Music Variation

My first song is a mashup of two songs by one of my favorite artists. Benjamin Reichwald, also known as Bladee, is a Swedish rapper. His music is mostly known as experiemntal pop, cloud rap, trap, and alternative R&B. I find his music to be incredibly interesting, and often find myself wondering what his process of writing and producing is. My intrigue and interest in his sound inspired me to sample his songs. In my song, I separate vocals, instrumentals, and beats. I'd compare my process to taking apart two puzzles and combining them both in a way that fits. In this process, I pitched down one song to match the key of the other and matched tempo as well. Isolating the different components of each song was one of the most enjoyable parts of the process. I loved hearing what everything sounded like separately because I found new sounds within the songs that I hadn't noticed before. I used an audio clip from an interview from KEXP in 2014. Directly after the clip ends in my piece, there is a long, awkward, silence. I found this clip to be very comical. He is a man of (not) many words. While I found it difficult to find inspiration when first starting this project, I was glad to have thought to create this piece from Bladee's music. 

John Mayer's music has heavily impacted my life. While I don't agree with some of his controversial life choices and morals, his music has been a big inspiration for me. "If I Ever Get Around to Living" is one of my favorite songs of all time. If I'm in a new class and an we have to share our favorite song as an icebreaker, that one is my go to. This song is associated with so many fond memories and people that I love. Not to mention, the two motives played on the guitar in the second half of the song that repeat over each other. I think that specific part in the song is genius. The other songs included also have an importance to me. I mostly learned how to utilize SoundTrap in class and was able to navigate through the program easily. Similar to my piece that sampled two Bladee songs, I changed the keys to all match, as well as the tempo. Each songs faded into the next. Something I especially found to be interesting was the change between relative major and minor keys. One song in a minor would transition into another song in C Major. Hearing the transition between the two was really satisfying to me. 

The song "Two by Three", is on the soundtrack of one of my favorite shows. I originally wanted to include recordings of my own instrumentals in at least one of my pieces. I have always enjoyed melodic dictation and "playing by ear", which I had the opportunity to do in this piece. Using the Soundtrap skills I learned in class as well as another program called Serato Studio, I isolated the instrumental, re-recorded the melody on my violin, and added vibraphone in the background. I played all of the violin parts with a practice mute, which changed the sound slightly. I learned the melody by ear and practiced it a couple of times before I was able to record it. I then listened to it again and came up with the harmony. I recorded myself playing the harmony and layered it onto the melody. Finally, I listened to the keyboard in the end of the song and played that part by ear as well, while making a couple of rhythmic changes. The process of making this piece required more effort than the other two, but having the ability to create my own sound and add it into the song made for an enjoyable experience.