Sounds of the Past and Present

The first video, "Midatlantic Love", was created due to my love for old timey movies where they had Midatlantic Accents. I remember watching some old TV shows and movies with my mother and I have always specifically loved the movies that circled around romance. Since those fond memories, whenever I had the time, I would always watch old timey movies, so creating a song that circled around the romantic side of Midatlantic movies is an experience that I thoroughly enjoyed. To make the beat, the techniques that I had to use were changing the pitch of a sound, stretch out the sound to make it longer, how to sample something from another source and import it onto Soundtrap, and cutting up certain sounds to make a new sound. All these techniques were learned during class and because of these lessons, I was able to create my beat and edit it in the way that I envisioned it to the best of my ability. Based off of what I created and the opinions from others, it definitely fits the "old timey' era of music, as I used instruments such as the violin and the synth, to really create an oldies sound.

The second video, "UMD Found Sounds", is about creating a beat from the everyday sounds heard from the University of Maryland in my day-to-day life. There is a lot of noise going on in UMD currently whether its construction, people talking, or basic noises that people make like making a beat on a table, kicking a rock, or using some sort of transportation. Using the lesson we learned from class about making found sounds, I incorporated that into my project and created my own pop music found sound. To start, I gathered a bunch of normal sounds from UMD like the dorm door opening, the VEO scooter beeping, and a pair of keys. I then chopped up some of the sounds like the keys and the opening door to form a rhythm and sync it together along with an 808 beat and bass. Some other techniques used besides chopping up the sounds were changing the pitches, harmonizing the same sounds together but in a different key, and using repetition to continue repeating the intro beat over and over again. Upon hearing the final product, it sounds like an ordinary beat for the most part with a hint of "organic" sound from UMD. It's pretty cool how you can mix together found sounds and digital sounds together to create your own beat.

To focus on a political moment in history, I decided to use MLK's "I Have A Dream" speech and create an inspiring and upbeat beat just as MLK's speech was inspiring and uplifting. My inspiration was similar to how editors on Instagram or TikTok take a quote or speech from something and use that as their introduction as it then transitions it to a song that best correlates to that quote. I used MLK despite there being a series of speeches and quotes I could have used because of how in a recent project for class, I did Malcolm X and thought it would only be right to do MLK as they played a heavy influence in the civil rights movement. What I used to accomplish this sound was the use of not only the speech but a series of different basses, drums, a violin and 808 beats to give it a marching beat similar to the marches MLK has been a part of during the civil rights movement. Some techniques used to create the sound were chopping up a selected sound, syncing the different instruments used together, and how to fade out an instrument to give the entirety of a song a proper ending.