Musical Ramblings

day 30! 

wow i can’t believe i kept at this EVERY SINGLE DAY for the last 30 days, and created 3 tracks. i’ve learned a ton: 

using ableton

song structure

sound effects

mixing and mastering

creating drum beats

creating a track all from scratch

creating a track from sampled house sounds

writing lyrics and a vocal-led track

not giving up!

the final vocal-led track is above (and lyrics below).

my first track from this course is here. 

my second track from this course is here.

i tracked my mood for the period of 30 days - it was def an emotional roller coaster, with the emotionally and mentally hardest days during part 1.

i look forward to getting my regular life back now, as i had a lot of late nights and gave up on a lot of my hobbies to get the most out of this course. but now i feel equipped with the foundation and knowledge to continue to learn after this course ends, and hopefully create more tracks!

Fanatical Lyrics: First things first, before the sun’s out Last things last, before it’s lights out Checkin up on you and your ex’s stories From your fave coffee shop, my observatory

Makin sure that you’re not back with her And that we are still together You flash your smile at me through your gram, givin Me looks for the last three years, damn

Fanatical, maniacal, No, I’m not problematical Fanatical, maniacal, No, my mind’s all rational (2x)

Where have you been all morning and afternoon? And why aren’t I on your trip to Cancun? Your dinners, your parties, I’m not there and feeling sick of It all, but thanks for the caption “with my love”

What’s that? I see flowers and a ring too Yes, I’ll say yes to forever with you, tho I know you’re really shy and we’ve never really talked But it was hard for me to reach you after you had me blocked

Fanatical, maniacal, It’s all problematical Fanatical, maniacal, My mind can’t take a sabbatical (2x)

We could have, should have, would have been together, just us But you couldn’t, didn’t, wouldn’t put any effort into us

Now if you won’t have me, then nobody will, Now where did i put my semi and my pills A pop-pop for you or po-poppin for me, Say bye to this reality; let’s both be set free

Fanatical, maniacal, I’m all problematical, Fanatical, maniacal, I’m ready for my sabbatical

day 29 (bleeding into day 30)

as soon as i got home, i put my phone on do not disturb, and got to work on my track. 

i re-recorded the chorus and went about autotuning almost every note in the chorus using melodyne. i had used the Mautotune plug-in yesterday, but tried melodyne since it has more features which allows me to tweak every single note. it now sounds really robotic, but bc it’s robotic, it def sounds better than yesterday. but you can only do so much when the original vocals just suck but oh well. 

i tweaked some of the drums where it felt too busy or too sparse, and quantized a lot of the notes. 

i mixed and mastered all the layers, and i am SO close to being done with this track. i can’t believe i created this in less than a week, from lyrics to vocals to the music. 

i have 1 more video tutorial to watch tmr... er tonight, and i’ll put the finishing mixing/mastering touches and then submit this track.  

day 28

i was stressing that this track is due in 2 days, marking the final project and end of the 30 day course. 

although i slept near 1:30 am yesterday, i put my alarm at 7:45 so i can get an early start to working on this track. i was way too tired and way too ambitious with that alarm time, and woke up nearly 3 hours later. and when i woke up, all i could think was that i have work the last 2 days of class, so i need to get as much done today so i don’t have any 2am nights on a workday. i also felt really overwhelmed thinking how much i have left to do, and feeling really lost with how to make the drums not crappy.

so today i spent about a total of 10 hours on this track. the hardest part was getting the drums, but this will do for now. i also re-recorded the vocals and they really suck. but i found an autotune plug-in and it works wonders! but the chorus vocals still sound bad even with the autotune on at 100%. but again, this will have to do. i also re-recorded the piano part for the chorus, and re-did the entire chorus drums and bass because it felt too sparse on some beats and too busy on other beats. i realized i was missing the pads so added in some chords which really helped. 

i’m having some issues with the tempo slowing down in the ending, as the autotune is getting really pronounced but i’ll have to figure that out tomorrow. 

