Section 1- Title and Performer Information
Unit 9 Project 1- Solo Performance Recital
George Humphries
Section 2- Introduction
Today im going to be playing four peaces in which i have creativly made my own using different styles of vocal and instrumental skills. Some being genre blending, experimentation with different keys and tempos of some of the songs and different strumming patterns mainly seen in the second song. Each song focuses on a specific change the first song being i made the vocals my own and tried to sing it in my own vocal style instead of the elvis version. The second song Is focused on changing the tempo of the song but mainly the rhythm the song is sang at. My third song I changed the chords used in the song completely apart from the first chord of the song and lowered the key, I also took thetempo and slowed it right down. My fourth song I Changed the vocal technique from raspy to using runs and made it a ballard.
Section 3- Your recital setlist and the original composers.
My first song im going to be performing is Unchained melody by Elvis presley focusing on the recording made in 1977 on the 21st of june using the whole orchestra is what i am specifically looking at and the passion in that performance.
My second song im playing is Rain by the teskey brothers recorded in 2019 and it blew u recently on tick tock.
My third song is Mr pitiful by the comitments i choose this version as it is alot more instruments and very up beat and i plan on changing the key and tempo to slow it down.
My forth song that im going to be playing is Wondering why by the redclay strays a up and coming country band from this last year.
Section 4- Historical and Cultural Context
Unchained Melody by Elvis presley
The original song was produced by the rightous brothers in 1965 and then later recorded by elvis in 1977 shortly before his death and thats why this song has so much emotion in his version and is why i choose it.
The recording was finished and performed exactly 2 months before his death and was recorded in rushmore civic center.
Unchained melody is a extreme love song explaining the struggles of seperation and intense emotional longing.
The song was originally wrote for a movie called Unchained, the reason it never actually ises the work unchained is the composer didnt want too make a catch song but a emotion peice about struggling in a relationship.
Rain by the teskey brothers
This song was recorded in 2019 by colour studios with a liive performance recording that got posted on there social media making the band gain the fame and popularity.
This is a poingant song about many different themes some being emotional support, lonliness and a really important theme is the comfort of human interaction.
The song came from the singer of the band helping a friend going though alot of emotional pain.
The song gained intrest from the crazy vocal techniques used for example how huskey theyt are yet he is able to hold the note and in a way belt it over and over again which hadnt been seen before really and only had been done partially by black vocalists in soul music were as the artist is a corcasion male from Australia melburn.
Mr pitiful by the comitments
This song was recorded in 1964 by both guitarist steve cropper and famous soul artist Ottis redding.
The song was recorded in stax record studios in mephis tenessee which was founded in 1957.
Tghe song was both nstrumentalists first time colaborating and cropper came up with the idea from mohan williams someone who worked at disc jockey. William explained otis as mr pitiful because of the way he acted so cropper decided to use that and make a song about it.
The song only took both of them 10 minutes to record after cutting up 3 or 4 takes and then was released with B-side record company.
Wondering why by the Red Clay Strays
The song wondering why was released in 2023 by the band red clay strays.
The version that became popular was the recording done by AF sessions which take up and coming country bands and give them a four song live recording of there music and release it on there profile and the band gained alot of fame from it.
The band got up and coming artist of the year this song came out from the CMA awards which shows how fast they grew from this performance.
They had a album out before this ep with the song on and released a album after there ep which blew up.
The song has a total of 98.5k page views which is huge for a song thats been out only a year.
Section 5- Insight and Analysis
Song 1
The structure of this song goes verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, bridge, outr. this is very confusing for most songs and isnt a comon structure for music at the time however works really well and wouldnt make any sense in a different structure.
Lyrical themes of this peice are long distance and seperation specifing in the fact the song is about a a central theme from yearning for a loved one who is far away.
The song uses alot of harmonys in the elvis version and this is duer to the fact he was acompanied by a orchestra with 5+ male and female vocalists acompanying him. They mainly would only sing adlibs and not actual words but hum under elvis this can be seen in the famous live recording.
Song 2
The structure of this song are unlike any other song you really see for example there are no chorus the structure of the song is: verse, verse, bridge, verse.
Lyrical themes of this song are about mental health for mainly men as the artist writing it was dealing with a friend of his struggling with mental health himself.
Due to the fact the song focuses so much on the vocals there wasnt much harmonysing apart from both lyrics and guitar sincronising with eachother making the musaic flow really easily.
Song 3
The structure of this song is verse, chorus, verse, chorus, instrumental, verse, chorus, verse, chorus. This is the first song i play that has a instrumental in which I turn into a piano solo.
Lyrical themes of this song are very happy about a man and his nicname manly focusing on ottis redding and his experiances being happy in life.
Harmonysing in this song due to it being from the 60s alot of songs had harmonys focusing on female vocalists like this song it makes the song so much more full and gives it the perfect finish to the song.
Section 6- Connection To Your Audience
As most of my pieces arnt very popular with mosat people my aga and most people in general it means i need to explain my peices with more information as they might not know the original.
Im going to explain my peices and what techniques i used so they know what to look for when im playing it so they know when to specifically listen in, i might even give a example there and then from the original to what we do to make it super clear for the audiance.
Section 7- Conclusion
This projected has helped my imagination towards making my own music and changing songs to making them my own. I also want to thank tom and kyran for colaberating with me on this project withouty them i wouldnt have been able to achieve my goals.