True Rock Songs

For my first song, I chose to cover one of the most well known songs with "rock" in the title - Queen's "We Will Rock You". I also chose this song because it has a simple, extremely recognizable beat that I thought I would be able to recreate. I started the piece with the original song unaltered, making it indistinguishable from the song's normal introduction. I cut this audio before the chorus took place then included a "record scratch" sound effect that was immediately followed by the chorus's vocals, but with the instrumentals replaced by rock sounds. These sounds were harder to achieve than I had expected, as the recordings were fuzzy and their pitch, reverb, and volume and to be changed to make them sound more true to the original. I then had to align the new sounds to be in time with the rest of the song, another surprisingly difficult feat. I also added in extra effects on the word "rock" in the chorus for extra emphasis on its rock-ness. Overall, I feel this piece served as a successful introduction to my project, encompassing its overall lightheartedness and (hopefully) comedic value while still staying true to the original piece. 

For my second video, I mimicked the process of my first cover, but flipped. I chose to use the song "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and His Comets for this piece - an original rock song. Instead of starting with the normal song in this case, I started with the "cover" portion. This one was a bit trickier, as there are more instruments involved than in the first piece. I kept my sound recording process the same, though this one involved more trial and error. I switched which rocks I used and how I used them multiple times before I was able to create a sound I was then able to alter for the song. Once I had all of my sounds, I had to align them with the original song, similar to I did in my first piece. This once again served as a challenge, though I was able to do so. It was also more difficult to balance the volumes of each of these elements, as I wanted the vocals to be clear but did not want them to overpower the rock samples. I then transitioned from the cover portion of the song to the original, finishing with the un-rockified rock song instead. 

For my final piece, I used the project that spawned the original "WALK ON ROCK" sound as a starting place. Instead of taking a real song and remaking it with rock sounds, I wanted to start with rock sounds and create a real song. To do this, I took two of the samples from this project that included rocks ("WALK ON ROCK" and "ROCK ON TABLE"), as well as recorded more rock sounds to use. I recorded all of these samples without a specific goal in mind for the song, wanting to find how the sounds worked together instead of creating ones that I thought already would. I did not end up using all of the sounds I initially recorded, as some did not fit with the rest. Once I was happy with how my rocks sounded, I started incorporating premade instrumental loops that the Soundtrap software provided. I added a few together to make the piece sound more like music (and less like rocks making noise) and then adjusted the volume of each element so that they were all audible without being overpowering, as to not make the instruments outshine the rocks. I chose to end on a single note, ending the piece and the project in the way that it began - with a single rock sound.