Holley Hums

So what’s been happening on this silly tech project I talked about a couple weeks ago? I’m glad you asked, because I have the completed audio with vocals to share with you!  Here’s an update on what’s happened. As you can tell, I recorded the vocals myself on the track. I tried my best to seperate the vocal line from the original recording of I Can’t Go For That by Hall & Oates, but quickly realised it would be nearly impossible. I followed tutorials made on youtube, such as the one I’ve attached below, on how to use Logic Pro X and phase inversion on a stereo track to remove the instrumental and create a clean acapella track, but the way the song is mixed meant that the lead vocal line was placed in the middle of the mix, rather than a mono track on the left or right. 

I fussed with it for a bit before coming to the conclusion that recording the vocals myself would be just as fun and would ultimately make the music video (still in creation) more interesting. While I didn’t get to do this trick with this particular song, I still learnt a lot about mixing and how to seperate instrumental and vocal tracks for more modern songs that allow this technique to work!

Speaking of instrumental track, how about those keyboard and guitar sounds huh? Last blog post about this tech project I mentioned possibly using an audio sample of the oats hitting the side of the bowl to create a keyboard and guitar sound, and that’s what I ended up doing! For the keyboard, I added reverb, compression, EQ, chorus, and pitch correction to come up with a standard keyboard/synth sound. I then sampled this to my midi keyboard and created multiple tracks for the multiple different synth parts. 

CME Reflection Entry 8 pt.2:

CME Reflection Entry 8 pt.1:

A first draft mix of my song with added vocals! I’ve shared it to Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook so far, so I may as well make a blog post about it now. I finished this mix last night and recorded the vocals yesterday, but as noted, it’s only a first draft of the final mix. I decided that I wanted to re-record some of the lead vocals, adjust the mixing and edits of these said vocals, and adjust the overall volume of the vocals to make them more present.

Since uploading this mix, I’ve created a second and third (possibly final) mix with these minor adjustments! I’m restraining from sharing the most recent mix as it may be the one I end up submitting, and would like to save it till it’s fully submitted.

I first came up with the melody to the chorus a long time ago by just singing along while I was creating the chorus, so I don’t have that exact moment caught on a recording. I do however have a recording of me improvising along to the instrumental track that shows where my lead melodic and phrasing ideas came from for the verses, pre-choruses, chorus, and bridge! I’ll post that audio in the following blog post.

For the lyrics, I took inspiration from all the song-writing greats and decided to write about love...but made it more modern. The concept of “catching feelings” is a very millennial + gen z way to describe falling in love, but not really wanting to or expecting to because of circumstances surrounding the relationship. This topic is also relevant to Grande’s “Thank U, Next” as it follows along with the idea of singing about how you’re feeling, happy, sad, excited for what the future holds. I took the improvised melody and phrasings I came up with on my recording and then began to write out lyrics that fit the shape of the phrases. Here’s a transcript of what I came up with and ended up using:

Verse 1: Couldn’t feel the stars align, but find myself with one of a kind That type of love that heals, and flies, and moves my body side to side

Prechorus:     I could have known Because I’m already grown That the love that you’ve shown Could go right down to my bones And cause I’ve been so alone I want your name in my phone And callin when I get home tonight

Chorus: Because I’m feelin’ you x4

Verse 2: He don’t talk real smooth, but tries, and finds a way to get all up inside of my mind And I‘d say I do...confess he really got a hold on one of the best

Prechorus: I should have known Because I’m already grown That the love that you’ve shown Would go right down to my bones I was so damn alone I need your name in my phone And callin when I get home tonight

Chorus: Because I’m feelin’ you x4

Bridge: When it’s time to go I’ll try not let you know That feelings aren’t just for the night, I wanna wake up with that light in your eyes

CME Reflection Entry 7:

