Creating a Jingle

Week 1;

In week 1 of writing our Jingle, we were given the assignment, to write a jingle for Adam Walton’s radio show on BBC Radio Wales. The point of the jingle was to convey the main points, that were; Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales, Saturday nights, 10pm – 1am, new Welsh music, any genre. We were arranged into a group of 5 people, to make this jingle.

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We began by starting a group chat to created ways of communication between members. Using Facebook, for group chat messages. So we could arrange meetups and sharing of ideas.

Personally, I started this assignment by listening to Adam Waltons radio show. to learn the styles that he played so I could understand the best style of ideas to bring to the group to help create the final jingle. I listened to Adam Waltons most recent show (22/9/18). It was a mix of a Metal/Punk sound with indie, reggae and some electronic pop. Overall it seemed to be mainly heavier sounding music.

We had a meet up together as a group on Thursday (27/9/18) to discuss and show ideas. As a group, we have got a basic chord progression and a simple drum track. Our plan is that to record Josh the drummer and myself the guitarist on a mobile, playing the track idea. We have done this so we can listen to this when we are not together and vocalists can create ideas for melodies for this Jingle.

Week 2;
In week two we Had a meeting with Mathew Evans to share our ideas we had.

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He gave us feedback on our base idea. The feedback was helpful, the main point was to try and formulate it more like a song than a loop. The lyric we have been helpful to the style of what we are writing for and not needing many alterations. This made us try and make intros and outro. So we planned a rehearsal with members of ‘Group 5’ for the following Monday to put our idea into practice or on to paper.

Week 3;

In week 3 we had a rehearsal discussing ideas between members. Sadly one of the vocalists are Sick and were unable to make it to the rehearsal. Either way, we have begun to create the structure. As the show doesn’t stick to one still we have decided to have a vocal intro. It increases pitch over each vocalist then drops and is low at the end, very much like a barbershop band. then guitars and drums come in allowing a rock element into our jingle. incorporating two styles. to end this we booked a rehearsal space for Thursday of the same week, one with a drum kit so that we can put our idea into practice.

On Thursday we started the day with a meeting with Matthew Evans, he told us that we need to confirm our idea. After the meeting, we had a rehearsal.

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In this, we decided on our final idea! Mathew and Teri helped each other with the final vocals. Mathew did a fantastic job on writing the lyrics. My favourite line, “No longer need to wonder.” Our final idea is very much like a small song with a simple structure.

Week 4;

We arranged a rehearsal over Facebook for Wednesday to go over our idea a few more times.
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Teri Booked the room for us to have a session.
In this session, It was Teri, Josh and myself. I brought my Apple Mac along to the session to record a rough recording. So we have a record of what we are playing!

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On Thursday we had our 2nd to the last meeting with Mathew Evans. We showed him our recording. He said that we had a good idea and it was more or less done. One idea from him was to change the intro to our strike drum and guitar section, then straight into the vocals.

Week 5;
For the start of this week we struggled to book a room for rehearsal, we were confident in our jingle. We just wanted one more rehearsal to make final touches. On Thursday, Josh and Teri had our last meeting with Matt. who asked for a rough recording of our jingle before we recorded it the following week. We spoke between us in the Facebook group chat to arrange a final rehearsal and session.

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Week 6 (The finalê);

——The Monday——

This week we started off with our FINAL rehearsal and rough recording. We started by arranging the intro section of our jingle. We used the same section we use later on in the jingle so it sounds more like a short song.

Once we were all good and dandy with playing our jingle, we then recorded a rough track on logic.

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This gave us the time of our jingle which was roughly between 35 and 40 seconds. I bounced this track and sent to Matt, for him to have a listen before we went to Musicbox to record the Final track.

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—-The Tuesday—-

Recording day, we had the slot 6-8. We all decided train would be the cheapest option.

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We got there a bit early and because the group ahead of us were finished we could go straight in out of the cold and into the recording room.

 

 

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Once in we set up and Steph got levels with Josh on drums, will a rough recording. Then with myself on the guitar. We then recorded the first take with me and Josh playing together. I doubled up on the guitar after we got a take we were happy with.  We then moved on to getting the vocals, Teri was recording the vocals. Written by her and Mathew. She also doubled up on the vocals.

