Mr Wix’ M1 Songwriting Project

THE M1 PROJECT (11-12 year-olds) m1-head

The head of music at SIS, Kerry Wickersham, has asked me to help the kids from M1 record and produce a song THEY wrote themselves. I thought this was a very worthwhile challenge so… we went ahead and did it. 20 (yes TWENTY!) kids entered the studio, drums, guitars, keyboards – the works. That was a bit of a christening for our brand new San Roque studio!

PEACE IS THE WAY (original) Mid-tempo POP/ROCK/FUNK

Now that you’ve listened to the latest mix (above or perhaps the video, here on the left) you might want to follow the development of the song. So here it is – from the early beginnings to where it is now:

Mix 1 – Live, raw and unedited – more or less exactly as what it sounded like when they came into the studio and played everything live. Some things too quiet, some too loud, etc – just raw stuff.

Mix 2 – Basic Engineering – NO parts were changed, they’re all exactly as the kids played them, but some very basic clean-up and simple engineering work was nevertheless done, mainly making everything tighter, tuning, etc.

Mix 3 – Medium-advanced engineering – STILL no instrumental or vocal parts have been changed, but all the sounds were optimized, sometimes “fattened up” or otherwise enhanced. Everything is still exactly as the kids have actually played it, just “enhanced” slightly.

Mix 4 – Some re-arrangements – Once a song is written and basically arranged by the writer(s), it’s a good idea to get an arranger to help you tweak the structure, help you play in various link parts, etc. I only did very very little. The sounds and most parts are the same as in the previous mix. The majority of the changes only concern how the track builds. The idea is that each new part of the song must introduce something new – to “re-engage” the listener.

Mix 5 – Pre-production draft – This isn’t really a propper “pre-production” but it’s something approaching it. It still could use more work, including some rewrites, in my view. But – for now, I think we’re more or less there. I replaced some sounds and added (the barest minimum) of parts here and there, only the kind of stuff which the kids CAN play live.

Well done kids!
And – well done Kerry!

Mix Date: Feb 05, 2016
Copyright: The M1 Project 2016 which included: Daniela Aramburu Muñoz, Olivia Bunn, Thomas Butler, Fernando Canela Gómez, William Chandler, Gled Chernenko, Dulcie Clark, Paula Correa Rodriguez, Molly Fitzpatrick, Esperanza Gallego Puig, Gabriela Gastone Guilabert, Jiabo Ji Zheng, Ella Kali Levy, Faisal Khreis, Kerenza Mungles, Pelayo Perez Crespo, Artem Pervykh, Isabella Tromans-Jones, Enhui Wu and Kerry Wickersham
Publisher: MMI Music
Lead Vocals: The M1 Project 2016
Backing Vocals: The M1 Proejct 2016
Track: The M1 Project, MMI Studio
Produced by: Paul Sedkowski