Creative Music Technology

Hey all, Just posting a well needed update on everything thats going on CMT-wise. Time really flies as it’s been a month since my last post…

Anyhow, I’ve been slowly getting around to Jitter and finding it reasonably user friendly, with the tutorials quite easy to follow. Unfortunately my 9 month license has now run out so I am going to have to continue all my Jitter related work on the uni machines.

Update on the music for painting task: I was really impressed and inspired by Dave’s piece that was shown a few weeks back to start this task in earnest. I chose this picture:

Okay I will admit, and I doubt I am alone in this, that I have slacked off big time over the long break, and haven’t used the time very efficiently. However this is now going to change, partly due to a great mark for Electronica which has given me a bit more drive to try and keep the good marks going, and also due to being in a much better working frame of mind.

I am very interested to get started on learning what I can do in Jitter and am also about to go over all the tasks and redo/touch up where needed so as to start putting together my portfolio. I also need to start the music for painting task, after seeing the creativity of Dave’s piece I feel it’s time to get my arse into gear and start producing…

Still hovering around processing and PD, but cant seem to get further than loading the app and opening a few demo sketches… 

Methinks scholarship/bursary money will have to go on books this year…

Another overall summing up of my current status:

MDM : I missed last weeks class and also this weeks screening (sorry Julio), although I did make this weeks class which was a basic introduction to colours and graphics in supercollider in preparation for the Jitter tasks after christmas. I think I am now more interested in Supercollider knowing it has graphical applications as well as audio ones. I am now a little more motivated to try and learn more Supercollider as a result! Also we talked a bit more about the music for painting task and discussed different theories concerning the relationship between cubist painting and so-called cubist music. Due to my Electronica module being due in on wednesday, I have done little other work except that, but will continue working on all my MDM tasks over christmas and new year.

Electronica : Is due on Wednesday, and I have just got to finalize my mix of the 4 tasks and finish the commentary. Hopefully this will all be done on time…

Production and Recording : No real update since week 10, lectures have now finished and I havent done task 3 yet…

CMP : Am still behind and have missed quite a few classes. This is due to a general lack of enthusiasm for the subject and the fact that nothing I try in SC ever works. I may do some more MAX stuff over christmas, but the supercollider will be my downfall i think. Don’t expect to get a great mark on this module…

And thats about it!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!

Another overall update here rather than individual subject posts, makes it quicker and easier!!

Music For Digital Media : 

An interesting screening yesterday, which introduced the ideas surrounding creating music from the stimulus of a painting. We looked at some examples of paintings that have been used in the past years and also some theory on cognitive processes and how we relate sounds and images. Also at the start Julio briefly mentioned a programming language/application called Processing, which I have downloaded and will take a closer look at very soon, it looks pretty cool for creating visuals and graphics.

Re: the tasks, 1 and 2 I am pretty happy with. The commercial score still needs work and the film score/sound design task is ongoing. I have hired out a portable recorder for the weekend and will be recording my foley sounds on that. Having a portable, high quality recorder is brilliant for this I think as it allows you to sample sounds on the move. As I need outdoor ambience for my spiderman scene, this will be very useful as I plan to go into town and capture audio of cars/taxis/people talking etc.

I am pretty sure that my 3 pieces for the final portfolio that I wish to be graded on will be the animation task, the commercial score and the film scoring/sound fx piece. 

Electronica : 

I have just finished my first draft of the Polymetre task, which now contains phrases in 3/4, 4/4, 5/4 and 7/4! This actually has been a very interesting task to undertake and has yeilded some pretty cool sounding results. I also have to add some more colour to the Ambient piece and a few tweaks to my Retro Game music. I plan to have the Remix/Mashup task complete by the end of next week, and then spend the final week working on the full mix of all tasks and commentaries. This Module is all due in on 12th December so is the priority at the moment.

Production and Recording for Musicians:

Task’s 1 & 2 are now complete and handed in, with my plan for task 3 finished. I am going to hire some microphones from AMT and make my recordings probably over the christmas period. I also plan to use one of my band’s gigs to make a 16 track live recording to use for task 4. 

Creative Music Programming :

This is the module I am finding hardest to motivate myself to complete work for. I am a little behind on the module and have little to no interest in SuperCollider, and also my love for Max/msp has dwindled slightly since last year. I am expecting to get my lowest grades from this module, so I am aiming for a reasonable pass, but concentrating my efforts more towards the other modules in an attempt to maximize my marks.

Phew, thats about it for now!

Dan

This week we spent the whole workshop watching each others work and then getting feedback on what needs to be improved and or changed. I was very impressed with some of the others sound design task, especially Jurassic Kitchen (should have called the film that…) and welcomed feedback on my own work.