day 27 (bleeding into day 28)

was so exhausted yesterday so didn’t have a chance to post.

yesterday i was up til past 1 AM, working on this track for about 8 hours. i got the “vocals” recorded, and started adding the layers for the music. it was frustrating bc i couldnt get the drums to sound decent. they were sounding either too straight and basic, or just completely off. and my vocals really don’t sound good at all, so the execution of my lyrics was really ruining the entire vibe of the track itself. 

i watched some drum covers to actually see ppl hitting the snares and hi hats to figure out a rhythm but i just couldnt get it down. 

day 26

finished writing lyrics for the entire track, and got the instrumentals down. tomorrow i will work on producing the music in ableton, and spend the rest of the weekend mixing in the “vocals”. the last day of class (and day of when this track is due) is TUESDAY! 4 days left.

i rehearsed and recorded the vocal parts several times to hear how it sounded and sure enough i should stick to never using my voice except to talk. but this assignment isn’t about how well i can sing so im not letting my vocals or lack thereof bother me. and it’s not like i didn’t know i can’t sing. 

it took me about 2-3 hours to write the lyrics. they’re really dark but i feel like it captured the intent of my storyline and hopefully ppl can see how twisted it is. i wanted the lyrics to evoke someone who’s really deranged, and leave the listener feeling disturbed (but maybe a few can relate).

lyrics:. 

[instrumental intro]

[verse 1] First things first, before the sun’s out Last things last, before it’s lights out Checkin up on you and your ex’s stories From your fave coffee shop, my observatory

Makin sure that you’re not back with her And that we are still together You flash your smile at me through your gram, givin Me that look for the last three years, damn

[chorus] Fanatical, maniacal, No, nothing’s problematical Fanatical, maniacal, No, my mind’s all rational (2x)

[verse 2] Where have you been all morning and afternoon? And why didn’t you take me on your trip to Cancun? These dinners, these parties, I’m not there and feeling sick of It all, but thanks for the caption “with my love”

What’s that? I see flowers and a ring too Yes, I’ll say yes to forever with you, tho I know you’re really shy and we’ve never really talked But it was hard for me to reach you after you had me blocked

[chorus] Fanatical, maniacal, It’s all problematical Fanatical, maniacal, My mind can’t take a sabbatical (2x)

[bridge] We could have, should have, would have been together, just us But you couldn’t, didn’t, wouldn’t put any effort into us

Now If you won’t have me, then nobody will, Now where did i put my semi and my pills A pop-pop for you or po-poppin for me, Say bye to this reality and let’s both be set free

[chorus] Fanatical, maniacal, I’m all problematical, Fanatical, maniacal, I’m ready for my sabbatical

day 25

tonight, we have an assignment due where we need to upload our progress on the lyrics and music.

i spent a few hours trying to come up with the chorus. 

last night with my word web, i saw that “fanatical” and “maniacal” already had a rhyme going, so i looked up some more words on rhymezone.com to find more “crazy” words ending in “-cal” or “-al”.  

i don’t have any verses written and i’m not sure if melodic verse is the way to go for this if i still want to capture the original story line i had in mind. but i will deal with that this weekend.

the lyrics i have so far are a bit dark:

[chorus] Fanatical, maniacal, It’s all problematical Fanatical, maniacal, My mind can’t take a sabbatical

[ending] Fanatical, maniacal, I’m all problematical Homicidal, suicidal Someone check my vitals 

after the word “vitals” in the lyrics, the song would end on a high-pitched note or octave to emulate the beep of the heart monitor when someone’s heart stops beating.

i wanted the music to be a bit “crazy” with notes jumping up and down. initially i found a cool chord progression that really worked, but found out it’s bc it’s the same as a track by NF called “the search”. no wonder the chords sounded good! i explored some more chord progressions and melodies and finally came up with something that i could submit. 

i think the tempo is too slow and draggy for something that’s supposed to evoke craziness and frenzy, but the words in the lyrics are a mouthful.

