ETHNOGRAPHY

SOUL (GENRE)

SONIC (SOUND):

soul music is the fusion of African American gospel, Jazz, blues, and funk. soul is well known for its variation of vocalist such as, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, James Brown and more. The main purpose of Soul in the beginning was to express how it feels to be black in America, but over time it has emerged into 4 different categories such as: economical, geographical, racial and historical. There were also different types of sounds within soul that also had split into sub genres depending on the area, race and instrumentation used. The most common sub genre was the Detroit Motown soul which began gaining popularity in the early 60s. This type of soul was heavily influenced by gospel vocals, instrumentation, fashion and choreographies.

The main instrumentation that was used in the early stages of the soul  were: Vocals (backing vocals), Guitar, Percussion, Drum kit, Horn section, Bass etc.  

VISUALS:
The fashion in the soul genre varied to Motown classy dresses and colorful suits, to hippie Afrocentric styles. During the time when soul was gaining a large amount of attention, the civil rights movements was occurring and also creating a profound affect through areas. One of the ways that musician where able to promote the civil rights movement was through fashion. famous singers such as Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, James Brown and many more started to wear African attires, clothes and head wraps to promote black beauty and black power. Women also began wearing their natural hair to appreciate their natural textures, while also trying to state a point that beauty is more then the European standard of beauty . Since the 60s men and women still look back to Africa to admire both hair and clothing fashion.


PERFORMANCE AND ARRANGEMENTS
 The performance of these artist would be quite dramatic to add on affect and, also to be able to express the deeper meaning of the song. Instrumentation was heavily repeated throughout the songs. The riffs were created by base lines and occasionally chordal parts were created with either the guitar or the Piano. The main tempo of soul was 120 BPM and faster, but there was also slow Ballads such as When A Man Loves A Women (Percy Sledge), Change Is Gonna Come (Sam Cook) and Try A Little Tenderness (Otis Redding). Popular souls songs had a large amount of strong use vocals, instrumental hooks, and the use of  the call and response technique, that was influenced from early gospel Church music. The structure of most soul songs were verse chorus form and occasionally having a bridge or a instrumental section . Soul music melodies mainly used the pentatonic scales with added blues notes, this was mainly influenced by jazz ,blues and gospel chords from previous genres.

TECHNOLOGICAL:

During the Early 50s-60s  technological was still in its beginning stages, so the ways they would record songs was to do a live recording of whole bands in a single room. To make certain instruments or vocals sound much clearer they would put acoustic screens. The other technology they used were vocal over dubbing, plate reverb such as EMT 140, Compressors like teletonrix LA2A, stereo mixes, use of DI guitars and bases  electric instruments and many more.

MEDIATIC:

Soul was mainly an African American genre which was rarely promoted  because of racial segregation at the time. Soul music was rarely  shown on TV shows because of the complexion of some the artist, so the only way artist would earn money as well as becoming known through tours and vinyl recordings.

CORPOREAL:
Soul as a genre has  an emotional affect on both the audience as well as the performers. As a predominantly black genre It had many barriers to face, as at its prime there was a lot of unjust and inequality towards people of colour. One of the main main social impact within the 60s was the civil rights movement, which Soul genre both helped promote and also was inspired by.

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
The civil rights movement was a large protest which occurred throughout the 60s and 70s, to outlaw racial segregation and oppression, so people of colour can have basic privileges, opportunities and rights in America. Soul arist were able to promote this protest by empowering people through their music . These are a handful of the songs that were specifically created for the movement :  Change is gonna come Sam Cook, I'm black and I'm proud James Brown,  Strange Fruit Billie holiday and many more.

DISCURSIVE:
I believe that over the years Soul it has made a great impact in history. Soul is also well known for creating sub genre for example Blue Eyed Soul, Neo Soul, Funk and many more. Soul has also evolved over the years and has also inspired artist and new up and coming genres.

Targets portfolio

TARGETS

1. CREATE MUSIC FOR MY EP

• CREATE CHORDS
• CREATE THE LYRICS WHILE GIVING A BRIEF ANALYSIS ON EACH SONG
• FINISH LYRICS BY 31ST DECEMBER

2. PRODUCE THEM ON LOGIC

      .GUIDE TRACKS BY END OF JAN

USE LOGIC INSTRUMENTS AND SAMPLE CERTAIN SOUNDS

      .BOOK STUDIO SESSIONS - FEB ONWARDS

     . RECORDINGS OF ACOUSTIC GUITAR

     . RECORDINGS OF VOCALS

     3) CREATE SOCIAL MEDIA/ WEBSITE TO PROMOTE YOUR EP AND MUSIC

      4)CREATE ART WORK OR TAKE PICTURES

• MOOD BOARD (AFROCENTRIC BASED) BY 31ST DECEMBER
• FIND THE AREA YOU WANT TO TAKE PICTURES OR INFLUENCE FOR ART
• CREATE A PORTFOLIO OF IDEAS AND ART WORK/ JOURNEY  FINISH BY THE END OF TERM 3

       

     5) MAKE A VIDEO FOR ONE OF MY SONGS - END OF TERM 3

      .CREATE A SPIDER DIAGRAM OF WHAT YOU WANT TO INCLUDE IN THE VIDEO

      . GIVE AN ANALYSIS OF WHAT THE VIDEO IS MEANT EXPLAIN OR PROMOTE

      . FIND THE AREAS OF WHERE YOU WOULD LIKE TO RECORD

      . BY THE END OF TERM 3

PORTFOLIO

PORTFOLIO

What are your career goals

I wish to be a  professional recording artist, songwriter/producer and have an independent label. I also want to be able to express myself in different creative ways and not only through music, such as visual arts and fashion.

where do you want to be? Be as specific as possible.

