|
|
This is the first project I did, the First and Last name project. My class recorded our names and played different "smart instruments" on Garage Band. After recording your name, you could make a rhythmic way of having it said, like really high pitched or low enough to sound like a growl. We were shown how to use each of the smart instruments for the track. After the name, then we added a full 8 beat bar of smart drums and recorded it to the name part. Then we added a bass loop to the track. The next instrument was our choice of smart guitar or smart strings. I chose smart strings and added what I recorded to the rest of the track. After listening to the full track, I though it was super weird but cool. After the first name, we had to do the project again, but with our last name and with not a lot of help. It was fun little thing to see what you can do on garage band and just to have fun. I learned how to get the basics on garage band and learn the different ways to use the instruments on there.
These are both parts of the 12 sound challenge on the MadPad app. On the iPad, our challenge was to make up 12 different sounds that could be anything in the room we were in. From loud noises to quiet, long, short, anything really. We had to record the sound enough for the app to pick up the sound we were making. Other people even had noises made from other people. Sometimes we had to take turns making the sounds because what we were recording was so quiet it would get drowned out by other recordings. After the 12 sounds were recorded and were up to standards, a two full 4/4 bar was to be made. I however, did not do the right thing by recording them both at once, I did them separately by accident. It was hard to keep it into just 2 full bars. The square that was playing would continue to play even after the count was up, so it would go over unless you had amazing recording skills or just went with it. It's a fun way to see how you can make a song using really different out of the blue sounds.
The Found sound remix was used on Mad-pad with the same sounds recorded from the 12 sound challenge. We first made loop using the sounds already there, then we had to make another 8 beat song using the loop that we created for the first one. It was a fun experiment to see how the song would be made with the loop going over and over again. The only problem I really had was the fact of the squares playing more than I needed, so it continued into the next beats when I wanted them to end.
This project was the spooky, creepy, weird sound thing. We used garage band again to make this track. We were given examples to use within our songs. The track had to be at least 45 seconds and have 8 tracks added. We could anything within the garage band ability. IT could be made from the smart instruments and the auto-play to playing single notes all by yourself. I used the sampler quite a few times, the strings, guitar, and piano. I only used 7 tracks but one track has different sounds in itself, so it counts for eight. I felt inspired by Five Nights at Freddy's video game noises/sounds and soundtrack. It was interesting to see if I could scare myself with the music that I was playing and creating. I also felt an inspiration from a book, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. The music that I was making felt like I was rereading something from that book. I realized while using the sampler, if you use the different piano pitches, it can sound reaaaalllllyyyy weird, spooky, funny, anything and everything. I used that a few times to get that electronic feel.
This time we were in groups of five. The project was App Smash. We used the apps of Sonic Pics, Garage Band, and Thumb Jam. There were five roles to fill in, a narrator who told the story and did the pictures. Two people were the sound effects, which I was one of them, who added in extra sounds to give it a more dramatic flair. Then we had two music people for the background. Narrator used the sonic pics app, the sound effect people used Garage Band and the sound board people also used Garage Band and Thumb Jam. At first it was hard to come up with a topic within my group. I really didn't know some of them to have something normal in common, but then we sparked something with laser tag. We made some jokes and thawed the ice a tad. As we made the project more and more, it seemed to get easier to get along. It took several tries to get the story spoke right and for the pictures to line up. We were still figuring out the sounds when the story had gotten straight and the pictures were in place. The final time we had done it, which seemed to be the perfect take, we ended it before a little solo of music could've played. After seeing the time being short of the 1 minute requirement, (ours was 45 seconds) it was close enough to count. And I believe it is acceptable due to the fact of our group growing a little closer together to be able to complete this project.
This project was done with singing fingers. At first we had a partner to try and match the pitches that we created. The actual project was to talk about a topic. I chose music. The app is pretty fun and after a little while you can control your pitch enough to make it blend better or have it a thicker mark. I had to redo this a few times to make sure it was all blended and finished so the notes were actually seen. I still find it weird how you have to sing to make it work, and it picks up about everything. It's a cool way to learn how to learn pitch and control it while having fun coloring.
|
|
This was once again made on Garage Band, and it was recorded using real drums. At first, we learned what all of the drum parts were, like snare, hi hat, and bass. Then we started with a basic beat. Our teacher is the only one with pure drumming skills to play a ba-jillion things at once, so we started with just one beat. Then we did merge recording, which meant after the first beat, we just went straight through to another beat, adding it onto the previous beat. Or if we wanted to practice it, we could stop the recording and add it on when we were ready. We kept adding on until we were fully happy what we had done, so we could end the recording. We did two sets of 8 bars of 4/4 time, labeled part A and part B. It didn't matter what order we did it in, but besides using one of the drum kits on the app, we also had to use one of the drum machines. Going through them to see the different sounds the same beat would make was very interesting. I went with the Classic Drum Machine and the Live Rock Kit. For the Drum Machine, I went with a faster and heavier beat. For the kit, I built it up using more and more of the instruments by layering them on and on and on. I think for both projects I could've made them better and more material. For my first time really trying to find my own beat and making it up using drums, I'm okay with the result. Its really fun to use any of the instruments in Garage Band when we can do them piece by piece and not just use the chords or smart play and have it done for us. I know for next time to take a little more time to make my beats more quality.
