Digipack Template

As you can see in the right hand picture, I have created a template for my six slides. To make my digipak the correct size of a traditional digipak, I done some research on the size of digipaks so I could alter my template accordingly to match the specifications of a proper digipak. 

Digipak size template

The picture below is a template I found online that shows the dimensions of a six slide digipak. I tried using the specifications to see if they were that similar to a real digipack and they were. I made the height of the digipack 12.50cm as both panels combined were specified as 250mm so half of that gives 12.50cm for the height. The width specified was 140mm so I made the width 14.0cm to stick to the specifications it suggested. I felt these was the perfect specifications so I decided to stick with these sizes for my final digipak slides.

Digipack Example 2

Conventions of a digipak

Steven Ballantine (A2 Student) example

Digipak's tend to follow certain conventions which are seen in most digipaks. I feel its important creating a blog post on the conventions as it will broaden my knowledge on the elements that make a successful digipak as following the conventions will help my digipak to look more realistic.

Front Page example

A common digipak consists of 6 slides which are full of band information and pictures which all relate to the artist.

Front Page

The front of a digipak tends to have one large picture on the front. The picture/illustration tends to have a relation to the song or artist. This can be a picture associated with the band or it can also be of the bands name. This digipak for example is of the artists name which has a clear relation to the song.

Inside 

Inside Page example

The inside of the digipak is where you can find the CD. The CD itself is often patterned which matches with the rest of the digipak and matches the rest of the packaging. The inside of the digipak typically contains the songs that you will find on the CD. This page is important because it is typically one of the first pages people go to when looking at the digipak because people want to find out what songs are on the CD. A few of the pages are pictures that relate to the band/artist. This is typically pictures that relate to the band such as pictures of themselves or of their equipment. Some digipaks also include additional information such as lyrics, artist information and personal messages. These aren't typically seen in all digipaks but are sometimes put in the digipak depending on whether the artist wants to or not.  

Back

Back Page example

The back page is often of a picture of the artist. The songs included in the CD can also be written on the back. This page also has information such as the record label and producers. This is to give recognition to the parties involved in the process of producing the songs. The final thing you would typically expect to see on the back page of a digipack is the barcode.

All of these conventions are very important to consider when planning a digipak because it is vital to consider the layout of the digipak to make it as realistic as possible. Making the digipak look professional is important because it will actually look as if it is a real digipak.

Example Digipak Analysis

Digipak example

I am going to do an analysis of this digipak to break down what is good about the digipak and what can be improved to make it more professional.

Firstly, I like the consistency in colour throughout the digipak. There isn't some pages colourful and some pages dull, the colour stays consistent throughout which shows a clear theme. The front page is professional looking as it has a photograph of the main artist on the tube line. Having a photo of the band/artist is a convention seen in most digipaks because it is like you are the introduction to the digipak.

The inside pages don't contain any additional information about the band, although this isn't strictly a typical convention, I feel more insight into the band/artist will be a lot more engaging and interesting as it will give us more information so we can understand what type of band they are. From the pictures on the inside of the digipak, we can see that they are a rock band as they have a drum kit, guitar and bass which are typical instruments you see in a rock, pop band. As the colour scheme is quite dark, we are led to believe that they are a rock band as pop digipaks would typically be bright and colourful such as: Katy Perry's digipak.

The back page of the digipak has the song names and also the barcode, this is effective because it makes the digipak seem more realistic as you would expect to see these conventions in a digipak. To improve the back page of the digipak, adding in social media accounts would have been nice to see as it would lead you to their social media accounts where you can keep up-to-date with the artists. From the digipak examples I have looked at, most contain social media links so you can easily find the artists social media as this is a way artists can keep in touch with their fans to give them more information and to provide a platform where the audience can leave feedback and interact with the artist.

Digipak Moodboard

The mood boards above are all examples of mood boards that have inspired me in my own digipak. A lot of the mood board examples above are all band shots/photos which is what I want to have in my digipak because in the digipak I want to give some insight into the band. A lot of the examples above are majority picture based, especially in the middle pages. The colour scheme for most of the examples above are quite colourless and dark which is great inspiration to me as the music video I have created is dark as it explores the themes of depression and isolation

Most of the examples have the song names on the inside of the digipak, I have used this as inspiration and have put the song names on the second page as from my research I found this was a convention of digipaks and therefore to make my digipak as realistic as possible, I will follow the traditional conventions.

