Sarah Talbot

I finally graduated as a musician. As of the 21st of December 2021, I graduated with a Bachelor of Creative Arts, specializing in Music. It has been quite an experience adding to the knowledge I’ve obtained from my life, building upon the ones and concepts learnt from Primary school.

I learnt a lot about elements and got to demonstrate new skills. Since I haven’t posted for a while, I thought I might share a few projects and samples that I was involved in or created. I suppose this post is a portfolio of the work that I undertook during my degree.

Live Performances

A requirement of the degree was that I needed to perform both live and recorded, throughout the 4 years that I completed this degree I performed a number of contemporary songs. Given that I had a large experience in classical and choral works, I thought that diverging into other genres would be interesting.

I’ve included some of the performances that I submitted for assessment, in the Youtube playlist below. The entire list of songs that I performed both live and recorded were;

• “As Time Goes By” from Casablanca (H. Hupfield, 1931)
• “I Have Confidence” from The Sound of Music (R. Rodgers, Hammerstein, O., 1964).
• “I See Fire” from The Hobbit – The Desolation of Smaug. (E. Sheeran. 2013)
• “I Will Always Love You” from The Bodyguard, performed by Whitney Houston and Dolly Parton (D. Parton. 1992)  
• “Requiem” from Dear Evan Hansen (B. Pasek & J. Paul, 2017)
• “They Just Keep Moving the Line” from Smash (M. Shaiman & S. Whitman, 2013)  
• “Till I Hear You Sing” from Love Never Dies (A. Lloyd Webber & G. Slater, 2010)  
• “Can’t Fight the Moonlight” performed by LeAnn Rimes (Diane. Warren & Rimes, 2000).
• “Heaven Help My Heart” performed by Tina Arena (Arena, Tyson, & McTaggart, 1995).
• “How Do I Live?” performed by Trisha Yearwood (Dianne. Warren & Yearwood, 1997).
• “I Don’t Know What I’d Do Without You” from A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder (Lutvak, 2012)
• “On a Night Like This” performed by Kylie Minogue (Torch, Stack, Taylor, & Rawling, 2000)
• “Something Wonderful” from The King and I (R. Rodgers, . Hammerstein, O., 1951)
• “Somewhere” from West Side Story (Bernstein, 1957)
• “This Kiss” performed by Faith Hill (Roboff et al., 1998).
• “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from The Phantom of the Opera (A. Lloyd Webber, Hart, Charles., Stilgoe, Richard., 1986).
• “With One Look” from Sunset Boulevard (A. Lloyd Webber, Black, Don., Hampton, Christopher., 1993)
• “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from Carousel (R. Rodgers, Hammerstein, O., 1945).
• “You’ve Got a Way” performed by Shania Twain (Lange & Twain, 1997).

I was also involved in a live performance of music around ‘The Evolution of Love’. Music incorporated various genres including classical and foreign language. I sang several solos, supplied backing vocals, played the cello, keyboard and synthesiser, and performed the in acapella choral and group pieces.

Recording – Covers

Given that the pandemic of COVID-19 had just hit the world, and the Performing Arts venues and opportunities closed and disappeared. I decided to investigate aspects of virtual collaboration of music, with choirs. It tried to encourage the public to join in my projects, but eventually It got down to me recording myself doing the various parts and then compiling them together using video editing software.

I did a sound only virtual collaboration for ‘Okay’ by the Piano Guys. Unfortunately the sound balancing present an issue. I did present it as an assessment item, however did not publish it formally.

Another of our assessment items was to produce a cover of a song using involving the member s of the class. My project was “Grace”, one of my favourites by Rag’n’Bone Man. I developed the recording resources and studio plan, so I could direct the participants in recording the final mix.

I also got to collaborate on other covers with other members of the class taking the lead with planning and studio phases. I supplied the backing vocals and some instrumental for the other covers;

• “Wasn’t It Good” Cover. Originally performed by Tina Arena (Arena, Tyson, & McTaggart, 1995)

• “Love Story” Cover. Originally performed by Taylor Swift (T. Swift. 2008)

• “Walkin’ on the Sun” Cover. Originally performed by Smashmouth (G. Camp. 1997)

• “Not Alone” (Original Composition. 2019)

Arranging / Mixing

I did mixing of content already published and some original work a well. I made an omage to Chester Beddington (lead singer of Linkin Park), by remixing elements of lyrics from various songs, and incorporating my on interpretation in of backing using electronic instruments I had available on my software. I called it ‘Shadows‘.

One of my assessment was also to create an original mix of familiar melody and then remix it again into a incarnation, however still be familiar. At the time of this assignment, it had just been announced that the city of Brisbane would hosting the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

I also remembered back in 2012 when Barack Obama (the then President of the United States) made a visit to Brisbane and delivered a speech to students, and academia, which was also broadcasted nationally from the University of Queensland (St Lucia campus).

I took certain parts of the speech and looped it through the original mix and remixes. I submitted three versions (maybe a little overkill…maybe?)

• Brisbane Anthem – Featuring The Australian National Anthem
• Brisbane Anthem – Featuring Australian National Anthem and Waltzing Matilda.
• Brisbane Anthem – Original Composition

Sync

Sync recording and composing is its own beast, given that the original material that is to match theme and emotions has already been created and edited (hopefully) through video and animation. Basically, it is creating a musical and audio soundtrack for visual material.

I had two opportunites to work with the same material, once as a straight music composer and once as a foley (sound effects, or SFX… if you will) and composer. I basically remastered and remixed the original content that I did in the original project and added the foley layers into the scene. Hence the shorter video in the second opportunity (I only focued on the second scene)

Research

I also undertook as research project. I had had problem clarification where a musican sits as far as copyright in the various aspects of a musicans (or an artists) field. Utilitsing materials based in Australian an International Law, I was able to piece together a presentation. TO BE PUBLISHED IN LATER POST.

Stay posted intrepid readers… 🙂 And Happy New Year to you all.