The project was called Thinglink. We also used Garage Band photos. The app Thinglink lets you use a photo and make it interactable. Our expectations was to have a link to a drum article, videos of us demonstrating how to make a beat using 3 parts of the drum, and labels for each part of the drum. We could pick any drum from Garage Band and screen shot it. I used the classic kit. Finding an article was harder then I though because of how many different kind of articles there could be. I went with one that shows the smarter side of drummers, although finding an article about a really amazing drummer would've done the same trick. At first, I couldn't figure out what my teacher ment by recording, so I hopefully got that part right. Me being the awkward turtle I am, couldn't have done a more basic video. I didn't know the different parts of the drum, so I'm glad to say I do now. Just one step closer to being a professional. B) The project itself is really cool, you're show casing several different components in one idea, like learning the parts, showing a tutorial and finding an article about drummers. I didn't really like having to record myself do the drum lessons, but it does show how you've grown/learned all about the drums. A way that I'd rather do it, instead of the recording, is to find a video with those same tutorial steps. Or just record audio and see if there's a way to show on the Garage Band app. The project doesn't really give you a chance to be super creative and have your on twist on it like it can for other projects, so some of my classmates might have a super similar project to mine. I would try and make a more quality video to showcase the tutorial better and try to find a way to spruce up the full project.
This project was made on Garage Band with a classic music genre in mind. The blues. I didn't really know that much about the blues, so it was really cool to learn about them and try to make something like it of our own. For inspiration, we listened to B.B King, Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters, and several others that were the original blues singers/musicians. We then learned the 12 bar blues progression, which is I I I I l IV IV I I l V IV I I. To use the progression, you need to pick a chord. For example, the G chord. We didn't get to in depth with it, so we just went with the normal 8th note scale, G A B C D E F G. We really didn't include the sharps and flats to the full extent. Then we used the first note, the fourth and fifth note to do the progression. So, G G G G l C C G G l D C G G l would be the example that we did. We used the smart instruments on Garage Band to create the progression, and created the "Tango Blues." After that we were given the instructions on how to do blues by ourselves. We had to have another AB song, two different rhythms. To start off, we needed either a smart strings, smart guitar, or a smart piano and recorded the progression. We then added a smart bass, and final use of the progression with the smart drums, and we had to add a solo using the strings, guitar, or the keyboard. I used more then just the pick one to start, I used guitar and keyboard for the beginning, then the digital bass, smart drums, then for my solo I used the strings for section A. I thought it was a really cool idea, the tango blues sounded similar to an actual song that would be used to dance with it, but when I did the project all on my own, it didn't quite sound like the blues had listened to before-hand. I would like my projects at one point to actually sound what the genre we are doing sounds like, the Blues, rock-star drumming, and more genres to come.
Thumb Jam- Thumb Jam is an app similar to Garage Band, but a little less creative and more simply shown. But it just being simply shown, doesn't mean that it is easier to work with. It was still something fun to work with, and I had enough time and wanted the best effort, I might have been able to create something that would be cool. I mostly messed around with the app, not really giving thought on how to create something intricate and fabulous. Hopefully I'll be able to do something in the future with it more in depth!
|
Loopy HD was a very interesting project that took me out of my comfort zone. The app is a live beat boxing app. There is six circles like to the right, but black. When you tap on them, they record once the counter resets. Once the loop successfully recorded your voice, it'll become orange, like once again, the right. Our instructions were to make all six loops have some type beat-box, which happened to be the one thing that no one was a proud expert on. We tried learning from a video, which gave us some ideas and helped our sounds, but it still felt awkward, weird and not really productive. Trying something I had never done before was an interesting thing, but I felt like this project really didn't do anything for me. If we had better "teaching" of beat-boxing and a better understanding of how the app would work it all together, it would be a really cool idea. I kept deleting loops because of background noise, my voice not sounding the way I want it or just simply put, it sounded bad. Going straight into beat-boxing wasn't the easiest thing to do, especially when no one really knew what to do. But the project was still fun, trying to beat-box itself was something else.
|
DM1 Drum machine was a really fun app to use. It goes super in depth with using drums, and even more complex when you dig in and learn more. You can create a really cool beats and turn it completely into swing drumming. There's four tabs to choose from, each has its own little neat tricks. You can change the type of drum that you use, whether its an actual drum kit, or a machine. Learning the basics of how to use this was very cool. At first we were allowed to play around, and making shapes and patterns with the buttons was fun. At first, we made a hip hop beat that we then added our own twist to it. By moving around the patterns, we created our first song. Then we were free to create our own. A sheet of different style music and how to create it on the app was past out, so I tried some. They sounded exactly like it, it was really cool. After we created several patterns, we rearranged them to make a song. The song then got exported to garage band to edit it some more. It would be a really cool project if we got in depth with it and learned how to really use the DM1 machine, the result would be amazing. I look forward to using this again!