From this blog post, I have taken inspiration from the examples I have looked at and will use some of their features as inspiration for my own digipak to make my digipak look as professional and realistic as possible. To do this, I need to use the conventions of a digipak which I explained in a previous post.

What is a digipak?

Purpose of a music video

Despacito music video

I have done a post explaining what a music video is but in this post I will explain the purpose of music videos and the reasoning behind making a music video.

Music video's are used as promotional material. A music video is a great way to gain publicity as it can be used as promotional material to attract viewers to watch your video. YouTube is the second biggest search engine over Google and is the largest music streaming website. Most artists publish their music videos on YouTube so their fans can watch their videos. Making music videos also helps the artist to make money. Advertisements can be placed on music videos which every time they are viewed generate ad revenue for the artist.

Creative visuals give the artist a competitive advantage as videos draw attention which in turn can draw in a large audience. The most currently viewed video on YouTube is a music video called 'Despacito'. According to Social blade, a YouTube analytics website, has earned somewhere between 74k-1.2M in just the last 30 days. Ad revenue is the best way to make money off the music video.

Intended Audience- Questionnaire

https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-5S9V3VVN8/

Above is the link to the results  of my questionnaire. I collected 10 responses, 6 being male and 4 being female to make the responses more balanced. These results were to find out what age group best suits rock music videos to determine the intended target audience for my music video. 

From my results I found that all 10 responses agreed that a teen/young adult audience would be the target audience I should focus on.


I had already anticipated that the teen/young adult would be the most popular response so I was very happy when I found out that all the other responses were matched to my own opinion.

Costume- Harrington.

60's Mod

A Harrington jacket is a lightweight jacket made out of cotton and polyester that has a checkerboard-patterned lining. The Harrington style jackets were popularised in 1958 by Elvis Presley. The jackets became fashionable in the UK in the 1960's among the mods. Mods are associated with rock bands in the 60's such as: The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Beatles who are the most notorious bands on the mod scene.

Harrington

Me and Olly decided that wearing a Harrington would be the most appropriate jacket to wear because it is the style of jacket that was worn during the 60's. As 'Paint it black' was written during the 60's, wearing a Harrington shows my understanding for the culture around the time of the songs creation with an awareness of the fashion that was around during the late 1960's.

Olly brought the jacket from Carnaby Street which is a famous mod street so this jacket is an authentic style jacket which is what was worn during the 60's in London.


This jacket also has a mod badge on the top left which was often worn by the mods. We both discussed wearing a black jacket was vital because the song was based around everything "turning black". The black reinforces the mood of the song which helps create the theme of isolation.

Who were the Mods?

The Mods are a subculture which began in London in 1958 and spread its way through London and still has a huge influence over fashion to this day. The mods were originally a group of young men who were known as "modernists" as the listened to modern jazz.

Mods were known for their particular fashion as they wore Harrington's which were a checker patterned linen jacket that was typically black or brown. Mods also drove mod scooters which were usually Lambretta's or Vespa's. As mods were very particular about fashion, most young-adults viewed mods as "feminine" due to their particular interest in fashion.

Swinging London in the mid-1960's

During the mid 1960's rock bands such as: The Who, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Small Faces started wearing Harrington's adapted to the mod style clothing. As these bands were huge successful rock bands, they had a huge influence over the mod scene and brought this subculture into a larger fashion.

As my music video is based around a song written in the mid 1960's and are known for being a mod group, I decided that the clothing used in my music video should be based around traditional mod clothing as this will give the video an authentic feel of the dress culture around the time of the songs creation.

By wearing traditional mod-style clothing, it also shows that I have an awareness on the culture during the 60's and shows I have done research on the song and researched what the culture was like during the mid-60's.

Traditional Indian Raga

Typical Indian Raga layout

Traditional Indian Raga

The term raga is a melodic mode in Indian classical music. There are many different melodic modes in Indian classical music however it was the raga where artists in the 1960’s took the inspiration from.

A traditional raga consists of at least five notes, each raga gives the musician some framework, so they know which key to play in. Raga is a very emotional style of music as the music is very symbolic. Each raga can have different associations such as: Season time and mood. The importance of the raga was to provoke certain feelings in the audience. Whether it may be conveying happiness or sadness, music is tailored around them emotions. For example, if the music was happy, the artists would use predominantly major chords as they are associated with happiness. If they wanted to portray sadness, then they would most likely base their raga around minor notes as they are commonly associated with sadness.

