Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Busy week, blogging helps relieve stress.

I've been coming home pretty late the past few days this week, and it's for hanging out or stuff like that. Presentations for my classes are coming up in a few weeks so my schedule is actually pretty tight for the first time in a while. Usually I've always got flexible hours to work with but now if I don't actually buckle down and do work I'm going to fall behind and get into some trouble.

Having night class really doesn't help... Tonight I just got home at 8, ate dinner and now it's 9 and I still have work to do. Luckily I don't have class tomorrow, but if I did I'd be spending my night working on a paper that's due on Thursday and I need to come up with information on an upcoming debate that is also on that day =P. In the same week I've been calling, e-mailing, and talking to strangers to meet with them and work on the presentations. Now I've seen some suckers fabricate tight schedules to make themselves look "good", but when you're actually busy it's pretty friggin awful =P. I've hardly had free time so far this week and last week, and when I don't get my daily fix of anime things go bad =(. Every time I go a day without some time to myself I wake up next morning grumpy as hell. A tight schedule isn't a very good thing to use as a status symbol...



I'm going to a business school and all, so these kinds of bumpy and cluttered schedules are to be expected; especially when if I was working in a real business environment- so I've got to find a way to deal with it. Alcohol perhaps? My "daily fix" for things can really affect my mood, I can go through an awful day as long as I have that fix but if I don't it turns into a nightmare. I'll have to find substitutes... like blogging lol.


Music

Ugh, I haven't had the time to sit down and make a song. I think it was yesterday when I tried to figure out the basic beat for my next song. It ended up being a big experimentation with how drums can be used in a song. I listened to songs with pretty damn complex patterns and than other songs with more abstract patterns in drum beats. It was only then when it occurred to me how important the bass line of any song really was. The usual constant kick in a song may be all you need to hold that steady beat and guide a song. It's not necessary to have a large array of percussion to make a song sound upbeat, as I was aiming to do. Before learning from the experiment, I figured that the more complex the drums were the more upbeat the song would be. But that really isn't the case. Instead drums are just another sound you can use to either be the "voice" of the song or the bass or underlying tones of the song. What makes a song really upbeat is the actual notes you use in the song.

In "Stars in the Shade" I used chords that made very very familiar sounds. The piano songs I play are usually calm and peaceful sounding. I have no idea how a fun upbeat song is played. So the chords were long drawn and very mellow. Going into the main body of the song I added more underlying chords which were put in for the hell of it. What I didn't realize was that these chords were acting like a bass line, or the soothing synth sounds that go along with the main melody. Depending on how it is made with the melodies, you could have many different types of tones for songs. Looking closely at the loops in the "Stars in the Shade" I realized that all of them ended in a very mellow manner, so the song as a whole had a mellow calm tone. If I had used higher more energetic notes and chords at the ends of those loops then the song would feel more upbeat.

The hook of a song really helps to determine what kind of song it is. God there's so much to actually making a song I still need to learn. It's going to be pretty hard to finally make the kinds of songs that I really like to listen to.

2 comments:

  1. cool

    should really make some you time though and alchol doesnt sound such a great one :p

    also it was hot chocolate

    hey but at leats all ur hard work will pay off?

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  2. i read alcohol. u could always just hit up a party once a month. thats a better stress reliever.

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