Researching into Genres

Rock
Rock has many, many sub-genres...everything from adult rock to classic rock to folk rock. Originally, rock was actually rooted in the blues, following similar chord progressions and patterns. Classic rock artists from the Beatles to Pink Floyd, Doobie Brothers to Aerosmith, show just how diverse rock became within a very short period of time. The 70's was considered the "Golden Age" of rock and today's alternative and indie music are each an offshoot of rock with their own sub-genres.
Pop
Beyond this, we have a number of other main genres. Pop is certainly a significant style, although it has changed over the years. It was originally born from the word "popular".
These days, pop is defined by a very contemporary sound and often simplistic lyrics and usually has a younger audience. Pop/Rock is where the majority of artists classify their songs, and is almost always the largest category in any online music website.

Classical

Classical music, strictly defined, means music produced in the western world between 1750 and 1820. This music included opera, chamber music, choral pieces, and music requiring a full orchestra. To most, however, classical music refers to all of the above types of music within most time periods before the 20th century.

Jazz/Hip Hop

Although they are considered to be at the root of all of the other styles, each of these genres came from somewhere else! Even Electronica and Hip Hop, the sounds of which are more defined by technology, have their roots. Reggae, which originally came from artists like Bob Marley out of Jamaica, is rumoured to have come from Jazz.

All these Genres but which to choose?

As a group we have picked our song which will be "Im not made for this" By Anna Neale which is mainly pop with an influence of rock leaveing us with some great ideas to put with the song.

Pop rock is a mix of pop and rock music using a catchy pop style with light lyrics, and (typically) guitar-based songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music.

History of Music Videos

1920 - Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music.

1926 - The term "pop" is first recorded as being used in 1926 in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal"

1930 - The first major pop stars as such were the crooners of the 1930s and '40s.

1940 - In the 1940s improved microphone design allowed a more intimate singing style.

1950 - According to Grove Music Online, the term "pop music" "originated in Britain in the mid-

1950s -As a description for Rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced.

1950 - Rock'n'roll Elvis Presley became a global star, the biggest of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

1952 - Curiously, pop music charts as such didn't exist until 1952, when the first Top Twenty was recorded.

1950’s - Another technological change was the widespread availability of television in the 1950s; with televised performances, "pop stars had to have a visual presence".

1960 - Grove Music Online also states that "... in the early 1960s [the term] ‘pop music’ competed terminologically with Beat music [in England], while in the USA its coverage overlapped (as it still does) with that of ‘rock and roll’."

1960’s - In the 1960s, the introduction of inexpensive, portable transistor radios meant that teenagers could listen to music outside of the home.

1962 - From 1962 until their break up in 1970 The Beatles dominated the charts in Britain and America

1967 - From about 1967 the term was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms.

1975 - The real first pop promo video was actually Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. The footage of the band playing was from a concert they did, but the effects was done in the back of a lorry trailer whilst on tour

1975 - Queen's groundbreaking promo for their 1975 hit Bohemian Rhapsody has been named the UK's best music video in a survey of music fans. Michael Jackson's Thriller came second in the poll, just ahead of Justin Timberlake's Cry Me A River. Britney Spears' Baby One More Time made only 15th on the list. According to the band's drummer Roger Taylor, the "Bo Rhap" promo was "the first video to be used as a really successful promotional tool".

1980’s - By the early 1980s, the promotion of pop music had been greatly affected by the rise of Music Television channels like MTV, which "favoured those artists such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Prince who had a strong visual appeal. ( Michael Jackson, Madonna, The Beatles, T-Rex. Elton John)

1980’s - The 1980s proved a moribund decade for pop. Styles came and went, but it was an era short on memorable music. Only Wham! (and later George Michael) emerged as true pop stars

1990’s - The 1990s was the time of boy bands, perhaps the ultimate in manufactured acts. ( East 17, Backstreet Boys, Boyzone, Westlife, A1)

2000’s - Since the year 2000 there's been a dearth of major new stars, relying mostly on established talent. Several younger artists have come and gone, and new styles have briefly emerged, but nothing appears to have gained a major foothold besides modern R&B, which owes little to its soulful predecessor, but a lot to hip-hop - which itself has become a pop style.

