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Project Overview

I was both excited and nervous to start working on my song, since this is the first time that I have written one. My dad has recorded my voice in the past, so I was familiar with the recording part. I started working on the song on May 5, but at that point, I was just playing some random chords on the ukulele, taking note of chords that I liked. I already knew that I wanted my song, which is called "A Walk in the Park", to be like a letter to my future self when I pitched my PIP idea to my dad. The song was going to be titled "Dear Future Me", but once I had come up with the lyrics for the chorus, I knew that I didn't want that to be the title. The song was officially completed the night of May 16, but I didn't upload it to anything until the next day. I started working on "A Walk in the Park" by finding the chord progression, and once I had that, I just randomly started singing a melody to it. I took a piece of advice from one of the videos I watched and recorded all that I was singing on Voice Memos in case I sang something I liked but then forgot it. Once I had a melody for the verses and chorus, I woke up one day with the first two lines in the first verse in my head. That started the train of other lines, and pretty soon my song was almost complete. Most of the lyrics just kind of came to my head, but there were sometimes when I didn't know what to write and had to look up rhymes to words to try and jolt a lyrics spark in my brain. I knew that I wanted ukulele in the song, but I was thinking about what other instruments I should have. But, when the ukulele and singing were done, my dad and I agreed that the song didn't really need any other instruments in order to sound like a song. I just wanted this song to be simple and nothing special. This project was so much fun, and I may write and sing more songs in the future. If I do continue to write music, I can't wait to see what I will come up with future! Link to "A Walk in the Park": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gscrxqq0PhY

Collaboration

Since my dad has experience in song making and has the equipment and software to record a song, I collaborated with him a lot. I didn't really know how it was going to go, since my dad likes old songs and bands like The Beatles, but I didn't want to make that kind of song (I like The Beatles as well, though). I didn't collaborate while I was writing the song, since I didn't really know how he could help other than by doing some of it, but I wanted to make sure that the lyrics, chords, and melody were purely my work. My dad was the one to put the song together, since he has a software that I've never used before. I made sure to watch what he was doing, though, to learn for myself so that one day, I may be able to put a song together. I also wanted to watch to make sure that the song was what I wanted it to sound like and that there were as few mistakes in the song as possible. Once the singing and ukulele was recorded and put together, I asked him if he thought I should add more instruments, not because I thought that the song was missing something, but if there was any way to make it better. But, since I wanted the song to be very simple, I thought that just having the singing and ukulele sounded fine. I also wanted to make sure that it wouldn't take too long to make my song, and I thought that figuring out and adding other instruments would take too long. My dad sent the song to his friend, who was another member in the band my dad was in. I saw that he replied very positively, which makes me very happy. He said that he added his own bass to it, which I haven't heard yet but would like to in order to know if it sounds good with the song. I loved working on "A Walk in the Park", and if I decide to continue to write music and record, or if I just wanted to stick to singing covers, I know to go to my dad, and he would be happy to work with me.

Bernards, Emily

My name is Emily, I'm 15 years old, and I'm wrapping up my freshman year at Wamogo Regional High School. I love music, both playing and listening to it, and my top three favorite hobbies revolve around music: dancing, singing, and playing the piano and ukulele. I have been singing for as long as I can remember, I started dancing when I was about three years old, I started the piano when I was in second grade, and I just started playing the ukulele a couple months ago. I want to continue these hobbies for as long as I can, and maybe pick up some more along the way.