My score sounded pretty rubbish on the larger, better monitors in the CMT room, and unfortunately I have lost the original multitrack instrument project (overwritten by overactive Apple-S’ing) so I may have to do the musical score from scratch. Fortunately it will not be as hard as the original scoring process, as my tempo changes and hit-points are already embedded in the project file.

I may take a slightly different approach to the sound design, maybe concentrate on one track at a time (i.e all the sounds from doc ocks arms, all the vocal noises from spiderman), rather than my haphazard technique of picking out and putting in sounds as and when I see the need for them! Also I plan to use the foley room and make much higher quality recordings for the sound effects. This should hopefully lift the whole soundtrack a little. I may try and get some real instruments recorded if possible if I can find some Cellists or Violinists!?

Dan

Heres my Spiderman 2 scene so far, i may extend it to include part of the train fight, depends how ambitious im feeling for the rest of the week. Im going to head into uni tomorrow to possibly try and get some foley and dialogue/grunts/shouts etc recorded. 

This is still very basic and needs a lot of work on sounds etc but its a rough template for what will hopefully turn out to be a decent-ish piece of work!

spiderman-sound-so-far

Today’s screening was on sound design and focussed on how sounds are put together and what purpose they serve. We explored the idea of sound aiding the narrative of a film either directly or indirectly, and looked a little into some classic sound library effects (including the great Wilhelm Scream).

After checking the task we have been set, I found a pretty good Spiderman 2 Clip which I have started to score. I have used markers and tempo changes to make sure hit points and scene changes are synced to the audio in a fluent manner. I am planning to finish the musical score, then mix the music track as a whole against the individual sounds that I shall make. Not sure yet what I’ll use for the spidey sound fx but I’m sure I’ll think of something!

Also for anyone interested, I found a pretty good sample of the Wilhelm Scream. I was going to give the link for the website, which you have to sign up to, but I’m being nice so I’ll just upload it here.

Have fun!

Dan

wilhelm_scream

Ok so this is an overall update, as I am feeling a bit lazy and can’t be bothered to make individual posts for the different subjects, so here goes.

Music for Digital Media – I am happy with my finished first task, am about 95% happy with the animation task and although I did miss a screening and a lecture have got a very strong rough project about 80% done for the commercial scoring task (although I set myself a bit of a challenge by doing a 2 minute + Honda Ad…)

I am also seperately but still related to the subject, composing some imaginary film scores (the film being imaginary rather than the music!) with a few good results so far. Think Hans Zimmer but using a Logic Orchestra, although I would love to get some scores printed and get some real instruments recorded for one of the pieces I am doing as we speak…

CMP – I am a little behind, with the speech task and the first max project still to do, but the introduction to the supercollider task eased my mind a little as it was a lot less complicated that I realised it would be, considering I haven’t done any supercollider at all before. It’s good to know that we are not expected to become any more than vaguely familar with it by the end of the course.

Electronica – I am enjoying this module more and more as it progresses. A shame it is only one semester long! We have been listening to and watching some very interesting music related to the ideas of polymetric composition, plus I now have Tom Hall to thank for introducing me to the pleasures of Brian Eno’s Ambient series…

I am quite happy with my first few tasks for this module but still have a few more to complete, then final submission is a big ‘mash-up’ of all the tasks put together, which will be interesting to say the least.

Finally Production and Recording for Musicians – I am almost finished task 2, which is to be submitted next week, so I am on schedule with this. I have found the first two tasks relatively easy to do, as they are basically exercises in Logic, which I am pretty au fait with anyway. Task three will represent some learning for myself on microphone techniques, something I am no too familiar with and am looking forward to gaining some knowledge on the subject.

So all in all, after this very long and boring post which I expect no-one to read, I am doing OK!

Dan

Heres my new and improved task 2 for electronica so far, much much happier with this one, and also check out the shifting time signatures and tempo changes!

8bitdemo

Today we started our introduction to commercials and branding through the use of musical logos and themes. We covered some interesting points about how commercial breaks run and what order the content usually appears in. 

We also had a look at some of Julio’s past work within the field of advertising and saw some breakdowns of themes for tv networks and news programmes. This part of the lecture was very interesting because we could see just how many different variations on a theme need to be explored sometimes before you can finalise the project you are working on.

At the end of the workshop we covered the basics of writing melody’s and using different techniques such as augmentation, repetition and rhythmic variation to tailor a melody until it is ready for orchestration and/or further deconstruction/reconstruction.

One thing I think will be a challenge personally is that when I compose music for video/film/video-games I generally work firstly on the rhythm, tempo and chord structures, then lay down melodic ideas within the appropriate scales/mode afterwards. So the idea of coming up with a base melody or theme first then building around it, while not a new idea to me, will still be a different compositional approach that, until now, I have rarely explored.