A couple weeks ago I tweeted about how I was creating a scaffold for creating an Ariana Grande style track and how she did it herself. I received a tweet in response that essentially asked if I should be looking more into the marketing and promotional strategies of her music and releases. This made me sit back and really think about what impact marketing has had on “Thank U, Next”, and this is the response I came up with:

Since the release of “Thank U, Next”, Ariana has shifted away from traditional pop marketing and promotion for her new music, and instead, is focusing more on an adhoc release schedule. This blog post will go deeper into my reasoning behind claiming the above three things to be the new strategies Ariana is following. Starting with the creation of the songs themselves, taking press and gossip and using them to create her own narrative. As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, late 2018 Ariana was confronted with the overdose death of her rapper ex Mac Miller, a new relationship with comedian Pete Davidson, and ultimate downfall of her engagement with Davidson. After ending her relationship with Miller and swiftly starting a new one with Davidson, Grande received a large amount of backlash. People claimed she was moving on too fast and was cruel to leave Miller after he had just released new music about her. Below is a comment Grande tweeted in response to this criticism.

Her whirlwind relationship with Davidson was highly publicised and Grande admits that “it was an amazing distraction. It was frivolous and fun and insane and highly unrealistic, and I loved him, and I didn’t know him.” Grande dropped her album “Sweetener” in the August of 2018 in a traditional pop way; months of marketing, teaser drops, launch dates, cross-media promotion. Less than one month later, after Millers untimely death, Grande went radio silent on all social media for a couple days before posting a dedication on instagram. Other than that, she tried to stay out of the spotlight and remained relatively quiet on all her platforms. Soon after in October, her engagement to Davidson was broken off.  All this insane press coverage on the in’s and outs of Ariana’s life would have to have taken a toll on her, but instead, she turned to music creation to heal. She describes “Thank U, Next” as “this moment of self-realization. It was this scary moment of ‘Wow, you have to face all this stuff now. No more distractions. You have to heal all this sh*t.” Grande took all the bad stuff that had happened to her in the previous 3 months, all of the press and gossip surrounding her, and turned it into a song that acts like a diss-track, without any actual “dissing”. 

Regarding the teaser culture of releasing songs, Ariana has now become famous for tweeting possible lyrics to song’s that are soon to release. This started of course, with “Thank U, Next”

By teasing a new song in this format, Grande gives her fans a taste of what’s to come in the actual narrative of the new song, rather than the music. In majority, people care about what Ariana Grande has to say and how she’s going to say it, rather than the musical elements. By teasing in this way, Grande is indirectly hinting at new content coming, rather than outwardly previewing clips of new music or even more obviously, tweeting the classic “New things to come, can’t say much”.

This leads into my last point, that she is releasing music on her own schedule, when she wants and how she wants. This quote from Grande’s Billboard interview sums up my point perfectly: 

“My dream has always been to be — obviously not a rapper, but, like, to put out music in the way that a rapper does. I feel like there are certain standards that pop women are held to that men aren’t...We have to do the teaser before the single, then do the single, and wait to do the preorder, and radio has to impact before the video, and we have to do the discount on this day, and all this sh*t. It’s just like, ‘Bruh, I just want to f**king talk to my fans and sing and write music and drop it the way these boys do. Why do they get to make records like that and I don’t?’ So I do and I did and I am, and I will continue to...To drop a record on a Saturday night because you feel like it, and because your heart’s going to explode if you don’t — to take back your narrative… I don’t want to do what people tell me to do, I don’t want to conform to the pop star agenda. I want to do it on my own terms from now on.” - Ariana Grande

CME Reflection Entry 6:

Apart from following my own baby steps process I created that you can check out here, I wanted to talk about how I actually came up with the chord progression to my song (You can listen to previous drafts of my song in earlier blog posts!)

The composition task that was given to us asked for the very first step to be improvising and experimenting with sounds, and I’m happy to report that this is my favourite way to start song-writing and the first thing I did. I ended up grabbing a guitar, pressing record, and just playing some chords that I already knew and liked the sound of. These chords I was playing with were all 7th Chords, namely Major 7ths, Dominant 7ths, and Minor 7ths.

