Music Production Analysis – Term Paper

 Music students are prepared to become good artists that will have the right skills to produce entertaining songs that convey a specific message to their listeners. To produce a song that will receive a huge audience, there are some musical techniques that one must put into considerations. Music’s are produced to entertain. That is, they should capture the attention of the listener and allow the listener to grab the main message in the song.  An artist, therefore, should employ an audio engineer that has better production techniques. The production skills of an artist can be sharpened through a lot of practice. However, practice alone is not enough to producing a quality song. There are various sonic qualities in music that when are applied during production of a song, the music will definitely be a hit and will receive a huge audience when released. This paper will compare and contrast the production activities between two American hit songs: Party in USA by Miley Cyrus and God bless America by Lil Wayne. It will also analyze various production techniques in the music industry.

Looking at the two songs done by Lil Wayne and Miley Cyrus, there is a great relation between the artistic elements and musical materials that have been used in the songs. It is this technique that made the two songs popular hits not only in America but also the entire world. The artistic elements in both the songs are superb (Petz2013). The background color that has been used in the Miley Cyrus song is bright. This choice of color was perfect as it depicted the theme of the song. Miley Cyrus wrote this song to show the celebration nature of the US people. It has a happy mood throughout the song. As a result, she chose the bright background color to represent the mood of the song. The setting of the song is within a building. The building has a large room to accommodate the parting individuals. It shows that the artistic elements that the producer of the song “Party in USA” chooses were perfect. In the Lil Wayne song, there is a great relation between the music material and the artistic elements. The song which is hip-hop was written to show how the American people have forsaken prayer and how they have abandoned prayer in their lives. The song was written to change people views in America and also requesting God to bless America. Wayne has used modern musical equipment to make the song better and musical. The artistic elements in the song have been made to rhyme with the message of the song (Ower 2013). All the visual components in the song are captivating. The producer decided to use a dull background color deliberately to represent the somber mood of the song. This will pay a great role in capturing the attention of the audience. Both the two songs relate to each other since the visual components of the song were well thought off. They match the theme and mood of the song. Songs being produced should copy how the producers of the song tried to link the music materials with the artistic elements.

In the songs, there are great relation between musical form and musical structure. For success in the production of music, these two elements must be greatly linked so as to create the rhythm of the song. In the song, Party in America by Miley Cyrus, the musical form is in such a way that the song can deliver the message in a way that it is easily understood. The plan of the music is perfect as it has been divided into sections. The layout of the song has short choruses. The verses have been made average. This is to make the listener not to get lost in long choruses of the song (McFee 2014). In the song, the music form has also achieved a series of strategies that were used to establish a successful mean between unrelieved alteration and unrelieved repetition. Repetition and alteration are common in Miley Cyrus song. They have been used to stress on some ideas that she wanted to pass to her listeners. The alteration in the song is designed to achieve the rhythm of the song (Lachner 2016). The song being a party song, it has been made to have repetition and alliterations that one can easily master while singing. This music form is perfect for the song since most of the listeners can master the lyrics at ease. This also describes the musical structure of the song as there are a lot of repetitions that have been used to make the song musical and interesting. Repetition is part of the songwriting and both Lil Wayne, and Miley Cyrus has taken account of it. In their songs, they have used strophic form and the verse-chorus form. I believe these two techniques that have been used in the songs have contributed to the positive responses the songs have got since they were released.

The formal sections of the two songs have been included in the verses, bridge, chorus, refrain and hook of the song. Listening to God Bless America by Lil Wayne, it is evitable that there is a particular pattern that Wayne was following. His pattern was not intentional as it is used to serve a particular musical function. In the song, Wayne has played verse first. The verse introduces the main message that Lil Wayne wanted to pass out to the world. Lil Wayne’s verse has a lot of imagery. Listening to the verse helps to create a mental picture. Lil Wayne sings out how his mind is filled with issues pertaining America. He says that the land has turned away from Godly deeds and the judgment day has arrived (Lachlan 2016). Through this, it is clear that his musical form has assisted him to introduce the main message in the song. The first verse has been made to have a lot of alliteration and repetition. Coupled together with the introducing bits of the song, the listener’s attention is easily captured.

The musical form of the song Party in America by Miley Cyrus is unique, and that makes the song stand out. The pulse of the song has been arranged into accented beats and the unaccented beats. They have given rise to the figure of the song. Additional organization of the song is such that the measure in the music form is given by the variation, and the repetitions have been made into a true musical phrase that has a definite duration and rhythms. This has made the song to have a better harmony and melody. The song, therefore, has a breathing space within its line as well as the long final note.

Advanced mixing and production techniques that have been used

The two songs have advanced mixing techniques that have been used to make the songs a hit. The mixing techniques that have been used in the song are similar to a great extent as they both geared towards producing a quality pop song. In the mixing of the songs, there is the best monitoring of the speakers (Torress 2013). There are good music sounds that have been used to make the song lyrical. They are so interesting and heart-soothing. There is also a great sounding space in the songs. However, this is more evitable in the Lil Wayne’s song compared to Miley Cyrus song. The beats in both of the songs vary. The beats are made to produce a base sound that can well play when the music is playing in a home theater and a woofer. The main audience of the song is youths who are still partying. It is for this reason that Miley Cyrus decided to use the great-sounding space technique in her song to make the song more interesting and captivating. The microphones that have been used in Miley Cyrus song is made to produce a soothing song and a heart-relaxing voice. It is the choice of the microphone that has made the mixing of the song to be a success. Lil Wayne being a rapper, he chose a microphone that could propagate his voice so as to facilitate his quick rapping. It turns out to be a technique that contributed to the success of the song. Decent musical equipments have been used in the song to make everything come out perfect. While mixing the song, use of faulty equipment’s can destroy the whole mixing process since they may interfere with the original sound that the singer wanted to come out For a success of a mix, it is prudent to have the great players in the song just like in Miley Cyrus song.