oops forgot to post yesterday but i was working on my 3rd and final track!

i really had no idea what my topic for lyrics would be. i didn’t have a chance to work on this assignment until late last night, so i was already tired and was racking my brain for ideas while feeling mentally exhausted. i didn’t want it to be about something cheesy like a lost love or failed relationship. and i sure didn’t want it to be something happy bc it didn’t seem to pack any “punch” with the emotions that one would feel. 

so i thought i’d do something really dark and disturbing. 

i remembered about 3-4 year ago, i had this phrase come up in my mind: “the mind is as fragile as it is strong”. the idea behind this was that the mind is frail when it believes in/is swayed by negative thoughts, but at the same time, it’s strong in keeping these negative thoughts and trapping the person in this emotional prison, and also strong in creating a determination to take one’s own life. 

i also sought out some random phrases i had written for my youtube videos, since most of my piano cover medleys are rooted in some storyline that i create based on what i feel/hear from the music i’m covering. i saw a line i’d written for gesaffelstein's "aleph" album in 2014 - when i was doing a piano medley cover of his album back then, his music evoked this imagery: "The fanatical mind is too entrapped in a fervent obsession that it doesn't see what's amiss in a fantasy that is too perfect."

so the central theme of my lyrics/song is someone who’s fanatical and chooses to live inside an obsessed fantasy where everything is perfect and the target of obsession reciprocates the “attraction”. he/she continues to repress/ignore the harsh realities despite knowing that the fantasy is too perfect. 

but eventually, the realities creep in, and he/she starts to become disillusioned and depressed after the rose-colored glasses are shattered, and upon fully realizing that this person has been living in his/her own head the whole time, the negative thoughts and reality drive this person to suicide. 

1 week left! 

we’re starting part 3 of the course - creating a vocal-led track. 

today’s video lesson was seeing andrew’s process on writing lyrics and creating vocal melodies. 

he talked about creating a spider diagram, like word associations, to come up with ideas for lyrics. it was cool to see this, as i do something similar for ideating images/stories for my inktober-inspired music. except i just literally free-form jot down words. 

i’m excited to try using the spider diagram to create ideas for the lyrics, and see what vocal melody i can come up with. however, i am also really nervous and unsure about part 3 of this course bc: 

1. i don’t see myself as a lyric writer. i’ve never really tried, except twice in high school to write “rap lyrics” in rhythm to some eminem tracks for 2 high school projects. but that already had the rhythm and melody down, and the lyrics were a joke since it was a class assignment.

2. i can’t sing. i can sing horribly, but it’s not even good enough to be below average. and the lesson encouraged us to try singing. 

3. i’d feel really vulnerable and stupid singing and having other people hear it. i get that this whole 30-day course has been to go out of my comfort zone, but i just can’t see myself being mentally or emotionally ready to sing and have other ppl hear it, esp for peer feedback assignments. 

4. i don’t want to phone it in for this track, so i don’t want to create lyrics on some really cliche overdone theme although andrew said lyrics are basically a fresh way to paint a story on ideas that have been around forever. at this point i dont really have any ideas, and our progress assignment is due in 2 days and i have no idea what ill be writing about.

5. i’m afraid of sounding really cheesy and basic in my lyrics, kind of similar to how i felt stupid with my basic sounding beats on my first track. 

6. i’m not good at simple vocal melodies. my melodies are usually for solo piano and are more instrumental in style and usu i find them too complicated for vocal. if i try to create something simpler, it just sounds dumb. 

i like that Monthly includes peer feedback as part of the assignments. it’s a great way to hear what others in the course have created, while giving/receiving feedback from others. so far, my peers’ comments have been very supportive while giving me ideas on how to better improve my track. especially after hearing my own track non-stop, it’s nice to hear what others have to say from hearing it for the first time. and it also trains me to be more of an active listener, being more critical of what i’m hearing and thinking how i can help make someone’s track better while understanding what i like about it. 

