I know a ghost

I figured I would write up a new blog post since the last time I did so was in May, and because I wanted to write about a great show I went to recently. Here is the entrance of one of my favorite bands, Christian metalcore group The Devil Wears Prada, performing on 11/24/09 at the Town Ballroom in downtown Buffalo, NY.



I will start off by talking about the openers for the show, Haste the Day and Story of the Year. I knew of Haste the Day from watching the music video for the song "Stitches" on YTV. They started off the show with and energetic and inspired performance. Thought I wasn't familiar with any of their songs, all of them sounded very good. The vocalist had a beautiful clean singing voice, as well as good screams. The bassist did backing harmony vocals which sounded great. The two guitarists performed their parts while headbanging admirably. The drummer played very well, even lifting up the hi-hat during one song, which was very cool and funny. Haste the Day were amazing.

Now on to Story of the Year. Very good performance. Their sound is more of a hardcore pop-punk fusion and the guitarists and lead singers moved and jumped around the stage accordingly. One of my favorite parts of their performance was when one of the guitarists did a back flip off of an amplifier and the band started a song right when he landed. Even though I didn't know their most popular song "Until The Day I Die" I caught on to the catchy melodic chorus easily enough (until the day I die...I'll spill my heart for yeouu). The buildup to the intro riff for this song was really cool, as the guitarists played riffs that had you thinking they were going to play something else, and then they go in to the memorable intro. I really enjoyed Story of the Year.

Then came one of the co-headliners of the Napalm and Noise Tour: All That Remains. The last time I saw ATR was in New Haven, CT at Toad's Place when the co-headlined with Trivium. Here is footage from the concert, performing the song "Six".


All That Remains played great. I was familiar with a good number of their songs, and the performances didn't disappoint. Oli Herbert, the lead guitarist, played some wonderful leads throughout their performance, and the lead singer had a nice speech appreciating the fans' financial support, which I liked. ATR ruled.

Last up were the band I came to see, The Devil Wears Prada. TDWP were the highlight of the evening. I finally got to see them live and they didn't disappoint in the slightest. The had a really wicked breakdown style intro that segued into Sassafras. In fact, they had really cool little intros that segued into songs throughout their set. I don't remember the setlist, but they played all of the songs that I wanted them to play: Hey John, HTML, Reptar. Their closing song was Danger:Wildman which was incredibly exciting and crazy. Everybody in the place went nuts went the song started and Mike sang the famous words: I know a ghost. I really enjoyed The Devil Wears Prada, had a great time at the entire concert and I look forward to seeing them in the future!

Here is a link to the user who posted some videos from the show.

http://www.youtube.com/user/irishdrunk211

A Night To Remember: Juraj Kojs Final Project

Here is my trance track, entitled "A Night To Remember", my final project for Professor Juraj's Introduction to Electronic Music course. Fittingly, I am posting this around midnight. This has been one of my favorite and most enjoyable classes at Yale, and both Professor Juraj Kojs and my TA, Matt Barnson, have been wonderful and informative instructors. This track is a culmination of the all the things I have learned this semester. And, I am glad to say, I am immensely proud of it.

Working on the musical projects in this course has improved my musical ear, and allowed me to immerse myself in the constructive process of creating electronic music tracks. I would like to describe my final project below.

"A Night To Remember" started out, as all my musical projects do, with a riff. I wrote the synth riff that begins a quarter of the way through the track at the 1:00 minute mark. Then I created, with the ultrabeat drum machine in Logic Pro software, the drum beat that starts off the track.

Next, I resorted to three resources: Rick Snoman's Dance Music Manual, trance tracks that I have listened to (especially Smith and Pledger's "Black", which I recently reviewed on this blog), and Professor Juraj's trance track "recipe" from his lecture slides on trance music and culture. Snoman's chapter on trance helped me develop the drum beat after the drops, my listening knowledge of trance guided my development and arrangement of my track, and the trance "recipe" provided me with stylistic cues like the cymbal hits throughout the track (most notably at the beginning and end), instrument choices and timbres, and developmental ideas such as the buildups to the drops.

I spent many hours moving and subtly changing melodies until a "body" for my track emerged. This process was one of the most difficult parts of the project. Speaking of difficulties, the two most difficult areas of my track were the following: the chord progression in my "trance strings" instrument (synth strings pad), and physically performing the synthesizer melody that comes in at the 2:25 minute mark of the track. I have no music theory knowledge, so I had to play around with the MIDI controller (keyboard) keys while the main riff was playing until I came up with a simple, but satisfying progression that comes in at the 0:33 minute mark. As for the synthesizer melody, I slowed down the tempo of the track and keyed in the notes, but as I have no keyboard playing experience at all, I really had to practice the melody to get the finger motions right. On top of making the physical motions required for the melody to sound smooth, the melody is played on the off beat, compounding the difficulty.

Next, I came up with the introductory bass line that starts in the key of the piece, B minor. My next intention was to work on the drops. I recorded snare rolls by lowering the tempo, and I played around with my instruments to produce as much energy, intensity, and exhilaration as I could for the drops. Since I wasn't able to produce a glissando (which was my original intention), I recorded pick slides from two guitars and added chorus and phaser effects to them. I then recorded a note with a motion sequence synthesizer and I had my drops ready.

As my track progresses, I make slight variation to the synthesizer melodies, add and subtract harmonies, and change up the bass line. The third drum beat was done to accentuate the focus on the percussion and you can recognize because it's the one with the syncopated kick drum when only the synthesizer is playing along.

