Dreary Summer Day Preview
Channel: AlexGB231
Date: 2021-12-11

Oh boy, this composition has a long history indeed! It first appeared as a section in a longer piece of music back at the start of September 2021, then I went and turned it into a full piece of music at the start of October 2021. In both releases, it was just an instrumental, but I had been hoping to eventually turn it into a full song with actual lyrics and here we are!

Special thanks to Nadia T-H and Sheena for providing the vocals here. Upon receiving their first few vocal tracks, I noticed they both had very different singing styles and trying to think about how to assign the parts well so that they complement each other was a bit tricky. What you're hearing now are takes they made in their second recording sessions. Or at least, the second folder of takes they sent me, I didn't actually monitor their recording sessions, they just sent their recordings to me by the day I set. We didn't really meet up in person to discuss this that much, most of it was done through Instagram!

Their first few takes were actually the first time I had ever heard either of them sing, and that made things difficult. I don't think I was particularly clear on assigning them their parts well and after receiving their first takes, I actually decided to swap their roles from what I initially decided to do - Sheena was meant to sing the verse and pre-chorus and Nadia was meant to sing the pre-chorus and chorus, but the opposite happened in the end. Looking back now, I think it might've been better to instead ask them to sing a different song first and send that to me so that I could get a better feel for their singing styles at first and then based on that, assign their parts. That probably could've made the process a bit smoother.

Anyway, that aside, I think what we came up with in the end turned out very well. To me, Nadia's verse starts off pretty bright and bold to match the description of how summertime *should* feel, and then takes a slightly darker tone as it goes on and the lyrics get sadder. I especially like what she did on 'am I ok?', highlighting that change of mood very well, as of course, that line also happens on the borrowing of the iv chord from minor, so that darker tone also complements the modal interchange at play here. And the dynamic change as we go into the pre-chorus is also good.

Here's what Nadia had to say about working on this:

'This project has been really fun to work on, so far! Keep your ears peeled for the eerie whole tone scale in “This is a perfect place, but I am suffering!” in the pre-chorus. Overall, I’ve enjoyed singing the sections of Dreary Summer’s Day which have so far been lyricized, and I hope Sheena and I will complete this song in 2022!'

Anyway, after that is Sheena's pre-chorus and chorus, and I really do like how she starts the pre-chorus with this quieter, more reflective tone, eventually increasing the energy and doing a lovely crescendo on 'I am wondering' to get us into the chorus, where the tone of her voice changes completely to match the energy provided by the chorus, as well as also providing a pretty good 'call and response' feel between the tresillo rhythmic hook and the rest of the melody.

Here's what Sheena had to say about working on this:

'This was actually really fun for me! I sing in the chapel choir so when Alex sent me the score and instrumental for this I knew I had to completely switch up my singing style to suit the song! The syncopated strummed acoustic guitar chords in the second half of the pre chorus (where I come in) really help give the section a gentle feel and when they’re replaced by the electric guitar you can definitely feel the drive there. Basically I made my voice breathier and used a lot less vibrato than I usually would :). It’s a great song and I can’t wait to see how it turns out in the end!'

I said a lot in this description box for this short preview, but I like providing you lot with some background context of how I write these compositions, even if it's only a small amount of you reading these, I still hope that the people who do read these find it interesting and maybe it even gives you some ideas on your own compositions too!

Anyway, that's enough from me now. Enjoy!