i’m also feeling more confident in giving feedback. earlier in the course, i felt really inadequate and ill-equipped to give any feedback bc i didn’t know what to listen for and especially as a newbie, didn’t feel like i had any say in how to improve someone’s track, more so when theirs sounded so much better than mine. now i’ve gotten past the “they’re better than me and i suck” mentality bc we’re all at different levels, and i think everyone can bring something good feedback after hearing something for the first time. 

things i’ve learned to listen for: 

-sounds that may sound too harsh/stand out/dry/too quiet from rest of the track

-sounds or phrases that may sound too repetitive and how to make them more interesting without losing the original idea of the line 

-what about the percussive rhythms or instrumentations of the beats that i like (rather than just generic “i like those beats”)

day 21

more of #progressnotperfection and #amateurhourbeatz!

after 9 days of creation and more learnings, my second track “#catlady kitchen beatz” is “complete!” and this marks the end of part 2. tomorrow is part 3, where we will create a vocal-led track, which is a bit scary bc i don’t have any vocal skills. maybe we’ll learn to use a vocoder or create a synth vocal patch...

i find mixing and mastering to be a bit tedious (aka my least favorite part, which is prob why i’ve been procrastinating all afternoon to do this) and can’t really hear much difference outside of drastic changes i make to the eq. 

my learning progress through this track: 

1. creating a track made mostly of recorded sound samples from around the house. this is something i saw some ppl do on youtube that i thought i’d never be able to do

2. experimenting with sidechain. still not entirely sure how to describe what it is, but ended up with a cool sound effect when i used it for a filter.

3. creating my own synth patches with helm and figuring out how to add it into ableton. didn’t even realize you could create your own patches!

4. understanding terminology (LFO, attack, decay, sustain, release). prior to this course, these terms would’ve brought me the heebie jeebies and i’d have felt that they were too technical and complicated for me to understand, and would’ve been yet another obstacle getting in the way of me trying to learn to produce music

5. getting more familiar with using ableton. i’m quicker to click around for things, whereas for part 1 of this course, half the battle was knowing what to click and navigate around ableton.

6. breaking out from a standard song structure and not being overwhlemed by experimenting without a clear vision. i didn’t strive to create the most perfect sounding track, but used this as a chance to try new things.

7. stopping with comparing myself to others in the course!!!! this is the biggest one. i’ve heard a bunch of other ppl’s great work on our peer group forum, and this time i don’t feel discouraged anymore, but just realize we are all on different backgrounds and levels within our learning journey. 

expanded my track so that there’s a variation of the first lead and finally an ending! took me a while to get just a handful of additional measures but now i will be ready to start mixing and mastering tomorrow, and submit the “final” version tomorrow night!

i also experimented with adding a sidechain to one of my created synths, and it had a cool effect! i discovered a youtube channel “you suck at producing” which helps me understand one effect or aspect of producing in simple terms with also a hilarious sense of humor. if i end up sticking with this producing thing after my course, i think my next goal would be to try to create a track per week that utilizes 1-2 techniques or effects from that channel’s videos.

day 19

i created two synth patches with helm, and figured out how to add the helm plugin and my own synth sounds as midi tracks in ableton. those things alone felt like a huge accomplishment! i spent a lot of time just clicking around in helm and moving knobs around to experiment with different sounds. i didn’t have much of a vision of what i was going for, so didn’t feel pressured to find a certain sound that matched what i had in mind. 

i named one of my synth sounds “weird woodwind” bc it sounded like a wind instrument (heard above) and i didnt know what else to call it. i took some tips from andrew’s video yesterday on how a woodwind instrument wouldn’t have an immediate attack at the start of the sound. 

i also checked off some items off of my ideas list from last night. one of these items included recording an automation of a filter, which i didn’t know how to do before, but got the idea from andrew’s video yesterday. although some these checked-off items only affected one beat or one sound, collectively, that’s about 4 tracks that i tweaked. i’ll take that as progress! 