Raga’s are associated with Indian culture and typically played by four or five players. The tabla (Drums) plays very fast complex rhythm’s which lay as the foundation for the Raga. The drone is also an essential part to the foundation of the Raga. The drone plays long and sustained notes which create a drone type sound. This sound is important to the Raga’s traditional sound as it helps establish chordal sequences in the piece as a Raga’s are typically based around one key.  

This instrument is a stringed instrument that plays the harmony. This drone instrument is often compared to a ‘lute’. The third instrument that is in a Raga is obviously the sitar. The sitar plays the improvised melody that is based off the rag or scale. The sound of the sitar is made from plucking the strings and bending them to the correct notes.

George Harrison from the Beatles went over to India to learn more about the culture and to find out about the origins of the music and the impact they have on Indian classical music.

Intertextuality

Intertextuality- Harihar

Harihar Rao

Rao

My intertextual reference will be Harihar Rao. Harry Rao was an Indian-born American musician. He was known for playing the tabla and the sitar. Harihar Rao was taught by Ravi Shankar who was a world-famous sitar player who influenced many rock artistes in the 1960’s such as George Harrison. Brian Jones, who was one of the Rolling stones guitarists was taught by Harihar Rao and he helped Brian Jones come up with the opening riff to ‘paint it black’ which is the centre point of the song. During the 1960’s, many of the pop-rock bands took influence from Indian music. George Harrison from The Beatles was taught by Ravi Shankar, who was the most influential Indian musician from the west in the world. Indian music had a big influence over mainstream pop-rock of the 1960’s. Referring to Harihar Rao in my music video would be the best intertextual reference as he taught Brian Jones who later wrote the riff. He is also a good intertextual reference as Indian musicians had a big influence over some of the biggest bands in the 1960’s.

Brian Jones wanted to try something different for paint it black, he didn’t want to just use a regular electric guitar. Instead he decided to use the sitar for the riff as he had had six weeks training with Harihar Rao. Referencing Harihar Rao in my music video will show I have knowledge about the rock genre during the 1960’s and will demonstrate understanding of rock with Indian influences the influence Indian music had over the song.

It is important Harihar is referenced because he had a huge impact on Indian Music in the 60’s. This will also show I have knowledge on the history of the song and how it came together. I will incorporate his name into the music video to reference him as he is iconic to the song and is a testament to the lessons he gave the Rolling Stones guitarist which later led to him creating this song.

Merchandice

As part of merchandise, I have gone on an online shirt designer website: 'shirtinator'. This website allowed me to experiment with photo and text to create a t-shirt we could use to sell.

T-Shirt Design

T-Shirt Pricing

After trialling a few different photos, I thought the Harrington picture would be the best to use as you can see Olly in his Harrington, which is iconic to the fashion at the time of the songs creation and also the foggy dull sky behind because it reinforces the theme of depression as bad weather can relate to bad mood.

To order a personalised T-Shirt from the website it would cost £19.29. On our website, we shall sell our T-Shirts for £25 each. This will mean we will make £5.71 per T-Shirt we sell.

This would help us to make some money back on the cost of advertising and producing the music video and also to raise awareness of our band and its upcoming song.

Production Compnay 2- Candle light productions

Candle Light are a child company of Clockwork. Candle Light specifically deal with the filming aspect of the music video. This company purely deals with filming and planning the video.

The parent company Clockwork passes over all the plans to us and we start putting together a plan of action that we have to follow. This plan of action is very important as it gives us guidance on how we are going to film the music video. We also remain in contact with the band so we can give them information such as filming times and locations.

This platform also helps the bands/artistes to ask any questions to us they may have about the process. They can also let us know if they have any problems or concerns with any stage of the process. Prices are to be negotiated with the band based on the service they need and the amount of time taken to complete the film process. We aim to make sure that the clients have a fun and interesting experience filming a music video and continue to film with us in future products. We aim to provide a helpful and engaging attitude to further inspire artists to stick with us when creating future projects and like to stay loyal to all the bands we film with. If the bands have any problems or concerns they can message us anytime.

Production 1- Clockwork Studios

We are Clockwork Studios. We do high quality music videos for bands and artists. Clients traditionally reach out to us and ask us for our assistance in creating a music video for them. We specialise in sad ballad style music videos as we have created them for the past 20 years. The band Caution approached us and asked for our assistance in filming the music video.

Our aim is to produce high quality videos to fit the bands desired style of video to match the theme they are trying to create with their music. We often film certain segments in black and white which portray a certain "edgy" style of filming, which is very important for the sad ballad style videos.