As I was improvising, I knew that playing a ii-V-I progression would sound good, but kinda disliked the sudden closure of the I chord, especially in the context of a looping 4 chord progression. So instead, I looked towards bass movement and experimented with different intervals and how they moved together. The audio you’re hearing above is a snippet of my recorded improvising and ends up being close to the chord progression I settled on.

Last week in TME we discussed how the internet and social media have made a significant impact on our ability to get things done, and how do we exactly circumvent this? Using the “Get Things Done” method, or GTD, is a well laid out plan of attack in regards to taking in new information and tasks and how to action them. What is a priority? How do you say no to things? I myself don't use the GTD method exactly but definitely have structured the way I treat tasks in a similar mindset. If something will take me 5 minutes or less, then I’ll do it ASAP. If it’s a larger project, break it down into smaller steps, write them down, and tick them off as you go. I try to not let social media distract me from tasks by just blocking out time in my calendar for when I need to get tasks done, usually getting into a flow state as I do it, and it stops me from distraction. It’s easier to be distracted if you don’t have a plan for what your day will look like. We then spent the remainder of that lesson (and the second half of this weeks lesson) working on our tech project, which you can read about what I’m doing in one of my previous blog posts!

This week we were presented with big picture questions about if technology and the internet is “childhood empowering” or “childhood damaging”. What’s my stance on it? It’s hard to say because it really is dependent on the situation. However, overall I have to stay positive and believe it is empowering. While I don’t believe we can entirely replace the human interaction and feedback we get from having a teacher in a classroom/studio, the internet itself is a tool that allows anyone with access to learn whatever they wish. Technology in classrooms has led to student-led learning and creation of music that can reach a nearly professional sounding standard, thanks to the likes of DAWs. Technology allows us to stream any music we could ever want to listen to, whenever we want, broadening the musical minds of younger generations by giving them access to more than what’s on their local radio or what CD’s they/their parents/their teachers already own. 

CME Reflection Entry 5:

Over the years Ariana Grande has cited many singers as being influential on her own singing, performing, and song writing. These singers include the likes of Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Beyonce, and even Imogen Heap!  But for “Thank U, Next”, a lot of influence comes from her actual producers and their style. So what style of music do her producers create? 

Social House, “Scootie” Anderson and “Mikey” Foster, a hip-hop duo originating from Pittsburgh, are heavily influenced by trap and R&B lo-fi sounds. They make hypnotic beat focused tracks that emphasis layering, detailed percussive tracks, synth harmonies, and party vibes. Their production on the track “Thank U, Next” is often mentioned to be a collaborative effort from both the their side and Ariana’s side.

Listening to the song alone you can tell it’s been heavily influenced by these trap-style beats and 808s and the lo-fi filtered chord progression that goes round and round in circles, as well as the overall party vibe I mentioned before. I find it interesting that Grande, a musician we can easily define as a “pop” artist, has leaned so heavily into this trap and hip-hop style. I believe it says something about where pop music itself is heading with more and more hip-hop music thrust into our popular music charts everyday. Is hip-hop, and more specifically trap, becoming the actual “popular” genre? Sam Marsh asks this question and sums it up well, so read his article attached in the hyperlink! Here’s a quote from his work that articulates what I wanted to say in a more concise manner:

“Ariana Grande’s thank u, next is the most emblematic album of where pop music is right now. Her album has noticeable trap influences and is a picture of how music consumption has shifted since streaming took control. Pop music has always had a curative quality to it. The genre is organized around traditional song structures but brings in elements of many different types of music, often dominated by the genres most popular at the time.” - Sam Marsh

tfw you need to record sounds of oats for your tech project...