Finally, I finished the musical elements for my track and proceeded to edit it, mix it, and master it. I adjusted the amplitude levels using the mixer and then fine tuned them with the volume automation tool. I spent a considerable amount of time making sure one instrument was not too soft or too overpowering, listening through different kinds of headphones (the nice ones in Stoeckel Hall and shitty iPod ones), as well as laptop speakers and a 2.1 sound system in my dorm room. I made changes to the track itself by re-recording some melodies to sound smoother, polishing up snare rolls, perfecting the drops, and changing up the drum beat. Then I mastered the track using a preset. Finally, I reached a sound I was satisfied with and completed "A Night to Remember".

I would like to include two screenshots of how the project looked like in Logic Pro software. The shot below shows the anatomy of the second drop.

This next shot shows the mixer and the associated amplitude levels of each track, as well as the effects placed on them.

I hope you have enjoyed listening to my final project, and my other assignments as well. It has been really fun writing and creating electronic music and I will definitely continue doing so in the future (I almost filled up my "www" pantheon space, which is a GB, with musical ideas, riffs, and licks in Logic that I didn't use for any project--some of those ideas I posted earlier in this blog, some of those ideas...well, wait and see!). I am very proud of all of the work I have done this semester in Music 295 (well, on second listen, the ringtones and the RadiaL loops...didn't turn out that well), and most importantly--my blog and my musical pursuits will continue! If you are a fellow Juraj Kojs disciple, I look forward to hearing your track. I saw a couple of people bring electric guitars into Stoeckel Hall, so (especially since I'm a guitar player myself) I'm excited to hear what other people came up with.

Track Review

For this blog post, I will be reviewing a track by Smith and Pledger called "Black".



The track begins with a straight-forward beat characterized by a bass drum, hi-hat, and snare. A four-to-the-floor bass drum pattern enters, and a bass line comes into the mix as well. A simple melody line then enters the fold and is repeated. A synthetic voice pad outlines a chord progression. A glissando then leads to almost all instruments dropping out, and a new but similar bass line emerges followed by a melody, snare roll and massive drop.

The drop is accentuated by percussion dropping out right before all instruments go back in, and a glissando becomes the focus of the listener. I thought this technique was very effective, and I hope to use it in my final project.

The second dropping out of instruments is followed by the introduction of percussion, and then a bass line, changing it up from before. The synthetic melodic line comes back in as well as the voice pads and another drop.

I am giving this track 5 out of 5 stars for the following reasons. First, all of the instrumental lines are compelling. This includes the beat, melody, bass line, and pads. These elements have a simple, yet very effective progressions, melodies or beats.

Second, the arrangement works very well. This is an eight minute track, and Smith and Pledger develop each theme in different ways, as described above. After the second drop, for example, they come back in with percussion instead of bass. A lot of this arrangement work is very subtle, yet it lends a lot of professionalism to the track, and engages the listener.

Third, the energy of the track is pumping. It starts off slow, crescendos, maintains energy, and slowly fades away. It is very "danceable", and the well constructed drops lend to the exhilarating quality of the track.

In my final project, which will be a trance track, I hope to replicate what makes this track work well, and incorporate it into my work.

Drum and Bass, Go

Here is the link for the fourth and final short assignment in Professor Juraj's electronic music course. I created this track in the drum and bass style with a fast tempo of 190bpm. I had fun with the ending. 



Happy Easter!

Project 4 ideas

Here is a link to some ideas that I created in Logic for Project 4. I am creating a drum and bass track, and I have come up with a neat bass line that I now have to develop melodic ideas around, and arrange and develop a two minute track.

Ideas

Final Project Proposal

For my final, four minute track, I would like to create something in the trance genre, my favorite type of electronic music. I was really inspired by the trance lecture Professor Juraj gave, and I appreciated the trance track "recipe" he has provided us in his lecture slides. 

Given certain parameters for creating a trance track, I realize that a lot of my work will focus on development and arrangement. The key to a good trance track lies in exposition, and not necessarily the amount of musical material you have. The Paul Van Dyk track that Professor Juraj played for us in class, "Namistai", illustrates this principle well.

I hope to play around with four programs for this final composition. Logic will be the main piece of software that I will use. Specifically for this software, I will need to familiarize my self with the ultrabeat drum tool in order to create the percussion required for my trance track. I also will need to compose musical ideas and riffs that will form the basis of my track.

I will probably use Reason to supplement Logic (pun INTENDED). Finally, I hope to use ReCycle and RadiaL to get some small sampling into my track. Right now, I'm looking for samples that I could use. Two cool things I am thinking of sampling are from the post-hardcore music genre: the intro to "The Downfall Of Us All" by A Day to Remember, and the middle section to "HTML Rulez D00d" by The Devil Wears Prada. However, I have to develop my musical ideas first before figuring out if and what samples I can incorporate into my track.

Assignment 3 Review

For this post, I will review the work of another classmate, Nicholas Simmons-Stern. Given that the assignment parameters called for a one minute track, and Nick submitted a three minute track, I will selectively describe things that stood out for me in his composition.

The track begins with an ambient mood as synthesizers and pads create an aural landscape in a minor key. Nick includes some vocals in the background as the track progresses, creating a neat effect. The beat and tempo are well situated to the laid back, trance-like atmosphere that the track creates. 

I really like the way that instruments fade in and out in the track. It is clear that Nick spent time arranging his piece and it shows in the final product. Nick switches back and forth from one bass line to another as the track progresses.

Overall, I thought the track did a great job of creating a mood. The trance-like mood was facilitated by the attention to detail in bringing instruments in and out. As I am hoping to do a trance track for my final project, I hope to pay as much attention to arrangement as Nick did in his stellar track.