In this assignment I was tasked with using a DAW to produce a Hip-Hop track of 32 measures that represents a picture.  I chose a picture of various football players kneeling during the national anthem.  Some of the boundaries included using a midi file and a prerecorded loop. A DAW is a Digital Audio Workstation in which you can edit and create audio.  A midi is a Music Instrument Digital Interface.  A midi is a computer generated audio playback file which reads notes in some form and plays them through different sounds.  

The image above of the San Francisco 49ers kneeling during the national anthem represents more than just disapproval of the current state of our nation.  It is a movement.  This movement represents the distaste for police brutality and unfair treatment of Black Americans.  It coincides with the Black Lives Matter movement.  This inspired me to use quotes from our current president on his view on this movement.  I also used audio from a Black Lives Matter protest.  

When I created this piece I took into account many specific musical elements.  Some of the elements I considered were silence, building intensity, and a powerful ending.  When implementing silence I thought it would be good to isolate the words that are most remembered when hearing Donald Trump's speech.  I also used it to emphasize specific words in a news report which make the incident part of the movement.  To build intensity I added more instruments and different drum set beats.  Some of the sounds I chose included, hip hop drums, a synthesized brass sound, and an electric bass.  I chose these instruments because they resemble a loud energetic crowd.  I also worked in different sound effects such as vintage record background noise, a national anthem announcement, and different bass drops.  These effects helped the piece move to a new section smoothly.  I also used fade in and fade out on some of the tracks to smooth the edges and starts of the track.  I actually didn't really encounter any issues as the program I used, Soundtrap, was very user friendly and easy to navigate.  Soundtrap let me physically see how the beats of the track lined up and how the sounds line up with each other.

In this portion of my DAW I created a section "B" to my Kneel on the Seal project.  I used a midi keyboard to create a motive that is passed around the different synthesizers.  The different tracks I used were, a voice over of someone singing This Land is Your Land.  I upped the reverb, flipped the track, and edited the range in which the track is played at.  I also used the announcer saying "please stand for the national anthem".  I distorted the sound by changing the pitch and speed of the track.  The last track is a sound of a record player on loop.  This is supposed to give the song a more creepy, old-timing sound.  I used the EQ and Reverb to change the qualities of sound for each track.  I created the form by doing simply an ABAB pattern, I took out the beginning vocals for the second time the a section was played. 

In revising this work there were many aspects and processes to creating and editing the final track.  I decided that using the format ABA'B'  layout would best fit the merging of the two audio clips from Donald Trump and the news-caster.  I decided that merging the two sound files in the A' section would bring a whole different idea to the song.  I merged the news-caster saying "the unarmed" and Donald Trump saying "son of a bitch" back to back.  I did this because I believe that that is the way that some our high-up officials view the black community.  I used various material from this land is your land and reversed the sound file.  I also slowed it down a ton.  At the end of the song I brought back all elements of the A and B section, I also Isolated the word "my" in This Land is Your Land.  I think that it speaks on behalf of how many African Americans feel.  They feel as if this land was made for the white man. The technology helped shape my work with the limited amount and types of effects I could put on the audio clips.  My final project is very representative of how people respond to assaults on the black community.  There is outburst, silence, then outburst again.  This is unfortunate because without the constant assessment and ridicule of the unfairness and prejudice toward the black community specifically in police brutality cases.  

One of my assignments in Music Technology was to explore a software.  I chose to explore Finale as opposed to Sibelius.  I was tasked with creating a melody (or copy and existing one) adding a countermelody and a percussion part.  The piece I wrote was for Trumpet, Trombone, Tuba, and Drumset.  Its orchestrated in melody, ornamentations of rhythmic motives, bass line, and a half time feel beat.  I titled it Intensity.  The reason I call it intensity is because at the beginning of the semester I feel very hands on and intense about staying on top of things.  

This software was very user-friendly and pretty simple to navigate.  My only issue was figuring out how to add crescendos and how to change tempo. The other issue I had was with playback sounds.  I had to adjust the dynamics to extremes just so the balance wasn't off. I still could figure out how to change the tempo until I looked it up.  I really enjoyed exploring musescore as well.  My biggest issue with musescore is that I couldn't figure a way to edit the instrumentation other that the preset groups. 

                                                                                                                                                                              Chance the Rapper
Chance is a 23 year old african american rapper.  Chance grew up in a middle class family in south Chicago.  He was laughed at be teacher for wanting to become a musician.  Chance released his first rap mixtape in 2011.    He began 2012 with being recognized in the 10 new and upcoming hip hop artists.  He is currently not under any contracts.                         


