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2012 Final Portfolio Sam O

Page history last edited by Sam O'Leary 12 years, 8 months ago

My final songs for the year:

Winter Blues

C Harmonic Series

Collaboration 1(ft. Kaavya Senthil)

Collaboration 2(ft. Aaron Slonaker)

Heart Stopping

Love Song

Summer 'round the Corner

Fire

 

Winter Blues-  Our assignment was to create a blues song that contained similar traits to an artist that we were writing about.  My artist was Junior Parker.  Many of his songs used piano and trumpets, so I incorporated those instruments into my song.  He tends to have a slower tempo, and a large range in the dynamics of the song.  I used some volume envelopes to create that effect.  I wrote one of the guitar riffs in the improvising session we had done with the blues.  Most of the other pieces were improvised on the piano after listening to some of his songs.

           I wanted the drums to have a slower tempo, but still be powerful.  I hoped that some of the beats would accent the melody giving it articulation.  With the piano, guitar, and trumpet I created a call and response, because this was used in many of Parker's songs.  The beginning of the song has a few sudden pauses, which is a style I borrowed from a few of the songs I listened to by him.
           C Harmonic Series-  In this song, our main focus was organic creation.  The idea that a good song doesn't start as a good song.  It starts as one piece, then another is added, and then another.  This builds the songs and gives it time to change from just a small melody into a full song.  We also incorporated a background note that lasts the entire song, which begins and ends the piece.
           In this one we wanted to create a song with organic creation, so we started it off with that background note.  After that we added in a simple melody that was slow, and quick, but catchy.  After that we added in some strings that played a slower longer piece that was looped through the whole song.  One more track was added in, and together they became one great piece of music.  To end the song we had each of the tracks fade out using a volume envelope, until the same note that began the song ends the piece.
           Collaboration #1(Ft. Aaron Slonaker)- This song I wanted to be slower, and use a nice chord progression, accompanied by a catchy melody.  I used a guitar to strum a few chords with a piano pattern to start it off.  I wanted this one to be more of a classical genre, and have it be more soft, or piano.  The song was all recorded and adjusted to be on beat, and have the notes the right length.  We wanted the different sections of instruments to fade in and out of each other, so we used a volume envelope to create that effect.
           This song was one of the last songs written, and has some of the best melodies, and total musical qualities.  It shows how much I have learned this year, and how much my musical capabilities have progressed.
           Collaboration #2(ft. Kaavya Senthil)- This song was with a new co-writer, so it was a different genre of music than my past songs.  We wanted to create a four chord song, using the I, V, VI, and IV chords.  We started the song off with a very low and catchy drum beat using the floor tom, snare and hi-hat.  With this we brought in the four chords, followed by a guitar melody.  This song is written in the F scale and all of it was recorded by us.
           The rest of the song is a back and forth  between the guitar and piano, continuing the four chords, but changing drum beats.  There are several changes between guitar and piano, and then the song closes with a slow piano piece that fades out.  This song has a great mix of tempo in the different parts, and the change in velocity really has a nice effect on it.
           Heart Stopping- This song was expressing musically a painting from an art gallery, and it showed how I interpreted it.  I wanted it to contain a lot of dissonance because it created an eerie, dramatic sound. In my piece of art that I chose it has a dark background, and a heart rate monitor on it, which made me want to make the song sound dark and tense.  I used a lot of dissonance in it to create this effect. I used a 12 tone Music Grid to write this song, including using the inversions of notes, and finding nestings.
            For instruments I used a piano, and acoustic bass.  The high piano pitches, and the strong dissonance create an eerie sounding piece of music, which is how I wanted it to sound.  My song has a slow beginning, and gets a bit faster at the end, and I wanted the tempo to express the tense feeling I get when I look at the picture.  This song has a very dramatic feeling that is associated with it, and this is exactly how I hoped it would turn out.
           Love Song- This song was for valentine's day, and I wanted it to be associated with love and happiness.  I used a more high pitch scale to create this effect.  There is not much dissonance, so it sounds happy, and not tense or scary.  My goal when writing this song was to have a happy tone when listening to it, and creating the feeling of love, and a carefree world with it.
           I used a guitar with a very soft and easy synth, to make this song peaceful and easy to listen to.  The velocity is very low, and calm with a low tempo.  All of these combine to create a very soft easy to listen to song.  It turned out exactly how I hoped that it would, and it created a very good illusion of happiness, and comfort, perfect for Valentine's day.
          
Summer 'Round the Corner- This song was my last song for the year.  I knew that summer was right here, and freedom was less than a week away.  I wanted this song to be very tense in the beginning, and throughout the piece become more relaxed, and seem almost free by the end.  This song would symbolize my struggle through the school year.  I opened it with a drum beat that got louder and more powerful, then a melody that created a tense feeling.  To close it I wanted it to be very loose, and slow, showing that it was free, and over.
           This piece used a guitar, piano, drums, and flute, because I thought they could easily sound happy in a major scale, and could show freedom, and happiness.  They all combine musically to create a soft, meaningful piece.  I'm very happy with how it came out, especially with how little time I had left to create it.

    Fire- This was the first song I had written by myself, and it was one of my bests.  I had played the chord progression on the piano, and decided I liked it, so I had to find a way to recreate it and load it into Sonar.  I used the step sequencer to find the right pattern, and notes, and once I did, I had to move on.  I created a melody using the step sequencer.  I was not comfortable with playing the piano yet, so I used the keyboard to find a melody, and I punched it into the step sequencer, and used that to create it.  The drums were also used on the step sequencer.
           This song was about fire, and extreme heat.  The day I wrote it, it was very cold outside, and all I could ask for was some heat.  So I created an image in my head of molten materials, with bright burning colors, and I tried to create that musically.  I wanted it to be happy, and not very minor, so  I used that to create a warm feeling song.  Musically it was one of the hardest songs to write since I was still getting used to the system.  The outcome was a catchy, warm sounding song, that made that cold day much better.

 

Also a big thanks to Kaavya Senthil, Miki Zaganjori, and especially to Aaron Slonaker, who helped me with almost all of my songs.  I couldn't have done it without you guys!

 

 

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