Thoughts from Week 1

Since our more formal writing has been transfered to Sakai, we've been given the freedom to blog about our general thoughts on our work.

Generally, I feel as though I am banging around in the dark with a lot of this software. I have certainly made progress by exploring the software myself, but what I really could use is a list of specific goals. If we'd all had to, say, create a loop of a bass line, drum map, and melodic line, that would be a helpful start. For the moment I'm trying to "learn" the software with no particular goal in mind, which is extremely difficult. Without knowing WHAT the programs are capable of, I'm not sure where to start.

In terms of collaboration, I'm afraid I have little to report. We've spent much of our time reading over the course materials on our own, and little time working together to create projects. What I find interesting is how similarly the music students and computer science students work. We seem to all be very particular, focused, and instruction-oriented. One might think that the musicians would want to endlessly explore and create, but we are surprisingly organized and do well with structure. For me, I've felt much safer reading over course materials and providing my thoughts and responses to these than attacking the various music editing programs I have at my disposal with no concept of where to begin.

I've really enjoyed, however, working with the other leaders of the project. Jason, in particular, is a very interesting person, and gives very practical and step-by-step advice on how to fiddle with the tracks that I've created. Some of us have taken advantage of what the other students have learned, also, and so far that has all gone very well. Many of the other students are much more familiar with this type of software, where as I am much more comfortable with the technical aspects of music and sound. I think particularly when we start making our own instruments we will find these two disciplines to be more helpful. For the moment, we're working essentially on our own.

Personally, I have learned a great deal, but I am a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of software I have to play with. I think if I had a few goals in each program, I would be less intimidated. For example, many of these goals could overlap- I could create a groove in Reason, then try to create something different in sonar, then rewire the two together, then open one of these files in Audition to create an mp3. I could then see if I could notate some of the chapter 3 exercises in Finale, tying the concepts together. I think a clear-cut list of objectives would help me to better grasp the more important concepts rather than getting lost in details I might not ever need.

What I have managed to do if create a cool synthesized groove in Reason, open it in Audition, and create an mp3 file. I was then able to email this file to myself, and load it onto my ipod. I think this is something that students will really like- as soon as you start creating something that you can listen to later, outside of class, the feeling of having created something original really sets in. I found this to be very satisfying, and felt as though I had actually accomplished something that day.

My feeling at this point is that there is a bit too much software for students to really grasp in one course. Perhaps it would be better to try to master just one or two programs. At this point we're really dealing with four- Finale, Sonar, Reason, and Audition. Maybe using JUST Sonar and reason would be more reasonable?

My frustrations as a musician are generally in that I have to sift through so much technology to simply MAKE music. What I want is to easily change the sound on my keyboard so that I can play a drum groove easily, create a bass line quickly after that, and then move forward to the "fun" part, which is exploring melodic lines and effects. I think, truthfully, that with the exception of a few harmonic understandings, the fact that I am an experienced musician is not particularly helpful at this point. Perhaps I'll get to show off later?

For the moment, I have finished all the pre and posttests for chapters 1 and 2. I have also finished all the forms evaluating those materials, and have made my way through chapter 3 quickly, with a great deal of comments on the accuracy and organization of the section that is my specialty. I'm waiting on the chapter 3 evaluations to be posted onto sakai so that I can shift my thoughts from this blog to those more quantified forms. Until those are posted, I'm diving into the sonar 8.5 users' manual to see what I can learn from that.

After 100+ pages of the users manual, I have successfully created my second mp3 track of the week. Last week I made one in Reason, and today I used softsynths in Sonar to compile a new drum groove and guitar sounds. The piece itself is minimalist, and I'm finding it hard to organize musical form effectively and create effective transitional material using this type of software. I prefer Finale for this type of composition because it allows for more control over the theoretical aspects of transitions. I had trouble figuring out how to view what I'd created in staff view. Is that only possible in midi tracks? How is this view used? It might be because I took samples rather than recording my own, but that wasn't made particularly clear.

I thought the Sonar 8.5 users' manual was a little more user-friendly than Reason, because it gave better examples on what the practical applications of each tool would be.

My next question is how I can take already recorded music (like from my itunes) and create remixes in these programs. Perhaps I'll burn a CD of some of my favorite songs to see what I can do with those in a program like this. This might be a good project to collaborate on...

Also after the glitchyness of my computer, I'm pretty decided on getting a mac as my next laptop. I'm tired of restarting... But is there any way to make the sound work consistently NOW?!