The 'sounds like' project

During the past few weeks our class was split into groups and given the task of creating a song from scratch complete, a music score to lyrics and full production from recording to mixing. The task for my group was to create a song that sounded liked a Quincy Jones production with the emphasis on Michael Jackson’s Beat it and Billie Jean songs but without breaching any copyright. The song was destined for a TV show to be playing on a stereo in the background. The group I was allocated consisted of four students, including myself. After reviewing the two Michael Jackson songs extensively, the discussion resulted in a song that would ‘sound like’ Billie Jean.

Firstly the group decided to use Ableton to record and produce the song due to the wide range of synthesizers available in that particular DAW. We booked the Tascam suite for a long eight hour session and proceeded to create our masterpiece. I felt some discomfort using Ableton because Whilst the three other group members were seasoned users of the DAW, I am still a novice and in reality, know very little about the suite by comparison.

As with most Michael Jackson songs of that era, there was a distinctive drum beat and for this song this is where we started. Firstly, we copied the Billie Jean drum beat precisely and then started to alter it, bit by bit to comply with the project brief. It’s perhaps a little surprising how difficult it can be to create a song that resembles another but not the same. There were several versions trialled

Like the drum beats of the Michael Jackson songs of the 1980s, the bass line is also quite distinctive. There were numerous bass lines recorded and eventually rejected. The bass guitar chosen was a synth based fretless bass guitar. With the newly created drum beat and bass line, the song started to emerge.

Whilst we were creating the drum beat and bass line we pondered just what would out lyrics consist of? Several ideas were discussed and we found it difficult to find common ground. We did however agree that during the eighties, Michael Jackson’s songs nearly always carried a message unlike the love or sorrow found in many other songs. I started throwing some words and lyrics around in my head and grabbed a pen and notebook and started to write. I have never written lyrics before, or music for that matter. I had no idea at the time that the words I was writing would become the lyrics to the song.

The first verse chords and rhythm and the chorus began to form with using the synthesizers in the Tascam suite. The Korg and Juno 6 brought back the eighties with their classic synth sounds. We spent the rest of the session creating several recordings for consideration to allow options as some parts would suit and others not.

A friend of a group member came in to record vocals as his voice suited the era. Numerous takes were recorded to try and find “that sound” that would transform us back to the days of Billie Jean.

Following sessions allowed for the stitching together of both vocals and music to bring the song into meeting the brief. This was in no way a small task and took many hours, sessions and discussion. On Monday, 6 November we presented the finished song in the lecture theatre to the rest of the class with other group’s submissions. During the chorus where some of those classic eighties keyboard licks were played I noticed the smirk on the lecturer’s face and I knew right there we had achieved our objective.

Finished song: CLICK HERE