Another advanced method that can be used for a greater mixing is the constantly rehearsing the song and ensuring that there is the perfect arrangement of the song. Through this, there can be no mistake during the actual mixing of the song (Baker 2013). Failure to constantly rehearse can lead to a situation where the sound pattern that was intended for the mix not coming out clear. In such a case, the resulting mix of the song can turn out to be disastrous and thus not receive a positive response from the fans. Before starting to mix, it is right for one as an artist to best position the mics before starting anything. This is a strategy to avoid any inconvenience that one may be faced with while in the process of actual mixing of the song (Goodwin 2014). Furthermore, for a quality mix, it is important to monitor the mix sound (Cartwright2014). The mixed sound should be kept so simple and should constantly be monitored for a quality output. When all things are at their right place, the artist should start recording. Recording should not be a one-time thing. It should be done more constantly until the good takes are achieved. One should not compromise on the output as that is the main aim of the whole process. After the sound has been recorded and the best outcome has been achieved from the recording, the artist is supposed to spend a lot of his time mixing the song and editing it (Koda 2016). This is an essential technique in the mixing of the song as it has a lot to dictate on how the final song would be like. As all these techniques are put into practice, the artist should have in mind that attention to detail is the secret to having a successful mix (Rabiger 2013).

History and technology of various production techniques

Production techniques in music have evolved over time. It is evitable that there is a great improvement between music that was played in the past and music that is currently being played. Modern music such as Miley Cyrus and Lil Wayne’s song has used modern techniques that make songs more real and entertaining. The message in the songs can be depicted by the visual components that have been used in the song. Modern technology has helped in developing audio creation of skills as well as creating boundaries of the field as it utilizes cutting-edge technology. This is unlike the past where it was hard to distinguish verse and chorus in a song. There were no better production skills, and the songs were not that entertaining. This shows the history of the production techniques. Modern production techniques have the ability to generate audio in a range of contexts. This is an improvement from what existed in the past.

Comparison of the contrast of Miley Cyrus and Lil Wayne’s song

Both the songs have taken into account the mixing techniques. The music form and structure are similar. The artists have used verses and choruses in a specific pattern to convey their message with ease. The visual components of the song are perfect, and that explain why the two songs that were discussed in the paper received positive response in the market. However, the two songs are different in their genre as Wayne’s song is hip-hop. In conclusion, the two songs have taken into consideration a lot of production techniques that other artists should consider before releasing their songs. 

Reference

Baker, F. A., & MacDonald, R. A. (2013). Flow, identity, achievement, satisfaction and ownership during therapeutic songwriting experiences with university students and retirees. Musicae Scientiae, 17(2), 131-146.

Cartwright, L. A., Taylor, D. R., Wilson, D. R., & Chow-Fraser, P. (2014). Urban noise affects song structure and daily patterns of song production in Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus). Urban Ecosystems, 17(2), 561-572.

Goodwin, S. E., & Podos, J. (2014). Team of rivals: alliance formation in territorial songbirds is predicted by vocal signal structure. Biology letters, 10(2), 20131083.

Koda, H. (2016). Gibbon songs: Understanding the evolution and development of this unique form of vocal communication. In Evolution of Gibbons and Siamang (pp. 347-357). Springer New York.

Lachlan, R. F., van Heijningen, C. A., ter Haar, S. M., & ten Cate, C. (2016). Zebra Finch Song Phonology and Syntactical Structure across Populations and Continents—A Computational Comparison. Frontiers in Psychology, 7.

Lachlan, R. F., Verzijden, M. N., Bernard, C. S., Jonker, P. P., Koese, B., Jaarsma, S., … & Ten Cate, C. (2013). The progressive loss of syntactical structure in bird song along an island colonization chain. Current Biology, 23(19), 1896-1901.

McFee, B., & Ellis, D. P. (2014, May). Learning to segment songs with ordinal linear discriminant analysis. In 2014 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) (pp. 5197-5201). IEEE.

Ower, G. D., Judge, K. A., Steiger, S., Caron, K. J., Smith, R. A., Hunt, J., & Sakaluk, S. K. (2013). Multivariate sexual selection on male song structure in wild populations of sagebrush crickets, Cyphoderris strepitans (Orthoptera: Haglidae). Ecology and evolution, 3(10), 3590-3603.

Petz, C. W., Hu, Y. J., Collins, D. W., & McTeer, A. (2016). U.S. Patent No. 9,419,212. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Rabiger, M., & Hurbis-Cherrier, M. (2013). Directing: Film techniques and aesthetics. Taylor & Francis.

Torres, G. (2013). The Bolero Romántico: From Cuban Dance to International Popular Song. From Tejano to Tango: Latin American Popular Music, edited by Walter Aaron Clark (New York: Routledge, 2002), 151-171.

Appendix A

https://www.google.com/search?q=cd+audio+appendix+of+lil+wayne+song+%22god+bless+amerika%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b

Appendix B

https://www.google.com/search?q=cd+audioo+appendix+for+Party+in+USA+by+Miley+Cyrus&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b