We wanted bass but none of us had one so I thought, no harm asking. Steph was kind of enough to dig out a bad that I could use, it only took a few tries to get a VERY simple bass line along with the track (root notes).

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Steph then let us listen to a rough mix and see if we were happy. We were so we thanked him, packed up and got on our merry way.

 

 

 

Evaluation;

Looking back now on all the things we have done there are points I’d like to discuss. For the majority of the group, jingle making was new territory therefore we were completely oblivious to what making a jingle entailed. I feel that the clients brief could have been more specific in detailing what was needed and expected, that being said I felt the brief was somewhat clear once we got into the swing of making the jingle.
Writing a jingle was a completely new experience for myself, yet an enjoyable one. It was a new challenge to be asked, “write a 40-second piece of music,” you would think the task at hand would be a simple one, yet I was surprised by how difficult it was to get all the material into such a short space of time. I found the challenge of writing a 40-second jingle enjoyable and if asked to do a similar task again I would thrive.
If given the chance to redo this task I would change the jingle completely. Firstly, I would try and change the genre to fit the vocalist’s voice better. Secondly, I would change the chords throughout the song, as a group the majority thought it was a good tune however, I felt that it was too repetitive and dull. To change the chords, it would mean having to change the layout of the jingle to avoid it sounding like a shortened punk song with chords in different sections changed to an alternative pattern. Upon reflection, if I was to develop on what has already been written I would try to make it more interesting by adding a melody guitar and a more exciting bass in the hope of making the track more interesting and catchy. Looking back on our jingle feedback from the other groups, it does sound rushed and ‘pop-punky’ with the vocalist’s voice not being the best fit for the genre.
After reading Adam Walton’s feedback for our group, his feedback seemed to be directed mainly at Teri and her vocals. I have taken on board the feedback of the vocals not fitting the genre of the music and I feel some of it is constructive however, some of it does seem to be just slightly insulting. For example, the last line I found unnecessary, insincere and unhelpful. I enjoyed the lyrics highly even if within the wrong genre of music. However, I am happy with a number of the other feedbacks whom enjoyed the melody and thought it flowed well.
The problems we had did affect the outcome of the jingle, every time we seemed to have a solid idea for a final track someone left the group even if it was unavoidable circumstances. These obstacles made the group work more difficult, for us to start with 5 people whom all have different interest of styles to 3 with 2 like a similar style. I believe we lost variety by losing those two members, having the full group would have helped get a better outcome on the jingle. Most of the ideas we had were melodies between vocalists, which were more of a singer based jingle than a simple punk track.
The people I worked with were great however, it is always slightly awkward starting a new group with new people nevertheless as soon as we got the ball rolling it became easier. When we started we had a decent selection of musicians; Josh – Drums, Teri – Vocals, Hannah – Vocals, Mathew – Vocals and myself – Guitar. This, in my mind made up a good group of musicians which could write a good jingle. Unfortunately, we lost two Vocalists over the weeks which made it difficult as to do a jingle at least two vocalists are needed for variety and to provide different notes for the same lyrics, I feel this is one of the downsides to our lack of catchiness within our jingle. I feel we made the most of the team that we finished with. Before Mathew left he made a good contribution to the lyrics, he helped write sections of the jingle which helped the overall outcome. Teri came up with the melody of the jingle, also helping with the structure of the jingle. Teri seemed to be the most organised out of the lot of us, with her having made most of the room bookings which made it possible for us to complete our jingle. Josh did the drums on the track while also helping with the structure. My contribution to the jingle was helping to structure and the chord progression, this was a simple progression which was C minor, A major, E major and B major. These chords were used throughout and progressed to the final jingle recording.
Overall our final recorded version of the jingle was brief and simple, it is under 45 seconds and relays the message intended. There could have been many changes that could have improved the outcome of our final jingle, where all the feedback has been taken on board for future reference. Although I believe that with the difficulties we have had, members falling ill, changing ideas, etc overall, we created a good jingle.