Process Journal #15

Technically this is my last official process journal that I need for my class, but I think that I am going to write a few more (hopefully) over break because that's when I am going to finalize my product.

I realized that I need a midi recording cable. I know I said a few months ago that I had been planning to mess around with the midi option on my piano, but I just never got around to it because I didn't have the cable. I am going to order it soon in the upcoming week. I don't think it will be very hard to record the audio, I am going to try transferring it into Garageband. Hopefully that is going to work. I've already seen some video tutorials on midi recording, so I think it'll be fine. After that I hope to use the midi recording to create the digital sheet music by transferring it into MuseScore.

Process Journal #14

I have been thinking about my final product, and instead of creating a video that summarizes my composing process, I think I'm just going to film myself (mostly my hands) when I play the song from different angles and then edit all the clips together. I've seen some really cool videos on YouTube with piano performances, and I also hope to do the same. Since I am using iMovie for my video editing, I have been watching editing videos on YouTube to help me gain a better understanding of how I am going to put my video together. I'm actually really excited to see how it will turn out! :)

Process Journal #13

My product team class is almost over, which means that I'm soon going to be done with this project. To be completely honest, it hasn't been the most fun ever, but I definitely have learned a lot about myself and music composition.

I'm still working on transitioning all the parts of my song together, I have the beginning down and now I just need to finalize the middle and end. I'm not as stressed as before about this since I now know what I need to do. I've just been having trouble with a bit of the transitioning. There is this one section that I created which I really like, but I just need to figure out how to incorporate it into my composition. I will definitely figure out a way, because I am not going to leave it out.

Process Journal #12

Hello there everyone! I am totally excited right now because I feel like I might actually be able to finish this project on time! Excitement :D

Okay, so over the weekend I really tried to focus and compose my song, but alas my brain felt like it needed to continue torturing me (aka, I didn't get any further). I was really starting to stress out because I need to have this done by next week, but yesterday and today have been glorious. I was browsing around YouTube listening to OSTs (Original Soundtracks) from various animes, video games, etc. and I came across a song called "Passion of Victory" by Future World Music.

The piano intro immediately caught my attention, and I quickly rushed over to my piano to play it by ear. I figured it out pretty quickly, and it led me to create lots of interesting rhythms and melodies. I now have all the different parts of my song, and now I just need to blend everything together. I think the hard part now is going to be create the digital score, but for now I'm focusing on finalizing my song. I'm still not 100% sure how I'm going to record it, but I'll worry about that later. So overall I am really happy about this right now, and I can't wait to find some more time to work on it now that I have my set melodies. :)

Thank you Future World Music for inspiring me, I am very thankful ^_^

Process Journal #11

   Alright, so last week was Thanksgiving break, and on top of that I had no homework. I finally got to enjoy a stress-free week. However, this kind of also means that I didn't work as much as I planned to on my Personal Project...

   I'm having a big dilemma right now with myself on this project. I've been working on my composition, but I am starting to not like how it sounds anymore. This is pretty bad because I'm starting to run out of time before this project is due. I also need to start drafting my report soon, so I really need to step it up. Honestly, I really tried to work on it over break, but I just didn't have any inspiration! I tried to come up with melodies and rhythms that I liked, but my mind just wouldn't cooperate. I'm starting to really stress out about this. 

   I really hope to have a good piano song by the end of this, and if I actually get around to it, I also want to add strings in the background to make it more interesting to listen to. Of course, this would only work if I really started working on my project. It doesn't help that I'm starting to dislike what I have so far. 

   I really hope that I can find inspiration somewhere, and soon, to help me get my song done. I really just want to get this over with, but I'm totally stuck right now. Hopefully I'll think of an idea  this week, and then be able to finally accomplish something.

Process Journal #10

I have come to another realization; I have terrible time management skills. Usually the only time I can really work on my project is on the weekends, but these past two weekends haven't been as productive as I hoped they would be. I definitely need to step it up, so I am going to physically write it in my calendar that I have to work on composing.

On a different note, I think I'm starting to change what kind of a song I want. I think that I'm just going to play improvisations and record them. Then afterwards I can go back and listen to what I played and choose what I like and what I don't like. It'll hopefully give me even more inspiration and ideas. Usually my problem is that I play something, but then I next day I forget what it was. This way I'll be able to stay more organized with my composing. :)

Process Journal #9

So after listening some more to Dax Johnson's compositions I realized that I've been taking a wrong approach towards this whole project. Previously, I kept thinking that I had to have a defined intro, middle, and ending to my composition, but I now believe that that doesn't have to be the case. I know I've been posting a lot songs, but hey, it's inspiration right? :)

This is the song that made me realize what I just talked about above. It mostly consists of moving lines and phrases that seamlessly blend together. I think I'm going to take a similar approach to my song as I continue with my song-writing. I feel that what I have so far isn't moving enough yet.

Process Journal #8

I always wish that I could come up with something that doesn't seem "cheesy". Art is always interpreted differently through everyones eyes, so I'm just worried that I'm being held back with my composing due to fear of being considered weird for what I come up with. I know that it's a pretty lame reason, but I am trying to work on not worrying about what other people think about me, and just do what I want to. I believe that music is a way of expressing oneself, so I should just compose what I want. I hadn't really deeply thought about this before, but I am currently listening to a composition by Dax Johnson that is helping me concentrate more on the important parts of this project. I guess this kind of contributes to my inquiry question, "How does mood affect what kind of music a person listens to?"

This is the song that I was listening while writing this post. It's quite mysterious, right?

