics to add an interesting flavour to the recordings. Unfortunately Jack hasn’t managed to fit in the timpani to his mix of Mercury, so i have a few short examples of the recordings linked below.
Timpani with Condenser Mic – https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PyIyiP_pZ48VDT2652loOiHKkLRbcwop
Timpani with Contact Mic – https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MirT9ASuUROzwF4PFRrkKySx_H8ESfDe
Using a contact mic was completely experimental but i feel by adding in the contact mic, a nice texture is added to the recording. With a little EQ added to the mid of the contact mic and some compression applied to the condenser recording, you receive a nice touch as you can hear…
…in this combined recording – https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QaCQ09345ofuPli9XJ8zIlCKC2zjt3he
The same technique is used with the piano to add a dampened touch to the low end by using a contact mic at the back of the piano through the wooden panels and a condenser capturing more of the high end of the acoustic piano. With regards to Mercury conforming with Holsts’ score, i dragged out a few motif’s and implemented them into the start of the piece along with the droning E note. The rest of the piece was driven into a simple chord structure surrounding the pieces key signature C Major.
The Neptune piece was completely out of my hands, composed alone by Jack.