I learned a lot from doing this assignment, particularly the practicalities of how to implement what I’d studied in the Introduction to Digital Music Techniques lectures. As helpful as the lecture material was, this is definitely something that can only really be learned by doing it.
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Today I added to my wall of sound, threw in another sample, improved the drum part, and completed the final mix of Didn’t Feel Safe.
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Today’s big addition to Didn’t Feel Safe is some dramatic sound effects to recreate a typical argument between my parents and the sounds of muffled yelling in their bedroom. I also recorded and comped the final vocals in a studio at Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
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Today I upped the tempo of my new track, incorporated the opening motif into the bridge, fixed the final bridge modulation, recorded scratch vocals for Verse 3 and added a distorted electric guitar. Good dirt!
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I planned to start today by working on the melody for the verses of Didn’t Feel Safe, but immediately heard a motif I liked which I recorded on my MIDI keyboard and ended up putting in the introduction. Then I got inspired to improve the bass line; so I’ll get to that melody later.
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Putting the verses of Didn’t Feel Safe in G major was a bit of a dick move because I want the chorus to lift by stepping around the circle of fifths, and G is a perfect 5th above C, not below. I tried to make it work by rising a perfect 4th instead, but it just sounded wrong. F major would have been a better choice for the verses, since it’s a 5th below C. One of the purposes of these blog posts is to salvage marks when we screw up and make mistakes… so all I’ll say is: Hi Damian!
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My next step for Didn’t Feel Safe was to flesh out the structure, using a common pop song structure we studied in Popular Music Theory this semester:
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This is the first of a series of posts describing a new track I’m creating both to fulfil the requirements of Assignment 3 for MUSC2653: Introduction to Digital Music Techniques at The University of Sydney, and to go on my first album I plan to release later this year.
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By the seventh day I had finished the work I had been doing, so on the seventh day I rested.
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On the last “day” working on the track, I mixed and mastered it on the monitor speakers in Studio 1030A at The Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
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