Process Journal #7

Why hello there again! It's been quite a while due to the fact that I've been pretty busy again in the past few weeks. However I have still been thinking about my personal project, and even though I haven't been able to get as much done as I hoped, I still have an idea to what I want to do.

Recently I was browsing YouTube and came across a piano cover of a k-pop song entitled 'Janus'. Usually piano covers of songs that have vocals are not very moving and intricate because they're lacking the main melody. This one however caught my attention because it sounds very good as a piano piece.

I really like the melody in this piece, and it's given me quite a few ideas for runs and notes I can use for the left hand in my composition.

Process Journal #6

Hello again! This weekend I actually got a lot of work done on my personal project. I spent about three straight hours at my piano composing and transferring the notes into MuseScore. I finally have almost all of the introduction written, which means that I can soon start with the main part of the song. I still don't know what I'm going to do for the climax of the song yet, but I really hope that I'll be able to think of something good. This is what I have so far:

I think my problem in the past few weeks has been that I was so focused on making my song advanced, that I couldn't really concentrate on a specific melody. However, my mom said 'you don't have to start out with difficult music, you can always go back and make it more intricate afterwards.' I realized that this was probably the best approach, so I decided to try it out and voilà, I finally achieved something.

I am definitely going to work more on my composition this weekend. I think I'll be able to get a lot done because I have 3.5 days no school. I can concentrate better when I don't have school because I'm not as stressed out about homework and such as compared to during the week.

Process Journal #5

Regrettably I have to say that I haven't really worked on my project this past week due to time management problems. However, I spent around two hours today on it, and I actually accomplished some things!

 First off, I've been having major creativity problems. For some reason my mind refuses to turn on it's 'creative switch', so every time I sit in front of my piano to compose, I can't think of anything to play. Luckily today I found something which I'm sure will help me tremendously with my composing.

I came across this website: www.learn-piano.org. On it there is a section about music composition, and I seriously think this is going to be a lot of help. The creator of the website also has a YouTube channel called "learnpiano". On it there are a lot of videos that explain the many steps needed to create a song. I sat down at my piano today and watched a few of the videos, and already I've gotten a lot further. I came up with a melody that I like, and I'm going to try to expand on it this week. I am reserving the upcoming weekend for my personal project, so if all goes well I will be able to finally get a lot of work done.

I am really excited that I finally have a base to my song. I want this week to go by fast so that I can really work on my project over the weekend. Excitement! :)

Process Journal #4

Alright, so I don’t have a lot to write about today since I haven’t had any time to work on my project, but I figured why not show what I’ve been doing for the past week or two.

As I mentioned in my first post,  I’m using MuseScore to create my digital score. I’m still having a mind blank and have not been able to come up with any good melodies, but I’ll show what I have so far.

So this is the first actual melody that came to my head. I was messing around on my piano and ended up coming up with this. I’m not too impressed by it though, and I feel it’s really lacking something. I also don’t know where I could go musically with it. Hopefully I can somehow either revise it to make it better, or just be able to come up with a totally new melody.

I’m trying to create a song that kind of tells a story of some sort. I don’t mean an actual story, but just something that has varied harmonies and rhythms. My idea is to make something that starts off slow and then becomes more intense as the song progresses. I am hoping to create something similar to this, but of course for piano.

As I keep saying, pretty much the only thing holding me back right now is coming up with good melodies. When I have done that, I’ll be able to hopefully get a lot of progress on my project.

Process Journal #3

So today I decided to start make a YouTube playlist containing various songs with melodies I like. I'm having a hard time coming up with a good melody, so I hope that by doing this I'll be able to forge some ideas.

Thankfully this is going to be the last week that I'm extremely busy. This means that I'm going to have more time to practice piano and work on this project. I'm really going to have to work on time management because currently I am also learning Rhapsody in Blue for my piano recital in December. Hopefully I won't procrastinate on things and be able to make progress on my project.

Process Journal #2

I actually worked on my personal project on Tuesday, 9.18.2012, but I never had time to write about what I did. So that is what I'm going to do now!

On Tuesday I decided to watch tutorial videos on how to use MuseScore. MuseScore has tutorial videos on their website, which go through the different steps on how to create a musical score. I learned how to add notes into the score more quickly and effectively, and also how to format the score so that it looks organized.

I also listened to various piano songs to try to get some ideas for melodies that I might want to include in my composition. My favorite pianist on the web that I always listen to is Kyle Landry: http://kylelandry.com. I've been listening to him for a few years now, and he's inspired me to try my best with piano. He does a lot of compositions, which he posts to his YouTube channel. My goal is to be able to freely play improvisations on piano like he does, but that's definitely going to take a lot of work.

Sadly I've  hardly had any time to work on my project, or even practice piano general. I've been extremely busy these past couple of weeks, so I hope that I'll be able to have time to play piano again soon.

My Very First Process Journal!

Today I am officially going to start the process of completing my personal project! I've decided to make my very own piano composition, and later on create the score using Musescore. At first I was going to use SibeliusFirst, but after a bit of research I've decided to use Musescore because number one, it's free, but it supposedly also has more functions than the basic version of Sibelius. I still haven't purchased a music theory book, but it's not a very big deal since I already have a lot of musical experience.

I've already played around with Musescore and tried out the different functions, just to get used to the software. At first I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but after looking at a few tutorial videos on YouTube I understood the program a bit more.

Hopefully I'll be able to come up with some good melodies that I can incorporate into my song. I'm aiming to write a more advanced piece, but I'm not sure yet if I'll be able to do that. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. :)