The growing popularity of the music video and a change in the broadcasting landscape helped break music TV out of its ghetto via a range of dedicated music channels, led by MTV.

Monday 13th Spetember

Selecting the Track

As a gorup we had the intenion of making this a pop, rock or dance song. We all originally wanted to head towards the pop choice as we all like the style of music and also the catch lyrics. I personally really liked the idea of picking a dance track but the other members in the group weren't to keen on the idea, because this would take even longer to film than a pop video and be ever more difficult to come up with ideas for it as dance tracks include fast dance routines and choreography and even though it would still look good after rehearsal and preperation it is still a very risky style of music to pick. To find a good enough song for our music video the group spent a lot of time lookig around sites seeing if they could find anything to match what we were looking for, eventually we came across one site that looked promising http://www.totallyunsigned.co.uk/ and the reason for chosing this site was so the song is obtainable and so there is no risk of copyright so therefore we could e-mail the artist asking for permission to use their song. Using this site provided easy access to different genres very quickly and within minutes we were finding songs that sounded like what we had hoped. The first page we looked at on the website didnt really match what we wanted as these songs were more depressing and atmospheric than what we had hoped so trying the next page we came across artists such as Stacey B and other unknown artists these songs were getting a bit closer to the pop effect that we wanted but it still wasn't quite there so we continued our search. Some of the dance tracks really did have the group thinking about that genre and some of the tracks i really did like but yet again it still wasent suitable for the ideas we wanted in the music video and the style. Eventually after looking through pages and pages of songs we narrowed it down to five songs that we really did like as a group even though some were more keen on one song than another, we then listened to the five tracks again and the group had to compromise on one song which ended up being Anna Neale - "Not made for this" this sounded perfect for what we wanted and the ideas we had as we listen to the lyrics. And as the song is a woman singing and i was the only girl in the group, the group knew straight away that i would have to do some lip syncing in the video to make it look believable. The group chose the song as the lyrics were perfect for our ideas and the song was catchy which is what the group wanted. The song style is more pop/rock than just pop so we thought of loads of ideas for both and with doing a pop video we wanted it to look like that ones we had been researching big, sexy and believable. On hearing the song and from again researching into music videos we knew that from the lyrics we could create a really interesting narrative. We also liked how the song changed pace between the verse and the chorus and we thought that this would give us a lot more variety in the video when it comes to doing it. Another main reason for chosing this track is that the narrative from the lyrics is very clear about her being unhappy if it be in her relationship or about life in general young females will be able to relate to this song and narrative as im sure its something girls have to deal with at some point in their lifes. The song choice again being sung by a female means we also get chance to aim this song at males to.

The Lyrics

As the song "Not made for this" is not a well known song we couldnt find the lyrics on the internet or on the site that we obtained it from so as a group we had to keep listening to the song and figure out for ourselves what the song lyrics were. We listening very carefully to the lyrics and then told Andrew what we thought the lyrics were after each line to make it easier and then Adrew would write it down. This proccess took along time but needed to be done as it was vital for the music video and for me as the performer to learn the lyrics to save messing around when it came to filming. After we had finished we had a bit of time left and in this time we listened to the song one more time and then mind mapped ideas down and some things we could include in the video.

Rihanna - Disturbia

Questionnaire

Today as group we planned out the questions for the questionnaire and then wrote all the questionnaire out, and then scanned it in for the blog.

These were the first inital ideas that we had as a group.

Music Video Taster

First Blog

The Beginning

To start with in this two hour lesson we managed to edit this last bit of our starter task which was to try and copy the music video 'What i go to school for' By Busted it was a very enjoyable task and we all worked very well as a team. There was only a slight problem with technical faults which slowed us down on the filming aspects but we managed to get back on track and finish editing all of our footage today. I played the role of the teacher in the video and we all worked together to bring in costumes and props to ensure that it didnt look really amatuer.