The Radio 📻
This week, I feel so happy because I released my first ever song on the internet. I called it The Radio 📻.
The full song takes me about a week to complete. This song has been unfinished and incomplete for such a long time that I did not want to compose it at first. There is no real motivation to commit to it since it only has the initial sound, which is the guitar.
My song ideas mostly come to me while I am in the shower 😂 and walking. The first sound comes from an acoustic guitar playing chill chords. As soon as I add the Rainy Day Vox, the song begins to progress. It changes my perception of how to feel this song. When I add a crunchy beat, the vibe is much like LOFI. This is an exciting opportunity and I want to complete a full melody song as a challenge.
The title was inspired by the GIF itself, Abraham Lincoln vibing on his radio. Eventually, The Radio 📻 was chosen as the title.
The song was released on August 24, 2021. My intention with that song was to express myself, so I would not expect any hype. Family and friends are the first people to hear my songs. All of them have loved it and have given a lot of great feedback. At the time of writing, I reach 100+ views. This is a big achievement for me!!!
Making music is an ongoing process of learning. This song was a great learning experience for me. Here is what I learned:
The rubbish song can be a success
This song, as I have mentioned before, is incomplete. The song should be expanded and made better, but I do not know-how. As soon as I give myself another chance and try to experiment, the song becomes better than I expected. Be careful what you expect from your rubbish song. Overestimating your rubbish song is a mistake.
Duration of the song
When I feel motivated to finished this song, I do not think of the song duration time. It ends up being more than 4 minutes. So, I remove the unnecessary sound and parts to make it below 4 minutes. Generally, a song will have a duration time of under five minutes. Most of the time, it's 4 minutes and below.
Thinking of genre
The genre of music I should have used for the song wasn't clear to me when I finished it. My mind starts to drift towards chillwave and LOFI. The more I observe most of the songs in the world, the more I realize that people just classify those songs into a specific genre that has a similar type. Musical genres are like borders that define certain types of songs. Any song cannot be 100% associated with a particular genre. I'd say there's 30% here, 70% there. Thus, people choose that 70% and label the song after it. I feel the LOFI vibe in this song, and maybe I would categorize it as a LOFI song.
Loudness
It is important to adjust the volume of certain music in any part of your song. Imagine what would happen if I boosted the beat's volume and lowered the guitar's sound. The chill guitar rhythm would be lost, and for me, that's the key to the song. Loudness is also affected by timing. Toward the end of the song, make sure the loudness does not get static. The loudness needs to be adjusted at a certain point, so it's obvious and yummy to hear.
Transition between the tracks.
Every DAW software lets us add many tracks of songs and play them simultaneously. There is a synchronicity to my song with the guitar, the beats, the Vox, and the piano all playing at the same time. And you want to be the transition as smooth as possible. Imagine the low sound transitioning to the high sound straight away. Your mind is like "Baaammmm".
This is an example from GarageBand:
Deep beats for LOFI song
All of the songs have a common element: rhythm. Adding beats and drums makes it easy to get the rhythm you want. It moves the music forward. LOFI songs typically have a deep beat. The beats of the LOFI songs were mostly not created with drums. Because most LOFI or chill music listeners are those who are either looking to relax, focus on work or studying, or simply reduce stress. The deep beat sends a deep touch to the listener, making them relax and feel better at the same time.
Broke Radio background sound
There is some kind of broken or distorted radio sound in most of the LOFI songs I heard before. It simply wants to trick the listener's brain into not thinking about anything else and letting the sound fill the deep brain. The sensation is like having a brain freeze.
There it is, my first ever song, The Radio 📻.
The End