Monday, 20 May 2013

Term 3 - Song Analysis

This is the song I will be talking about which is Untouched by The Veronicas and in my opinion this song is all about the instruments and what each of them are doing.


Instrumentation:
  • Cellos
  • Violins
  • Electric Guitar
  • Electric Bass
  • Drums Kit
  • Vocals
About the Song
The Instruments opening the song are the Cellos and the Violins, both instruments are playing the same thing at the same time. The chords they are playing lasts for 2 seconds but then when they play the chords there are a reverberation going on which lasts for 3 seconds till they repeat the chords again.
Then the instruments joining the intro are the Electric Drums kit and the Synth and they come in in the intro at the same time. What the Synth is doing is just playing single notes which are:

C#-G-G#-G-C#
C-G-G#-G-C
D#-G-G#-G-C#
C#-G-G#-G-G#-G-C#

The synth keep playing that same counter melody in some of the parts of the song, for example, in the intro, verses and middle 8. In the middle 8, the Synth gains a solo part which lasts for few seconds and what it is doing is just playing the same counter melody till the end of the middle 8.
The beats of the drums and the counter melody of the Synth gives the intro a different feel to it because before when there were just the strings (Cellos and Violins) playing you feel like it's going to be a goth song because of the style of the music video, but after the Drums and Synth joins it, the song starts changing and sounding more Electropop specially seconds later when the electric instruments such as Electric guitar and Electric bass joins it to give more feel to it.

At 0:33 the vocals are added to the song and that's when the verse starts. Listening to the vocals you will notice that there's a bit of echo in it which makes the song sound more interesting, specially because it is a Electropop song because in Electro songs most of the artists and bands add effect to their vocals to fit with the music they are playing.
In the end of the verse they add a effect to it which I can't explain what it is but it makes the vocals and the instruments sound more clear and the effect focus more on the vocals which puts it in the front of the instruments.
In chorus of the song there is not much to say because there isn't any effect in the vocals or in the instruments.

Things you will notice in the song are: 
• from the Intro of the song to the last chorus the electric drums kit does not change what he is playing, so he keeps playing the same things all the way through.
• The Electric guitar and the Electric don't change what the playing, they just keep repeating the same chords in the chorus the only time they change is in the Outro which is just the instruments.

In my opinion the song is more about the instrumentation than the lyrics and that is because of the counter melody coming from the Synth which is really important in the song because if they didn't have it, the song would just sound boring so it makes a difference, also the Cellos and Violins are very important in this music piece because of the melody phrase in the intro, they keep repeating it in some parts of they song which fills in the empty spaces.


Wednesday, 8 May 2013

Royalties

 What are Royalties?
Royalties are how most of the Artist, composers and songwriters get most of their money. Royalties are paid when a artist's track or composer's track are played on TV, commercials, films, public performances, played on the radio, broadcast, etc.
There are some people that believe that if you have re-mixed another artist's track you will be paid the same amount as the others but it is not true, what happen is, if you have re-mixed another artist's track you will just be paid a pre-arranged one-off sum.
The only way you find to collect your royalties is by signing up to a collection agency. In the music industry there are three different types of collection agencies and they are called PPL, PRS and MCPS.
Phonographic Performance Limited - PPL
What PPL does is to collect royalties from performances/broadcast of recordings, for example, if you have a guitar/piano/bass session in a song which means you will have to play something on the recording of that song they're working on, will get royalties from the PPL because you had a session player on that recording, but if you do not perform on the recording then you won't get anything from PLL.
If you wan to join PPL, just go on the website http://www.ppluk.com/, you don't need to worry if you have to pay for it because it is free. PPL also collect royalties from other countries in can be in America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
Performing Right Society - PRS
What PRS does is to collect royalties from the performance of the music to the writer of music best known as songwriter.
If you perform on a piece of music written by someone else, you won't be paid any royalties by PRS because you only performed on the song you didn't help with the lyrics giving ideas etc, so only the person who wrote the song will get paid because he/she is the actual writer of the song.
Different from PPL, you will have to pay if you want to join PRS and it only costs £10 for life and the money £10 you will spend joinning PRS will be deduced from your first payment.
On this collection agency the payments are made in April, July, October and December but that is only going to happen if you have made a minimum of £30 with PRS and this rule by PRS was introduced in the music industry in October 2006 and that is because they want to save administration costs which lowered payments.
License
If places like concert venues, pubs, clubs, bars, or any other place where live music is played, play live music to get people to come to their place, they'll have to pay the PRS for the license to play the songs they are using.
Mechanical Copyright Protection Society - MCPS
What MCPS does is to collect royalties from the sales of recordings to the owners of the copyright for that recording.
Unpublished composers can also get MCPS royalties.
If you have a publishing deal working for you, your publisher will collect it for you if you only perform on a recording you can't have royalties from MCPS.
What about TV & Films?
When any of your songs are used in a film, or on TV (commercials, novels, adverts etc), it earns you money and you will be paid for that because people are using your stuff.
the publishers will allow the other company which is the company who wants to use your stuff, to license your song for a synchronisation fee.
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