This is my last blog update because tomorrow is the last day of class. I have learned a lot about music during this class. Music history, styles, making; all of these things I had no idea about have been introduced to me over the past three weeks. I think taking this course has made me a more aware musician and given me a greater outlook on the music world. There is so much you can do with your music and there is so much to be inspired by, it is really wonderful. Thanks to this class I have realized this. Music is everything around us. When I get tired of playing the same style of music on my instrument, I will always know there is more out there to experiment with, both on the computer and off. This class has had a great impact on my musical sense and outlook.

Today I recorded my cello improvisation into pro tools for my final project. Playing in that room was awesome because the reverb was so intense. The G and C string really benefitted because they were close the resonant frequency of the room. I did about a three minute improv and put one second of reverb on the whole thing. I wanted to take certain parts and mess with it in Cecilia, but it is just too much of a hassle to convert things and use that program. Instead I used a different program. I liked the effect I used, reverse boomerang, where it plays it foward and backward at the same time. It sounded really interesting and I'll defenitely use it in the piece. I want to use some comb filters as well, to give a contrast to the melody and give the piece some variation.

My sampling project is almost finished and is not as bad as I thought it would be. I put one loop into Cecilia and altered it, so it sounded different from the original since they were right next to each other. I also implemented some panning in certain spots to give that cliche panning sweep, but it sounds pretty phat.

I'm listening to some Andre Nicitina right now. There is so much damn reverb on his voice, in his song Scottie 15, I can't understand him. The beat is really kickin' and you can really sink your teeth into it.

Today I went to the Orwig Music Library and listened to DJ Spooky's composition, Optometry, for my paper. It was quite an interesting piece of music, using a wide variety of instruments and electronic techniques to get its point across. You can tell from listening to his work that he is very experienced in computer music because of all the panning, granular synthesis, and overall flow of the piece. He did a great job of meshing the violin, saxophone, drums, and computer synthesization together. It is not what you would call consant music, but the dissonance was not unenjoyable. The music had a well thought out form and good direction.

I fixed up my sampling project today a bit. It doesn't sound as bad as I thought it would, but it still isn't wonderful. I added versions of Bob Marley's, "No Woman, No Cry" and "Lean on Me," by noodling them out on the keyboard. The piece doesn't flow 100%, but it doesn't sound horrible either. I think it would be classified as easy listening.

I wonder what kind of dsp Pink Floyd used. Some of their music is heavily dependent on synthesized and processed sounds. The way they can make their music flow so wonderfully is truly amazing. They'll often start out a piece very softly, then will build and build with synthesized sounds that encompass the mind. The music goes around your whole body and you get sucked into it.

I think for my final project I'm going to record a cello improvisation. I'll take the recording and mess around with it with dsp and see how it sounds. It would make me feel more comfortable to start out with something that sounds decent, then work around it. Instead of starting from scratch and not knowing what sound sources to use, I'll have something to work with from the beginning.

I liked some of the rap that we listened to in class. Once you start analyzing music and listening to it critically, you can appreciate the hard work and style that were implemented in those songs. When you're listening casually you may not stop and see how difficult it is to put some of these sounds together and make them sound so good. After working on the computer with the music editing software, you can really appreciate the skill that these people have. I liked that DJ Spooky composition a lot. I thought it was really amazing how everything flowed together so nicely, especially the Steve Reich loop. When it was placed in the background it sounded much better than when it was in the foreground. Also, the woman singing was excellent. The way he put everything together was wonderful and smooth. Smooth is definetly the right word. It was easier on the ear and you could really just get wrapped up in the music.

Once again, trying to create computer music has frazzled my brain to no end. It seems like nothing wants to fit together and sound good. I decided to not use the Hendrix, Barber, and Dire Straits. I just didn't have any good ideas to connect them, or even to remix one of them. Instead I just played around on the keyboard and tried to make my own music. The rhythm is really where I get messed up, because like many white people, I seem to have none. I do, however, have some musicality skills so some of the music sounds okay together. All I'm doing is looping and gradually adding and subtracting different loops from the constant rhythm and chorus. Using pro tools is difficult for me because I have a hard time getting loops to sound seamless, without any artifacts or akward silences or sounds. I still have some time to make my piece decent, but I'll need to get the basics of the composition done before I can start messing with the details (i.e. volume, reverb, panning, etc.) If I can get the chorus and rhythm track to flow together, it will make adding a melody and other loops easier.