So what am I doing with a bag of oats you ask? An assignment about music technology of course! Isn’t that obvious? But seriously, you ask, what am I doing with a bag of oats? Here’s the plan: I’m recreating an instrumental track to a Hall & Oates song by sampling sounds of a hall and oats, manipulating them, and mashing it all together. Sound stupid? Of course it does! Sound hilarious? Absolutely. Am I doing it as my SCMTME Project in Music Technology? Sure am! I’m tossing up between recording vocals on top myself, or trying to seperate the vocal layers on the actual song itself from Hall & Oates, as that makes this project more technologically challenging!

This clip comes from me filming and recording the sounds I need to then create the track, which is coming along swimmingly! I’ve already gotten a Bass sound, Kick Drum, Snare, and Hi-Hat (from these oats you see above you) and I think it sounds good! How did I get a bass sound out of a hallway? Here’s how:

1. thumping a wall in a hall way with my fist and recording it

2. sampling it into logic pro x

3. filtering it to death with the below effects

4. bouncing it as a separate audio file

5. importing back into a seperate logic project and linking it up to a midi sampler

6. playing the bass line with my midi keyboard to “I Can’t Go For That” by Hall & Oates with this new magnificent sound!

See! So simple...okay...it took me like 2 hours...but that’s the point of the project I guess! No point in doing something I already know how to do. 

CME Reflection Entry 4:

One of the biggest reasons Ariana Grande’s song “Thank U, Next” gained so much popularity, critical acclaim, and sticks in your head, would have to be the lyrical content. This post is two-fold, as I’ll talk about how the actual story told in the lyrics is influential and anthem like, as well as the use of repetition and short phrase lengths. “Thank U, Next” can best be described by Spencer Kornhaber as a “feminist rewriting of the public narrative—about a woman defined by, and perhaps even brought down by, men—pulled off with lightness” By flipping the script of “naming-and-shaming” her exes, Ariana names and literally “thanks” her past relationships for what they taught her:  “One taught me love One taught me patience And one taught me pain Now, I’m so amazing” Ariana then doesn’t linger too long on her past and moves on to a proclamation  of self-love and self-worth, a buzz-worthy topic of conversation from the last couple years that has been propelled into the public eye by influencers like Grande.  “Plus, I met someone else We havin' better discussions I know they say I move on too fast But this one gon' last 'Cause her name is Ari And I'm so good with that”

It’s worth acknowledging that this song would likely have become such a popular “anthem” in 2018 because of the “self-care” attitudes it embodies. Was this a strategic move from Grande and her team? Or was it purely because of her own circumstances and experiences at the time of writing (death of ex Mac Miller, separation from ex-fiance Pete Davidson)? If I had to come to a conclusion, I’d venture to guess that it’s a combination of both. The timing of this song’s release and its lyrical content was particularly convenient for the trend of self-care in 2018, allowing the song to resonate with the ideals of a large portion of the population. Moving onto the important aspect of repetition in this song. Not only do the pre-choruses follow the same lyrical structure and repeat the ends of sentences, but the chorus itself is incredibly repeatable and chant-like: “Thank you, next (next) Thank you, next (next) Thank you, next I'm so f**kin' grateful for my ex” The use of short phrases repeated over and over drills the lyrics into your head. Not only are the lyrics to the chorus easy to remember, but the actual melody itself that goes alongside “thank you, next” is super simple and replicated easily by a mass audience, using only two notes that descend in a scalic matter. The line “I'm so f**kin' grateful for my ex” is a bit more complicated as it contains more notes, but still descends in a scalic way and gets stuck in your head quickly. 

