A Melody

I decided for my last project to do another song, but I really wanted to challenge myself this time, so I decided to use the ukulele as my instrument of choice. This was most certainly a challenge because the fretboard is so tiny, and my fingers are rather large so the chords I played in this were very hard to do. I got inspiration to do this from my girlfriend because she was listening to some song by Billie Eilish and it had a depressing ukulele beat to it. I decided to do Frankenstein as the target of my song because it was really the first book that came to my mind to do. I decided at first in the song to make it clean and simple, just how it resembles how pure and innocent Victor was in the beginning of the book. As the song progresses however, I would end up bending random chords sporadically. the reason why I chose to do this is because it reflects Victor’s mental state. The bends represent either chaos or a shocking event that has happened. Near the end verse and the final chorus mostly every chord has some sort of bend or alteration in it just because everything has gone to hell by the end of the book. I took a lot of inspiration for the chord bends from bands such as Sonic Youth or My Bloody Valentine. With those bands they used alternative tunings, strange pedal combinations, and they bended chords in strange places. I felt really inspired on the day of recording this, so I decided to implement it into my project. The whole song from my perspective was supposed to represents Victor’s life. It starts of sweet but then slowly it starts to spiral out of control. Some of the bends with the chords symbolize the monster being created and the death of Elizabeth. The first chorus was solely dedicated to the creation of the monster. As for the music theory I do not have that much knowledge on the chords. For this song it took me a very long time to get a feel for some the chords. I know that within the song I used an F minor chord which is the first chord of the song and I used it because it sounds very melancholy and almost tragic. For the rest of the verse, I used different variations of the traditional F chord. For the chorus I used a G chord and then I did a 4-fret barre chord on the 2nd and 4th fret. These chords for the chorus at least from my perspective complemented the verse and continued the overall bleak theme of the melody that I had created. After this project I gained a new appreciation for not only the book but also the ukulele as an instrument. I never realized as a guitar player how difficult it truly is to play. This stemmed from seeing 4 string on the instrument and believing that it would be easier, but I was most definitely mistaken. I really enjoy doing these types of projects because they allow me to express my creativity and they push me to be a better musician.