Week 1: Wrap Up

So that was week one. It was moderately successful start. I opened on Tuesday with a poor "analysis" of Between the Saltmarsh and the Sea by Stornoway.

This was an easy and sort of cop out first post, and I realize now that I am probably the worst person to analyze music cause I really know nothing about music. So we'll see if I end up keeping that activity in. Let me know what you thought of it, tell me I'm bad or whatever. It's helpful to have feedback.

Next up was the Music Video Without Music. This one was hard but I ended up with a really fulfilling product. I'm really happy to start working with sound again, but I'm gonna need to sort out my Pro Tools cause I may end up smashing my desk apart if it keeps not working. When it works it's great and when it doesn't it's the most painful thing in the world.

And lastly was Shoot Anything and Edit it. Which I didn't do. I'm really off to a strong start here. Things came up on the weekend and I wasn't really prepared. But no excuses. I'm a vile, lazy creature. I'm gonna try to step it up and be a good boy.

Rolls for this week are: 18(Work on Jonesy and the Big Chap animation), 9(Write about an artist I love), 7(Write about anything)

I look forward to being a good boy again.

Week 1: Music Video Without Music - Sober

Finally.

Pro Tools really tried my patience with this one. I wager I had to restart Pro Tools once every fifteen minutes if I was lucky, and every 5 minutes if I wasn't. It didn't help that I put most of this off until today. But I'm pretty happy with what I came up with. The music video is Sober by Childish Gambino, an artist I haven't listened to lately but this video popped into my head almost instantly when trying to come up with a good MVWM.



I guess I should reflect on this project or something. I'd say the hardest part, besides constant crashing, was finding all the sounds I needed in my own house. The squeaking chairs is a squeaky part of our floor,  the footsteps were made by dragging my microphone to the bathroom and setting up a mirror so I could see my computer around the corner. I tried for a long time to get the right sound for him smiling, which was just me sitting in front of the mic doing weird stuff with my mouth. Oh god, and the cracking wrists, that was me cracking my fingers and then Lauren when mine would no longer crack. You're lucky I turned that down, cause when it was at the recorded volume it was disgusting. I'm really happy with how his footsteps turned out, the squeak of the shoes came from, can you guess, a pair of shoes I have that are incredibly squeaky. Lot of squeaks in this.

I only did just under a minute and a half of the video, which proved to be a pretty good length for me to tackle. Despite Pro Tools constantly fighting me, I had a pretty good time getting back into working with sound. But boy, do I need to figure out how to fix this garbage software.

Am I a good boy yet.

Week 1: Song Analysis - Between the Saltmarsh and the Sea

Well I've already disappointed myself by putting off the two Practice activities and starting with the one that requires the least amount of effort. Go me. But this activity left me with a massive conundrum. I listen to a lot of music, so how am I gonna pick one song to analyze? Do I pick one from a favorite artist? Do I pick a personal one hit wonder? Do I pick a joke song like Wonderwall - or Temporary Secretary (although an analysis of Temporary Secretary sounds amazing). I also have no idea how to analyze music, which is good because there are 2 or 3 sections for it on the Roll List. So what did I end up picking?

Presented to the court, Between the Saltmarsh and the Sea by Stornoway off of their second album "Bonxie".

I first discovered this band in high school - classic - I listened to their first album "Beachcomber's Windowsill" every once in a while. But that album was a sleeper, I enjoyed it when I first listened to it, but over the years it really left an impression on me and became one of my favorites. The album became so important to me that it was all over my wedding playlist, and one of the songs, Long Distance Lullaby, was what our wedding party walked down the aisle to. All that said, I'm obviously not talking about that album, nor that song. No, I picked a song from an album I only recently started listening to. So, feel free to hit play and lets dive in.



The first thing I like about this song is it's opening, I like how the foghorn and bird noises lead naturally into that synthy thing (oh baby get ready for incorrect terminology). The drums combine with the synthy thing and drive the song right into the chorus. Those drum hits that lead into the chorus by the way are hott. The guitar arpeggios in the chorus are great, they're mixed perfectly - nestled safely between the drums and the vocals, like a lil blanket for those baby arpeggios. But then we lose our baby arpeggios and are left with the bass drum and little angel synths. This little interlude once again builds this great sort of driving tension that builds right back into the chorus again.

At this point you have to be thinking, "Well yeah that's how songs work, there's choruses and not choruses and usually they build to a choru-"

BUT HOLD UP BABY, CAUSE NOW WE'RE PAST THE SECOND CHORUS AND we're into the little bridge thingy by now! Those big drums go clap clap and you have that fat bassy synth pluckin away. Oh baby, and then the harmonies come in, hell yeah. This song just wants me to sing along. I gotta. I gotta sing. You gotta let me sing.

And then it ends.

Well, hope you're looking forward to the next installment "Matt just describes a song as he listens to it and calls it analysis"! I know I'm not!