two of my peers commented that my lead sounds mischievous, so i took that vibe to expand my track, albeit only by 2 measures. 

the 3 hours i spent on my track today don’t warrant the actual changes i made, but still more than i did from the day before. 

watched 2 hours of andrew going through his process of putting his track together, and mixing and mastering. i had several ideas come out from watching him add effects or automation that i want to try. the bright yellow square stickies are my ideas stickies haha.

i also re-watched the video on creating my own synth sounds and had more energy than yesterday to actually play around in helm and see/hear for myself how the different sliders affected the sounds. 

today’s video lesson is learning to create your own sounds from scratch. wow i didn’t even know something like this was possible, but andrew does a great job of explaining things and breaking it down into easily understandable tidbits. i was always daunted by terms like EFO, attack, decay, release, and sustain, and seeing the sound waves and knowing what to do with them. i’d only turned knobs to the extreme ends in ableton to hear how they affected the sound, but didn’t really know what they did. andrew’s explanations made me feel less daunted. 

andrew also went through the process of creating a flute sound and an 808 sound all from scratch within just minutes. it’s mindblowing how you can create the exact sound you want, but it’ll take me a while bc all of these terms and functions are still very new to me. 

i am excited to experiment, but also a bit overwhelmed at how much new things i have to understand and apply, without having to think super hard and refer back to my notes to know what these things all do. how long will it take me to create the sound that i have in mind? experimenting and trying (and failing) is part of the fun and learning process, but also thinking “how will i get a handle on all of this???” also i am really tired from a mentally draining day at work, so i will need to review this video and notes again when i’m in a clearer mindset.

day 16

we are more than halfway through the course! 

this is a pretty big departure from my first track's lofi-ish vibe, and it was fun to  experiment with a completely different style. i had 0 vision for the vibe or sounds for this track, and really had no idea what to make of my samples once they were in ableton so struggled with creating this WIP.  

the intro needs some work to make it sound less sparse/boring but my brain's tired! i wanted to try incorporating different samples hence the weird hod podge of sounds in the intro.

i am getting the hang of using ableton, and am feeling less frustrated. obv still lots to learn, but a lot of the slowness/emotional struggles have dissipated. 

can you make out my cat's unintentionally recorded meow? i transformed them into the bass lines that "respond" to the microwave beep melody. #catlady beatz!

also, i got a comment earlier on my first track. one of my peers had given some really awesome feedback, and then he commented again to say HE WAS HUMMING MY TRACK! so my track got stuck in his head. that is pretty cool for my track to be “sticky” with one person at least! 

oops i forgot to post yesterday! but i’ve been working on adding a lead/melody for my track. 

day 14

spent the last 3 hours organizing the sounds i recorded around the house, and shaped the sounds for some basic drum beats. 

i was considering doing another lofi track, but took this opportunity to try something completely different. 

pretty amazing what you can do with sound fx! breakdown of house sound transformations for my loop so far:

-kick drum: hitting a plastic measuring scoop on the counter

-closed hi hat: tapping a metal wine opener on the counter

-clopping sound: same tap of metal wine opener on the counter - fx completely changed the sound!

-echoing sound: opening and closing the cabinet door (put a delay on it for that echo, which created this cool rhythmic echo)

-shaker: shaking up jigsaw puzzles (had to get my puzzles in there somehow!)

i think i am trying to go for something a bit more dark and trap-like, without actually fitting into a specific genre. to get in the “mood”/mindset, i was listening to Do You by TroyBoi, and got some ideas to build my track.

i don’t have an image or story in mind for this track yet, which was at first worrisome for me, as i use that as the starting point to define what vibe/melodies/chords i want. without that image/story, i usu end up floundering with a “pointless” piano composition. so i felt hindered when i didn’t have a “point” to my 2nd track. but i realize i am still learning how to create and design sounds and beats, so i should use this assignment as a chance to explore the possibilities, rather than trying to limit myself to fit a specific story.