Our production company must be kept up-to-date by the artists exactly what the band is expecting and anticipating. To provide the band with a proper service, we must be given a detailed plan of how they want the music video to be filmed. We are hired by the hour and if sufficient planning is not sent to us, we cant accept the job because we only have limited time with how long we film so a detailed plan is needed to allow us to put together a plan of action.

We also have a no refund policy, if the videos are not to the bands desire we will be unable to offer a refund as we work from the plans of the bands so the video will be a result of the plans we are given. It is vital that bands remember that we are here to provide a high quality music video so if you have any questions or queries regarding the filming or the music video process to let us know so we can answer your questions.

Rough Cuts

The Video above is some rough cuts from my film that I didn't use for multiple reasons and I will explain why it is they wasn't used.

Firstly, some of the shots in the video are of spare footage that wasn't needed in the video. When I filmed the music video, almost half of the footage I recorded wasn't used in the final version of my music video. This is because I recorded plenty of different shots where not all of the footage was needed. There is some band footage you can see which was just spare and not needed in the video.

Some of the footage included mistakes such as people talking and getting in the way of shots. These mistakes needed to be re-filmed and this extra footage was discarded. In the final product, I will make sure all of the footage doesn't include any mistakes as cuts of people smiling and laughing as this will contradict the theme of the song which is about depression and loneliness. A lot of the band footage was recorded for the length of the song from multiple angles which meant there was a lot of footage left over which I had to edit and cut down. This is so I can have lots of different angles in my video to make sure the video is nor boring/repetitive.

Group Message

I sent a message to the group letting them know the times and where we were intending to meet. We have out own group chat so it is easy for us to contact each other with any problems or concerns. This is the screenshot of me asking the guys to meet at the filming location. Having a group chat meant that we could stay in constant contact and ask any questions we had that needed answering.

Discussion is very important within a group because this is where ideas can be discussed and any problems or concerns can be raised. This screenshot is of Matt discussing a potential issue with getting the kit there. By him expressing his concern in the chat, I could let him know they already had a kit so we avoided a potential problem by discussing as a band.

Reshoots

Meet the band- Olly

Meet the band- Olly

Olly is the lead singer and guitarist in Caution. He has been in the band since it formed three years ago. Olly has played hundreds of gigs over this time. He has even played at Ronnie Scotts which is arguably the most famous jazz venue in the UK. He has also played in the Canary Islands and Italy. Olly’s favourite genre of music is rock. Some of his favourite bands are: The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Small Faces, The Kinks and Jimi Hendrix. These bands have influenced him and have inspired his guitar techniques.

Olly’s least favourite music is pop music as he finds the chord sequences repetitive. Most of all Olly enjoys playing music and meeting new people at the gigs. He enjoys learning new songs and writing his own music in the band. He loves to create and record new materials based on his musical influences. He loves to go out and see different bands perform live as they give him inspiration and gives him new ideas about songs to write that can be incorporated into the band.

He hopes to one day become a session artist or tour the world with the band or become a music teacher and teach guitar. He is dead set on making it into the music career and won't stop until he makes it!

Meet the band-Nathan

Meet the band- Nathan

I play bass in Caution the Band. I have been in the band when it started three years ago. I have played hundreds of gigs over the three years and will soon be doing gigs in the Canary Islands. My favourite genre of music is prog-rock and prog-metal. Some of my favourite prog-rock bands are: Yes, Rush and King Crimson.

My favourite prog-metal artistes are: Dream Theater and Tool. I am also a fan of rock bands such as: The Beatles, The Who and The Rolling Stones. The reason I like progressive music is because of the complex rhythms and the changing time signatures. This makes the music very complex and technical. Therefore, my least favourite genre of music is pop music as pop music often has simple time signatures and simple chord structures.

I enjoy doing new gigs and meeting new people when I’m playing.  I often write my own music and introduce it to the band and use that material to start write original songs in the band. I hope the band continues to gig for many years and hopefully over the years we will continue to grow and eventually tour all over the world.

Meet the band- Matt

Meet the band- Matt

Matt is the drummer in Caution. He has been in the band for two years. Matt enjoys both rock and pop music. Matt has played all over the world as he is also part of the Brentwood Imperial Youth Band. He has performed in places such as Red Square in Moscow and the Queens parade. Matts favourite genre of music is rock and pop music. Some of his favourite rock artistes are: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Who, The Small Faces and Jimi Hendrix. Some of his favourite pop artistes are: Bruno Mars, Daft Punk and McBusted.  Matt uses these bands as inspiration and as even adopted some of their playing techniques over the years.

