Final Project

https://soundcloud.com/orionrising27/ryansong

Project Plan 2.0

Due to some technical difficulties, my project plan which I wrote up a few weeks ago was deleted and probably cannot be retrieved.  So today, I will go back and outline briefly what it said as well as make any necessary changes.

My plan was to write a song.  So, basically, as I see it, a song consists of two main parts, the lyrics and the instruments. But, I also want, of course, to record the song too, so this project will consist of three main parts, writing lyrics, writing music for the instruments, and recording.  Therefore, around the idea of those three parts coming together around a single product, this is the slightly revised version of my rubric:

	4	3	2	1
Lyrics	The lyrics are great, contain few, if any, cliches and are very interesting.	The lyrics are good, but may contain some cliches, and are at least somewhat interesting.	Lyrics are present but not very good, contain a lot of cliches, and are quite bland.	The lyrics are nonexistent or absolutely terrible, or are completely bland.
Music	The music is great, sounds sophisticated and interesting.	The music is pretty good and somewhat interesting.	There is music but it isn’t very good.  It is muddled and ugly.	There is no music or the music is just a catastrophe of sounds.
Recording	The recording is great with few to no technical flaws.	The recording is pretty good with only a couple of technical flaws.	The recording exists but is not very well done and has lots of technical flaws.	Recording is nonexistent or is very very bad, making it nearly impossible to listen too.
Final Product	The final product is a well rounded song with several dimensions.	The final product is okay and displays some features of a good song.	The final product isn’t too good and displays very few features of a good song.	The final product is not recognizable as a song.

Looking to the weeks to come, I don't have a lot of time to complete this song.  Therefore, I plan to have the music and the lyrics written by the end of the week we return from break so that I can start recording two weeks from getting off of break.  I hope, too, that by the end of break I will have a good outline of the song with lyrics and guitar so that I can try to start adding more instruments.

Stealing Bicycles

So, to start off my project I need to steal some inspiration from my favorite songs.  Since I have very little experience crafting songs I am going to "steal" ideas from the songs I like by breaking them down and analyzing certain elements of the music and lyrics.

For a start I'm going to break down one of my favorite songs, Always Like This by Bombay Bicycle Club.  

The song starts off this slight whirling sound which is soon joined by a bass line and vocals, then a few guitar strums.  Then the vocals get into this broken-record repetitiveness until the drums kick in.  Then a short instrumental piece just before the first verse.  The instrumental piece has that catchy baseline which seems to have transferred to the guitar.  As the verse comes in the bass disappears and only the drums and the guitar remain.  As it comes to the chorus the bass comes back in and there is a little bit of a "duel" between the two guitars which switches from ear to ear.  Another verse is then presented with elements similar to the first verse.  Then the chorus repeats.  Then there is a little bit of an outro and the song ends.

The instruments in this song seem to be a two guitar parts, a bass part, a drum part, and vocals.

Overall, the most interesting element of the song is definitely the guitar and bass parts.  Like how the song is just constant chord progressions.  Personally, I find the way which the two guitars layer and go back and forth in the chorus interesting and might try to do a similar thing in my song.

Weebly Wix WordPress

In music technology this week we are looking at websites which we can use to create our own websites.  We are planning to use these websites to display the work we do in music technology.  I tried out three websites to create a website: Weebly, Wix, and Wordpress.  Each of these three websites had advantages and disadvantages.

Wordpress seemed a great tool.  It was easy to use and free.  The format of Wordpress though, wasn't really a website as much as it was a blog.  Since I think that I would be better off with a website than a blog (since I already have this Blogger), I chose not to use Wordpress and instead to look at other tools which may be better for creating a website.

The next site I looked at was Wix.  It was very clear after only five minutes of looking at Wix that it was more of website creating site and less of a blogging site than Wordpress was.  Wix offered many different types of websites for me to use.   Each of them had its own design and was easily customizable.  The templates though, were, for the most part just a little bit to complicated for my purposes.  Since I am just learning and I don't expect the website I create to be overly large, I felt that the templates offered by Wix didn't quite fit my needs.  I knew though that if I didn't find anything better, Wix would suit my website creating needs just fine.

The final website creating tool I tried out was Weebly.  Weebly was great.  The first thing Weebly asked when I began creating my site was whether I was looking to create a website or a blog site.  I chose to create a website and quickly found that, like Wix, Weebly offered many different templates which I could choose from.  Also, just like Wix, some of the templates and some features of Weebly cost money, but I was able to design a site for free.  The reason I chose Weebly over Wix is that while both offer many templates for the design of my website, I liked those offered by Weebly more than those offered by Wix.  I thought that the templates offered by Weebly were simpler and better looking.

NAMING THE SITE

So I spent a long time trying to figure out a name for my website but I couldn't figure out one.  I looked all over the web to find a tool to help me come up with a creative name but in the end I couldn't find one which was at all useful.  I did however find this nice resource which told about domain names: Tips on Domain Names

In the end I just looked around my desk and added "Sound" and "Record company" to the end of just about everything I saw.  I came up with Folder Recording, Pencil Sounds, Eraser Recording Company, but finally settled on Two Dollar Sound when I saw a two dollar bill sitting on my desk.  Its possible I might change this name.

Here is the link to my website and production company: Two Dollar Sound

Project 2

This semester we are starting a new project so I'm going to try something different.  Using the program Popplet I created this layout of my plan for this semesters project.

The yellow box is the central goal/final product of the project around which I constructed my ideas.

A Personal Learning Network

So the second semester has started and we're putting together Personal Learning Networks using the tools on the internet.  I have created a Twitter account, a Feedly, and a Delicious account.  These websites help me to find and organize new and intersting information on the internet.

At first I was skeptical of Twitter, but now I see that it is a great way to stay on top of things.  I have followed several people and groups on twitter now.  Here are just a few of the groups I have started following, some of them are for this class and some of them are for fun:


Tweets by @LogicStudio


Tweets by @LogicProHelp


Tweets by @CoolMusicDaily

I can be followed on twitter at

@ryanspencer27

The next site I started using is Delicious.  This site helps you organize bookmarks by using tags instead of putting them in folders.   I have found this site useful and I have started to use it all the time.  A few of the links which I have added using Delicious are:

Logic Pro X Instrument Manual

http://www.apple.com/support/logicpro/

http://www.logicprohelp.com/

I also have started using Feedly which helps me personalize news to my tastes as well as keep me on top of the latest news. On Feedly I have added things such as:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/

http://www.djtechtools.com/

http://www.rollingstone.com/news