I hope to be a professional artist and create an Independent label. I want to be in a situation in which I can create a great impact within the music industry. I would like to make a change in places where people are less fortunate, and can have better access to information, technology and education.

Who are your role models? What did these people do in order to get to their position?

Eykah Badu

 Her unique persona and inspirational lyrics intrigue me. I also love they way  that she is an independent artist and she gained popularity for being herself and out of the ordinary. It is very rare to find an artist that doesn't sit in just one category or even follow any trends, hence the reason why I would love to see her live or even in person so I  could learn certain things about the music industry, independence, and knowing my identity before entering into the industry.

 CAREER

Erykah was part of the arts at a quite early age, as she use to perform in Dallas show cases. Badu also freestyled on radio station under the name DJ Apples It was until Kader Massenburg caught onto one of her demos and decided to sign her, whilst pairing her with D'angelo, who at the time was another up and coming Neo-soul artist. 1997 Baduizm  Erykah Badu first album came out and it gained a lot of popularity. This album has been said to marked a shift in music history with creating the Neo-soul movement. Baduizm recieved critical acclaim and also one Erykah her first Grammy Awards. In 1999 she created collabed with the known hip hop group The Roots, creating the song You Got Me. this song gave her another Grammy later that year. Whilst in the same year Badu also made her big screen debut in The Cider House Rules. Between 1999-2014 Badu carried on to create more unique knowledgeable, but her popularity has slightly declined over the past few years. Badu is still considered as the queen of Neo-soul, inspirational and legend.

How can you mimic their career path

The way I would attempt to follow erykah's career path is to do, more live performances and also create a demo or EP, and publish it on social media  such as YouTube , Soundcloud and any other social media so I can get recognition. I would try to gain a small amount of popularity around my community so I could get access to people in the music industry, so my demos or recordings can  reach record labels. I believe that another that could help me is to collab  with new artist or even trying to work with upcoming independent labels.

    

4)

What steps are you going to take to achieve your goals? Be specific, break it

down into all the small steps.

TARGETS

1. Create an EP and get recognition on social media and websites.
2. Create a band
3. Create artwork for the covers my EP and albums
4. Do my own videography for my songs
5. Perform in live concerts or pubs to get known around the community.
6. Try and ask for funding to create full album
7. Create social media or websites to promote my music
8. Create an album

For my final major project I am hoping to create an EP, that I will be promoting on social media and other websites such as Bandcamp, Soundcloud etc.  I also would like to create a band with a few of my classmates.

My portfolio will be a mixture of mood boards, art work, pictures (photography),  produced music, acoustic recordings and videography. I'm going to create an EP as my FMP(Final Major Project), and hopefully be able to create a video for one of my songs from my EP. I also want to create  artwork for my EP cover.

isplayed? Justify your decisions based on what you have learnt in your research.

Funding

FUNDING

I would like to have funding for an arts day benefiting ethnicities that have been affected socially. This would be located in large urban areas The profit that I hope to earn through these activities will be donated to charity where it will help neighbourhoods that are less fortunate.

The whole event will mainly present historical facts that are not taught in the academic system such as, the destruction of civilizations, cultures in different continents, segregation, slavery, and more.  It will also display activities that promote understanding your identity. Competitions such as art, fashion, literature(poems) and music will be available.They will be opportunities for up and coming artist to perform, display and promote their art.

I believe the activities that I will display will help the public understand the lost history that they have never been able to learn. also being able to have access to resources that would benefit and help develop themselves. If they are not intrigued by any of my activities I hope in the future to try and create my events into something that they could relate to such as  popular videos on social media, artist, or even new artist that they could relate to. I would like engage with all ages, I believe that nobody can stop learning, so I believe everyones capable of learning a large amount through the activities I hope to present.

My event will be touring to certain areas within London mainly diverse urban areas, as the knowledge I hope to promote through activities will connect with people from a mixture of ethnicity. I hope to publish this event mainly through social media and leaving posts in stores around London.

1 You and your work

• What you want to do.
• The names, skills and experience of the artists and other main people involved.
• Describe the aims of the activity and how you will achieve them.
• How this activity fits in with your current work and its future development.
• How the activity is likely to affect the people who experience it, or how it will affect the arts more widely.
• If your activity is touring tell us why the work is going to be presented at the venues you have listed and your relationship with the promoters you give in your tour schedule.

2 How the public engage with your work

• Details about the people the activity will reach (for example, the audiences or people taking part) will any of these be people who may not normally engage with the arts (see our information sheet ‘Public Engagement’).
• How you will reach people and details of your press and marketing activities.
• If there is no immediate chance to engage people (for example, some research and development activities), tell us how you have thought about the ways the public could be engaged in the future.
• If your activity is for developing new audiences and marketing give details of the target audience you want to reach and why they are important to you.

3 Making it happen 

• How far you have got with your planning.
• How you will manage the main stages of your activity, and what each stage contains.
• Your past experience of successfully managing a similar activity [or other relevant experience]

This information is taken from the guidelines offered by the Arts Council England

More information about their funding