The Full Story

The mission

So where do I start? Well perhaps my reason for doing the HNC Music course. The seed was planted when my brother gave my daughters a PreSonus studio 68c for Christmas with the intention of recording ourselves playing and singing.

I also had the thought of making my own meditative music for my Reiki healing business and got cubase on my computer. My eldest daughter Ella decided to embark on the NC Music course when leaving school and when I looked at the courses I thought that's what I need to do to learn how to use all this tech.

It's been a great year of music and composing with the family included into my projects. I particularly love traditional music and ambient, trance, techno and goth/emo vibes. I have always fancied trying to combine them. Here are some of my works so far.

I am looking forward to trying some meditative comps soon but i just compose whatever the mood brings at the time at the moment. Unless I have a specific task given to me.

Creative Project: The Student Night

As part of our creative project the HNC students got the opportunity to organise the second Student Night at Mareel. To the right is a photo of the poster we designed for promoting the event. I designed the initial layout and design on Canva and the rest of the class helped with the content and distribution. As a group we all gathered content from the previous student night from the film students and created a facebook page to create interest for the upcoming event.

Daisy and Amber came up with the idea of posting a bit about the musical influences of the Students and some of the Lecturers and created posts and a playlist of tracks which was added to each week a post was presented.

We created banners that matched the posters and adapted the facebook page to match.

A plan was set out beforehand so we knew how much content we required and scheduled dates ahead for specific posts. We discussed the marketing strategies, tech spec, running order, health and safety, rehearsal times and dates, dedicated job roles during team meetings to keep on top of the work schedule.

Below is the facebook banner and the blurb from the post about me that was used for marketing.

We had to carry out risk assessments as part of the creative project for the upcoming gigs, here is an example below.

Curated for You

View Gallery

The first video clip above is the Composition "Home"

I composed this at home starting with some ambient backing and some drum loops to which I then composed the melody on the fiddle. When we thought about playing it for the student night I then worked with Ella to get a harmony part and the octave fiddle part played by Maurice was a combination of both our parts and long drawn bow parts. We invited Eamonn to play with us for the student night and he added to the percussion with his electronic drum. We created the dynamics by playing the first turn without harmonies then built up the harmonies and the percussion throughout the piece.
The student night pieces included here are relevant to the core modules: Live Performance, Music Theory, Music Business, Composition and Digital Audio Workstations and I have included some supporting documentation to show how.
Below are some examples of the composition work done on the DAW for the track "HOME"

Music notation for my composition "Home" I wanted to create an ambient vibe with traditional Shetland feel. Below is the melody and a harmony part. This is relevant to Composition and music theory core units as well as live production and Digital Audio Workstations.

The Unnamed Air

To the right is a video clip of The Unamed Air, this tune was notated by Pat Shuldham Shaw from how John Stickle from Unst played it in the late 1940s. I created a baking track on Cubase to give it a more electronic fusion and Ella played some Harmonies on fiddle and Maurice played the Octave fiddle to create a fuller depth to the piece. Eamonn played the electronic drum which added to the electronic dance vibe. we got great feedback from the teenagers in the crowd who aren't usually so enthusiastic about fiddle music. They loved the fusion of electronic and traditional shetland vibes.

To the left is the notation to the traditional tune melody and below it the work done for the backing track I composed on the DAW to create a more electronic vibe.
Below is another example of the DAW elements used in creating the remix of the "Unnamed Air"

Da Njuggles Rant

To the right is a video clip of Da Njuggles Rant, I composed this tune on the fiddle, aiming for a shetland/scandinavian flavour, then went onto cubase to see what I could draw together using drum loops and atmospheric sounds for an electronic fusion, I added some synth using my roland digital piano and got Martha to play some piano on the backing track as she couldn't make the gig. Then I asked Ella and Maurice to come and add the harmonies parts that we had worked on during rehearsals. Eamonn accompanied us on percussion with the electronic drum, creating even more dynamics to the rhythm sections.

As you can see below I was learning to add colours to the DAW at college and found them on cubase to see better the different tracks. For the Second Student Night we had a little more to check for our sound check as we were using a backing track and electronic drum. Tim on sound did a good job making sure we could hear each others fiddles on the monitors and the backing track as well as the drum.

Sour Grass and Granite

On the Left is a video clip from the Student Night at Mareel in November 2023.

On the first Student Night we had a more traditional style. We started with "Sour grass and Granite" a tune Ella learnt at the Folk Festival last year from the Canadian fiddler Shane Cook in a workshop he held. We put together some harmonies during practise times and asked Maurice to play on the Octave fiddle to create more depth and diversity to the arrangement. Martha accompanied us on the piano. It is only when you try to organise rehearsals that you realise how busy everyone is. It can take a bit of figuring out and flexibility to make it work.

Pictured above is the music notation and lyrics to the "Selkie Wife Song"

To the Left is another video clip of the first Student Night.

We decided to perform a Shetland Song that was written by Mary Odie called "Da Selkie Wife song". We asked Martha to sing and we worked out a few harmonies and an Octave fiddle part. It was a good experience to work with a singer and had to be more subtle with the fiddles. It was nice to do a dialect song too.

To the Left is a video clip of Slangpolska Efter Byss-Calle.

I love Scandinavian tunes and we picked out "Slangpolska After Byss-Calle" as our third tune for the Student Night. It's a feel-good polska and we went for three fiddles and the Octave fiddle. We used harmonies and rhythmic sections to create some diversity and dynamics to the piece.

We really enjoyed playing this one.

Below is the music notation for Slangpolska After Byss-Calle.

Da Sealkie Wife Sang

To the left are the rehearsal log notes and final arrangement notes that we decided on for our set for the first Student Night. These are of relevance to the Live Performance module along and the music notation of relevance to the music theory unit.

Pictured below is our Tech spec for the first Student night. This is of relevance to Live Performance module.

Below is the notation for the tune "Sour Grass and Granite by Brian Pickel.