Music Production and DJing M-Term

  Today we had two options for what we could work on:  Option 1:  - Continue to develop your music library - Import your music and set cue points  - Create a 10-minute mix with 3 transitions  (4 songs total) - When you are ready record with Mr. Trevino Option 2:  - Take a sample from a song (vocals, drum, base, etc) and make a piece with it. You can use the record player or online tools to get your sample. 

  We started the day with Atlas’ producer of the day presentation on Sophie, which was really interesting and gave us all a deep dive into how much influence she had on the music scene. Today was a particularly exciting day, as it was the first time we started the DJing part of our M-Term. We were once again joined by Mr. Trevino, who not only taught us the basics of the skill itself but also gave us insights into his lifestyle and career as a DJ. We all downloaded Serato DJ Lite, a free DJing software that allowed us to take two songs and mash them up with our expert's guidance. We learned how to download and input songs, how to match tempos (beats per minute) and key signatures, and finally, how to mix volumes in order to properly transition between songs. We had the chance to download our own songs and experiment with the different elements that determined whether songs were compatible or not in creating an enjoyable auditory experience. I originally attempted “Black Star” by Ra...

  For the final day of the first week in Music Production and DJ’ing, we focused a lot on exploring different music genres. While producing music, it's typical to stick to a style that you’re familiar with, but this was a good exercise in getting out of our comfort zone and also just learning about new music genres! First thing in the morning, however, we got to listen to Owen give a presentation on his selected producer of the day, Wayne Connolly, and explained his history in the music industry and the popular bands he produced for. Our activity today was we were given a little bit of time to think of or research different genres, and then you’d be given two sheets of paper to write two selected genres, fold them up, and place them in a bucket to be picked at random by someone else. Everyone was hard at work researching their topics, and after a 10-minute break at around 11, everyone took turns giving brief explanations of their topics, with characteristics such as Tempo, Rhythm, ...

 To start off our Thursday, we listened to our classmate Khushi give an excellent presentation on her producer of choice before initiating a scavenger hunt; the idea was to find at least five sounds in our environment either created by us or occurring naturally, record them, and then create a song on FL studio incorporating those sounds. We all had so much fun finding unique sounds to input into our music and enjoyed sharing our (sometimes questionable) creations with each other. Once it was time for lunch, Mr Roddy drove us to our first record store of the term, Sig’s Lagoon, where we spent at least half an hour scouring through the countless vinyls and even making some purchases. We made a pit stop to Levy Park to eat our lunch and rest before we went to get some ice cream at Amy’s. Finally, we went to our second record store, Cactus Music, where we found (and bought) so many cool music-related items. We headed back to school to enjoy some time together and share our findings, ma...

  Today was the first day of our 2 week long Art of music and DJing Mterm! The whole morning was led by a guest speaker and music producer, Mr. Hiram , he is a music producer and was an incredibly good guest speaker, check out his soundcloud here . Mr. Hiram taught us some basics about the programs we were using, as well as showing us some of what he does on a daily basis. After that we did some practice and made some musical compositions to test out our skills. Overall it was a very straightforward and enjoyable day. The pictures below are some photos of the students trying out the music software by making some simple beats.

This morning we started with a Producer Of The Day presentation from Ira about MF Doom! We learned that MF stands for Metal Face/Metal Fingers (two names he produced under previously), and about some of his other aliases. Interestingly enough, DOOM has a habit of creating new artists titles for any album he collaborates on, usually a combination of names around his theme and the other artists’. Ira played his most popular song, One Beer, and favorite song, Meat Grinder. Next, Matt gave us a tutorial on how major and minor scales work, and how to make chords out of them on FL Studio, which is the digital audio studio we are using during this term. He explained how there are 12 notes we use in music, and 7 in scales that will sound good together. After that we all worked on chord progressions, which are a set of chords played in a sequence that are usually put into songs. It was kind of hard to understand at the beginning, but Matt gave us some extra help in making the scales and we crea...