All We Got-                                                                      
https://soundcloud.com/chancetherapper/sets/coloring-book

No Problem-
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVkkYlQNmbc

How Great- 
https://soundcloud.com/chancetherapper/sets/coloring-book

Juke Jam-
https://soundcloud.com/chancetherapper/sets/coloring-book

NaNa-
https://soundcloud.com/chancetherapper/sets/chance-the-rapper-acid-rap

3. Based on the five songs, Chance's style is to starts off simple with a basic melody and little accompaniment and slowly add small ostinato patterns then add a huge bass drop.  This intrigues the listener to listen because of the music is simple and easy to listen to. Some of the basic 6     characteristics of Chance include
dynamic-varies in dynamic range loud soft                                                                                                          
personal- speaks on public issues 
groovy- the multiple bass drops 
deep- talks about current issues
strong- holds a strong stance on things
and insightful- his music is made for evoking people to go and make change happen                                                                                                                                            

Basic lyrical analysis
-lyrics are very personal, talking about situations of cheating and trust
- theres not much melodic content in the lyrics
-rhythm seem to be almost all simple duple, and repetitive patterns.
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I learned that hip hop music has many different meanings.  I learned that not all rap music is about girls, sex, drugs, and money.  I learned that this artist is very devoted to his music and life.  I also learned that you can become famous without having a studio contract.

The experience of having everyone record different bits on their own instrument at the same time was a little bit overwhelming at first.  We set outlines of key signature, a general range, and a speed.  This helped to everyone fill in the space of others.  The cool thing about this experience is that I started viewing the experience more as an art than as music.  Yes it was music but it was a different style which I am not used to.  This art form can encompass many different styles and ways of creating new pieces.  I enjoyed using a little bit of structure to keep things in a general realm.  I also enjoyed using instruments and a sound board.  I thought it added a completely different feel of classical sounds to electronic sounds.  Even though those sounds were the same as classical instruments, when they came through the speakers it gave a different experience to me.  The purpose behind this assignment was to once again get us out of our comfort zones and experience a new art from.  You needed to know how to record a sound bit, and post it to a google drive.  The professors went over how to accomplish that before hand.  I think this project may expand into us creating our own piece by ourselves .
We used the pocket piano to start then we began contributing to the sound by either playing our instruments or pressing buttons.   The technologies allowed us to create loops. The teachers facilitated the project by putting people in charge of when to change the key.This art form can encompass many different styles and ways of creating new pieces.  I enjoyed using a little bit of structure to keep things in a general realm.  I also enjoyed using instruments and a sound board.  I thought it added a completely different feel of classical sounds to electronic sounds.  Even though those sounds were the same as classical instruments, when they came through the speakers it gave a different experience to me.  The purpose behind this assignment was to once again get us out of our comfort zones and experience a new art from.  To participate in the activity we needed to know basic music skills like understanding key signatures and scales.  We learned to listen to people around us and really feel like 1 section rather than all different instruments.   We demonstrated our skills by recording the activity and reflecting on the activity.  The next steps for this project could be doing this type of piece but by yourself

When I viewed this picture I immediately thought of the Black Lives Matter Movement.  It reminded me of how police confrontation has been racially engaged.  When I dug into the picture I looked at the peoples faces.  While the woman's face shows no fear or regret, the two males faces look somewhat surprised and unsure.  I used those two conflicting emotions in a light hearted christmas carol to create a feeling rather than a new melody.  The woman's expression is illustrated by the normal melody played by the piano.  I changed the melody from trumpets to a piano.  I did this because trumpets sound triumphant and pianos sound more innocent and pure like the woman's expression.  I added a bass line underneath the melody that is a half step under or below the melody but 2 octaves lower to create an uncertainty feel of confusion.    I also added a tremolo on the melody with a quasi-marimba sound to create another uncertainty feel to represent the male s faces.  I didn't necessarily make the music pleasing to the ear but I wanted to capture the feel of conflicting facial expressions, especially in this situation.  I hope to convey the feel of innocence with conflicting biased first impressions.  I want the listeners to feel uncertain about how the two lines constantly conflict.  I used Garageband as my primary software for this project.  I had many troubles getting my note flight midi file to garageband.  I eventually just opened the midi file in finale and exported it from there.  After I played for about an hour I started feeling a little bit more comfortable with the software.  I had to use google and my friends many times to figure things out.  
I learned that exporting and importing can be confusing and that music can be more than a melody.