Matt’s least favourite gene is metal because it is too heavy and fast. Matt enjoys playing with the band and meeting new people at gigs. He loves to learn new songs and bring new ideas into the band. Matt one day hopes to become a session artiste or become famous in a band. 

Owned prop 3- Mic

Owned prop 2- The Guitar

Owned Prop 1- Bass Guitar

Borrowed props- The drumkit

Purchased props- The Keychain

When filming there were a series of props that we needed to use in the film. This first prop is of a keychain that sais: I Love you. As you can see, there is only one side of the heart. This makes you wonder who has the other half of the love heart? This is used in a couple of the shots. We see Olly look at the love heart and clench it in his hand and later on we see him drop it into the river. This prop is used to show that he was once in love but he is ready to let go and break away from the pain. This prop was brought just for the shoot as it was an effective tool to show the letting go of the love.

We don't have the prop anymore because the river we dropped it into flows and is also very dirty so we wouldn't of been able to retrieve it easily which would have caused real issue if we tried to get it back. So we decided that we didn't need the prop after we finished so we only had one take of the shot because if we didn't film it correctly the first time, we would have had to order it again which would have been a huge inconvenience because we would of had to meet up again just to film this one shot. Luckily, the shot went as plan so we didn't need to order a second and do it again.

This is a picture of the prop before I took it to the woods to film. We purposely only ordered one half as it adds mystery as no one knows who the other person is and leaves us wondering who the other half of the key ring belongs to.

Setting and Location- Grove Woods

Grove Woods is where I chose to film my music video. Grove woods has both big open fields and a large woods which were what I was after. Again, setting and lighting were two major factors that had to be considered when finding a filming location. In terms of setting, I wanted a large open field where I can do an extreme long shot. This is so I could portray loneliness and isolation within my film. I also wanted to film deep in the woods because I wanted the backdrop to be encased in trees with little light. This is to make the artist looked trapped and isolated for everyone else. Lighting was very important so went down the Woods before I started filming and tested what time it was best to film at the woods. I found the best time to film was about 11am as it was nearly the brightest
time of the day but not bright enough to cause any glare on my camera.

As you can see from the picture, it is bright enough to film at 11am as even though you are surrounded by trees, there is still enough light for the camera. Since I spend a few days filming the shots, it was important I filmed at the same time as I wanted the light levels to remain consistent as I want the video to have the impression it all happened on the same day rather than over a few days. I decided this would be the perfect location as I was already familiar with the location so I knew the best locations to film at for different shots. I also knew that there was fields around so I can film some of the shots, plus the woods is quite local to me and Olly so we didn't have to travel too far which was very convenient for us.

Setting and Location- Rayleigh Studio

Rayleigh Studio

My first filming location is Rayleigh Studio. I chose to film at Rayleigh studio because it was the closest location for the band to meet up at and also it was the biggest space we could find to meet up at. It was important to have a large enough space to film in because we had lots of band equipment to set up and without it we wouldn't of been able to rehearse and play over the top of the backing track.

As you can see from the picture, there is a lot of space to set up band equipment such as amps and speakers. The room was also sound proofed so it couldn't cause a disturbance to anyone else in any of the other rooms. In terms of mise en scene, Settings and lighting were the most important things to consider when choosing a suitable filming location. The backdrop of plain which is what we wanted as we didn't want any drawings or paintings as backdrops as we just wanted the audience to focus on the band and not the backdrop. Lighting was also important. This room is brightly lit which is very important to getting a high quality video. Since all the band shots are in black and white, it was very important that the room was well lit because if the room was too dark, the band may have been hard to see in black and white.

We have all rehearsed in the studio before so we knew it would be a suitable location for us all to film the video in as it was spacious enough and had sufficient lighting to film in.

Shooting Schedule

September 24th-

Rayleigh Studio

We met at the studio in Rayleigh to start filming the band for the music video. We met in the studio at 3pm that day and spent the first 30 minutes setting up all the equipment how it was going to be when it came to filming it. We then all practiced along with the backing track so that we could mime in time with the music to make it easier for when I had to edit. at 4.30 pm, we started filming the music video. In total we recorded eight different angles as the drummer had to leave the studio at 5.30.

We didn't get to film all the angles we would have liked as we underestimated the time it would take to record all the shots. Therefore we agreed to all meet up at the same time the following week to film the rest of the shots.

October 1st-

Grove Woods

We met up again at 3pm to continue filming the band footage. After reviewing the footage we recorded last time, a few shots needed to be re-recorded as they were too blurry to be used in the video. After re-recording these shots we finished off recording the rest of the shots we planned to film the previous week.