Symphony Pro and Notate me now are two very interesting apps that have similar outcomes but different processes. Symphony Pro is an app where you can create your own ensemble. You can click in notes, have several instruments playing, and even play our song on a piano to get the notes/beats. But it does not go with your rhythms that you play, simply whatever you have selected for notes. It is also a very complicated app where learning to use it would take some time. Notate Me now is a very interactive app, where it learns your handwriting as you write notes to create a song. You write in what note you wanted played, the pitch of the note and how many you want. It goes in depth with tempo, time signature, and key signature, but its much more simpler than Symphony Pro. Everything is on the front screen and its easy to see. In Symphony Pro, we had to create a eight bar song, which I chose Yankee Doodle. I memorized it on the clarinet and used the same rhythms for piano, violin, and tuba. The piano I did a lower pitch, which complimented the clarinet very well, and then added high violin to being out better sound. To make it even, I added a lower instrument, tuba, to offset the high ones. The tuba didn't really sound like the right notes that should've been played, but at least the rhythm blended in perfect.
|
On Notate me now, we were told to use only simple notes, quarter, half, and full. We could also use ties, dynamics and accents. Since very little of us have a music background, we took it as simple as one can get. The app takes awhile to learn your handwriting, and it can get annoying in the process but it catches on decently. I enjoyed using Symphony Pro more because its very clean cut and great to use, especially if I learn how to use the app for full potential. Notate Me Now is a really cool app but it seems to be more for a younger audience while they are learning music themselves. It is very simple for older people to use and try creating something very intricate. I would like to use Symphony Pro in the future and maybe Notate Me Now for younger kids if they are learning. With both projects, I am very happy with how they turned out and I could only improve.
|
The picture on the left is from an app called iReal Pro, and the other picture is from an app called Chordbot. Both are apps that allow you to create songs from chords. Chordbot is a little more simpler compared to iReal Pro. Simply put, you pick your key, then what chords you wanted played. You can get a little more in depth, with flats/sharps, or if it is in a different tune. You can also change the time signature. We were told to create a 16 bar song that had several different chords. On iReal Pro, you can get waaaayyyy more in depth with creating a song. You can choose what instrument you want playing, guitar, piano, or ukulele. Then you can add in your chords, which has several feature of its own. You can use the keyboard for chords and the space bar changes everything into symbols for time signature, section labels and where you want your measures to end/start. The examples they show you are really nicely shown and all spaced out to wear the chord fingering doesn't cover each other, or the notes. Mine, as you can see, does not do that. When I tried spacing out the measuring, it wouldn't play it because it counted the extra space as notes. I'm not sure if I'm just doing the spacing wrong to begin with/ to change, but it should become easier to mess with. In the menu bar, you can click on forums and get even more music, all different genres like Christmas.
Garage Band Versus Thumbjam with their multiplayer platform.
The final project. Taking place with almost a week of class time. The project was to create a full song, choruses, bridges, verses, and intros. This project was to be completed on Garage Band. We were given worksheet and guidelines to fill everything out. On the worksheets, there was four different keys we could choose from to use in the song. I chose the key of A. By using these chords we had to write down every chord that we used and the order. The other worksheets all had spots for the chords. The first worksheet had the intro and verse one, both needed different tracks to be complete, like intro had the use of the sampler, and the verse used an apple loop. Out of the required track number, some would have specifications already, like real instruments or the ones from earlier. Not all parts had the same requirements for tracks or instruments. For the intro, we were taught to have a simple chord progression that most people use for songs, I vi V IV, so 1 6 5 4 and to either repeat that same order, or do doubles of each one, so 1 1 6 6 5 5 4 4. The chorus contained the most tracks and a variety in requirements for instruments. However, we had two choruses, so we were able to just copy and paste the first one to the second, making it a step easier. Verse 2 was supposed to contrast verse 1, and it had different requirements for tracks, which helped in varying the sound. To me, the bridge is the one part that can really vary from the song, just to give it a different flavor. The bridge required an app that no other part used, Loopy HD. How to incorporate that into a song smoothly, is a challenge within itself. The outro, unlike the verses is supposed to be similar to the intro and end the 1 chord in the key, in my case, A. Throughout the song, I realized I didn't use the guitar much, I relied mostly on the piano and the strings. The piano was harder to use on my own mainly because I didn't know how to play it. I used the piano and strings in both forms, smart and real, and tried the varying the uses from that as well. I learned that some days creativity flows better then others, so my chorus I loved, but then working on the intro, I didn't like the sound, especially when I made my verse one and it didn't connect smoothly. I felt like the transition would fit better to be another verse. I realized that to make something allllll on your own, it takes a lot of editing and redoing and making sure everything fits well. Time management is a huge factor in a huge project, and I don't think I used it to my best advantage.