CME Reflection Entry 3:

This Sunday, the 3rd of November, marks the one year anniversary of ‘Thank U, Next’ being released. After tweeting cryptic possible lyrics, that were clearly aimed at her ex-fiance, less than 24 hours later Ariana Grande dropped her new single ‘Thank U, Next’ without any larger scale prior promotion or warning. This track ended up being Grandes first ever chart-topper, broke records for most amount of streams in a single day on Spotify, and went on to be the title single of her critically acclaimed album ‘Thank U, Next’. So what is it about the song that makes it so catchy? While I can’t really analyse of some of the main musical elements of this song without taking into account the lyrical content and how that has had a huge influence on the songs success, it’s not gonna stop me from trying (initially...we’ll get to the lyrics in another blog post)!

Firstly, the chords. There’s only four of them! Simple, looped, and in the key of Bb Minor, these chords set up the entire foundation of the song. By introducing the song with a dreamy synth plucking away at the chords Gbmajor7 - F7 - Bbminor7 - Db7, Grande (and her many producers and co-writers) create this lighthearted yet reflective atmosphere that presses on throughout the entire song. Because the song is in a minor key, we get this feeling of reflection and inwardness from Grande, but the timbral choices from the keyboards (which change throughout) allow the song to feel uplifting and somewhat encouraging, like an anthem of sorts. Markos Papadatos describes the song as such, saying “the soulful song is an anthem to a fresh start and new beginnings.”

This song is also easily defined by its percussive elements. Without the masterful layering of Social House, Arianas main producers for this track, this track would not have the same overall effect. Social House explain in this video  how they created the instrumental track, and talk about how they like to add certain percussive sounds in certain “pockets” to fill out the song. Many of their percussive choices are influenced by hip hop beats, specifically trap. I’ll be doing another blog post about this influence later on to dive deeper into this topic. But in short, the catchiness of this song is heightened by the groove and bopping percussion, mimicking the sounds of a group of people dancing and jumping around to a great tune! They used audio recordings of themselves knocking on tables and shouting, and this subconsciously gets the listener to want to get up and do the same. This almost comical implication of the percussion is heard in a review from Spencer Kornhaber where he says “the vibe is sly and swinging; the hi-hat in the chorus makes like a drum crash during a stand-up roast”. 

CME Reflection Entry 2:

Another draft of my composition based on an Ariana Grande track! I’ve been following my scaffold that I created and managed to finally move through the steps and add percussion and arrangement elements! I used a Garageband beat sequencer to create my main drum beat in the chorus, then moved the file over into Logic Pro X to beef it up and change it around in the verses. Using the beat sequencer made it a lot easier to make a cool sounding drum pattern really easily!

Here’s the Google Site that is acting as the platform for my digital content scaffolding an Ariana Grande influenced composition task! Right now I’m pretty happy with how it’s looking and I think its 95% of the way complete. I will wanna make some tweaks and edits here and there before it’s due, maybe adding in some more scaffolding when it comes to composing a lead line melody. I think the website looks really good though! Please give it a look and give feedback if you like. 

CME Reflection Entry 1:

Here’s a preview of the work in progress that is my own composition based on the Digital Scaffold I’m creating on how to create an Ariana Grande style instrumental track! I created this in Logic Pro X. Currently it’s lacking percussion and only contains a Chorus and Verse instrumental, but I’m really happy with how it sounds so far and believe it’s quite reflective of the inspired model work “Thank U, Next”. 

I’m currently in the thick of creating a Digital Scaffold for composing an Ariana Grande "Thank U, Next” inspired instrumental track, and I’m having lots of fun with it! I decided to select this song as a model work because I personally enjoy composing in this style, I believe it’s relevant to the music teenagers want to compose, it contains important modern skills in producing tracks at home using DAWs, and lastly, I came across this video of Ariana’s producers discussing the making of this exact track! So that was a great find! Here’s the video:

After last weeks TME lecture, I’ve become really inspired by the concept of Google Classroom and Google Sites, and those platforms have taken up the prime real-estate as the platforms of choice for this CME digital scaffolding task. I really think that Google Sites is the perfect format for presenting information in an easily understandable way as a follow-the-steps type layout. Click on for more info about my digital scaffold!