October 14th-

This filming session was to take place in Grove Woods in Rayleigh. Me and Olly planned to meet at 11am outside the woods. After entering the woods we discovered that the conditions of the woods was far to flooded so we decided to come back tomorrow to see if the conditions were any drier as it was far too wet to film all the shots. After carrying out the risk assessment on the woods, I concluded that there was a high chance that we could fall over which could result in an injury so we postponed the filming.

October 15th-

We met up again to re-evaluate the conditions of the woods. The woods was still flooded and it was also raining so we unfortunately had to put off filming another week. Instead of filming, I decided to blog in that space of time to make the best use of my time.

October 21th-

We met up again at 11am to start filming. As the weather was sunny all week, the woods has dried up so it was dry enough to film in. We filmed the first half of the music video before it started to rain heavily. So we decided to decided to film again in a few weeks as I still had to plan the second half of the music video.

November 12th-

We both met again to film the second half of the music video. Once we filmed all the shots I started editing the footage and realised that I needed that I needed to re-film some of the shots as there was too much glare.

Planning Diary

Planning Diary

Sunday 24^th September

I created a Facebook group chat and asked the band if they could meet at Rayleigh Mega-Centre at 15:00 for a rehearsal. When we were all there we started by setting up all the equipment. This included drums, bass and guitar. Once everything was set up we decided to play along to the song three times to make sure we were all familiar with the song. At first the speakers were not loud enough to play the backing track over the band. We contacted the staff and they brought up some more powerful speakers that can play the backing track louder than the band.

We decided to play over the backing track because it will make the lip-synching look more natural and make it easier to put the footage of Olly singing over the backing track.

Today was the first day of shooting band footage for the music video. I created a group chat on Facebook Messenger explaining the date + time I was planning to start filming. We met up at Rayleigh Mega-Centre Music Room and set up all out equipment. To make the lip-synching look more realistic we played along with the song numerous times as practice. At first, we had trouble playing the backing track loud enough in the studio so we had to contact staff to change the speakers to more powerful ones that are capable of being louder than the band.

Sunday 1st October

Today we met up again to film the rest of the band footage. Some shots had to be re-filmed and some extra angles of the band needed to be filmed. Some of the shots contained laughing and some of the shots people got in the way. Therefore to make the footage look professional, I decided to re-film some of the footage to remove these mistakes as they would contradict the theme of the music video. This would also disrupt the narrative as laughing contradicts depression and loneliness, so to not contradict the theme of the song, I had to change it.

By the end of this session, I finished filming all of the band material so I was ready to start editing the band footage ready for starting the narrative. I had to cut down a lot of the band footage because we recorded the whole song from a bunch of different angles which means I recorded a lot more footage than I actually needed to use.

Brian Jones

Inspiration- The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones are a world famous 60s band that are still playing to this day. The Rolling Stones, similar to The Beatles were prominent artists in the rock scene in the 60's. The English

rock band formed in 1962 and consists of Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The Stones play a mixture of rock and blues and shaped the face of rock over the past 50 years.

The Rolling Stones

Similar to The Beatles, The Stones took influence from other styles during the 60's and incorporated them into the band to create brand new music. Some of their musical styles include: Rock, Folk, Reggae, country, R&B and psychedelic. Their experimentation of musical genres shaped the sound the band had and had a huge impact on rock as a genre.

Keith Richards

I love blues music which is one of my main reasons for being inspired by The Rolli
ng Stones. The Stones took inspiration from Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf who were huge blues artistes during the 50's/60's. Another reason why I am influenced by The Stones is due to their experimentation for their rhythm. Keith Richards, the lead guitarist, started experimented with open tunings for rhythm parts. He experimented with a tuning known as: "Open G" tuning. This is where he changes the string tunings which change the pitch of the chords. This specific tuning is still used today and has had an influence on how people use guitars.

Songs such as: "Honky Tonk Women", "Brown Sugar" and "Tumbling Dice" which all feature Keith Richards open tuning guitar techniques.

Brian Jones used to be the lead guitarist in the band however he past away. During his time in the band in the 1960's, he experimented with sitars and slide guitars. Similar to George Harrison, Brian Jones took influence from Indian classical music and had lessons from Harihar Rao who was another famous sitarist from the 60's. Brian Jones later wrote the song "Paint it black" which he wrote after his sitar lessons which turned out to be one of The Stones most popular hits.