First Blog of the New Semester

This week was the start of the new semester. We began by making a Twitter account, a Delicious account, and a Feedly account. 


Twitter

Account: @reedk719
People I'm following: 

• @brianlogandales
• Brian Dales is the lead singer to my favorite band, The Summer Set
• @IMDb
• IMDb is the largest movie website where I get all of my information on new movies and actors
• @BehindScenesPic
• This is behind the scenes of a bunch of famous movies such as Titanic, Wizard of Oz and The Dark Knight

Delicious

Account: @reedk719
Links I Have:

• Downton Abbey
• This is a blog about Downton Abbey, one of my favorite TV shows
• LifeHacker
• This posts different technologies and easy tips for everyday life
• My School Website
• This is where I find all of my weekly blog assignments

Feedly

Account: reedk719
Following:

• Rolling Stones
• This is where I find a bunch of newspaper articles online about the latest technologies and gossip
• Design Milk
• This is a site that posts different, cool designs for your home
• IKEA Hackers 
• This has many different ideas for what you can do with products that you buy from IKEA

Weekly Update #4

Since my last update, I have been very busy with my project. I finished recording my second song and filmed my music video. For the second song, I did not record the bridge part because I could not find time to meet with the cello player for long enough to record it since she has her own project to finish as well, which is why there is a long break between the third and fourth choruses.

Over the course of this semester, I have learned a lot about Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro X. They are both quite similar in how to work them even though Logic is only for sounds and Final Cut Pro is for videos. I learned how to quickly navigate around both programs and have learned the basics with both now. I mostly learned how to use the programs on my own through guessing, but I also watched a few YouTube videos, one of which I posted to a previous blog post, and I sometimes asked other people if they knew how to do certain things if I could not find what I was looking for. If I do another project like this next semester, I will try to manage my time better and find more time to meet with the other people who I need to help with my project.

For this class, the main issue, even though I know that it could not be helped, was that there were more people than we had computers, so I often did not get a computer to use, which made me lose a lot of time to work on my project. Other than that, I think that the class was set up well because it gave me freedom to do what I wanted for my project and did not force me on a specific guideline or schedule. I feel that if I had my own computer everyday, I would be able to succeed fully in my project and not have any other problems.

I think that for the amount of time I had for the project and how much work I put into it, my project came out pretty well and as good as I was expecting it to be. Hopefully next semester, I can create a project plan that I know I can fulfill by the end of the year and actually fully complete it successfully and thoroughly!

Weekly Update #3

In these last few weeks, I have been unable to work on my project because I had Christmas Break at school. However, this week I have been working hard to finish recording my second song and creating an outline for my music video that I am making for the song. Next Friday is the end of this semester, so I have to finish the video by then, which means I will have to film the video by next Tuesday or Wednesday so I will have time to edit it. Hopefully I will be able to finish the video and upload it by the end of next week!

The first link below is a tutorial of Final Cut Pro X which is the program I will be using to edit my music video once I film it. The second link is someone's blog about how to make your own music video for free, which is really helpful for me because this is the first music video I've ever made.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flc5TQ2pfv4&edufilter=eI6X0UjkSUGg_FEQLVPvtQ&safe=active

http://thecreativeadvisor.com/how-to-make-a-music-video-on-your-own-for-free/

Weekly Update #2

Ok so clearly, I haven't exactly been following the "weekly" parts of the Weekly Updates, but I have been busy for the past few weeks working on the two songs by creating them on Logic Pro X rather than recording them. It was quite difficult at first since I had barely ever used the program before, which is why it took me longer than expected; however, once I got the hang of it, I finished creating the music for one song and have begun recording the vocals for it with the singer. I have also started making the drum beats and piano parts for my second song, the one I am doing the music video for, and I have talked to some of my friends who are doing filming in this class to help me record and film the video.

Weekly Update #1

Over the past two weeks, I have been very busy during my Music Technology class. Not only have I been working on my songs that I will be recording, but I have also been busy making the incentives for a Kickstarter campaign my class did last year. Therefore, I have not had as much time as I had originally expected to work on recording my songs, and so I have changed my plan to only recording two songs instead of three.

My Semester Project

My Semester Project

My driving question for the next few months is how will I create a well-made music video for one of the songs that I wrote?

For the rest of this semester, everyone in my class has to do a special project, and I am going to record two original songs with me playing drums and two other people singing and playing piano. One is songs that I wrote, and one is a song that the lead singer wrote. I will record and edit one song each week over a three week period, starting next week.

Once I am finished recording all of the songs, which will be in about four weeks from now, I will choose one and create a music video for it, and then edit it once I am done. It will probably take me over a month or two to finish filming and editing it, making it around late January when it is done, which is the end of the semester. I think that the filming of the video will take two or three weeks, which leaves me over a month to edit it.

The key skills that I will learn while doing this project will be how to use recording and editing computer programs such as Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro. I will also learn how to use a professional video camera, and in my weekly updates, I will include the information that I learned that week from filming or editing.

Schedule:

11/1

Record the first song

11/22

Record second song

12/13

Design music video outline

12/20

Finish recording music video

1/15

Finish editing music video and upload it to blog

The criteria needed for each product:

1. Product: Videography-

I need to make sure that the camera is in the right spot at all times, isn’t shaky, and has the right lighting.

2. Product: Editing-

I need to make sure that everything is edited well without jumps between each change in scene, etc.

3. Product: Sound-

I need to make sure that the sound in all of my videos is good quality and cut together well.

	Skills Needed	Already Learned	Taught Before Project	Taught During Project
1	Drum playing	-----
2	Recording			-----
3	Video Taping			-----
4	Editing		-----

Tambourine History

The Tambourine

For the few of you who are wondering what a tambourine is, it is one of the simplest musical instruments ever made. It is part of the percussion family, is usually handheld, and can be played in virtually any genre of music because of how plain and universal the sound is. The metal disks are called “jingles” and are around the outside rim of the circle of wood. Throughout its history, the tambourine has barely been altered in its looks because of how simplistic and easy it is already to use.

The tambourine was first used in Greece and Rome during the 13th century in religious and folk songs. Since the late 1700’s, it has traveled around the world and landed in Europe, where Mozart began to include it into his compositions. Once the tambourine was heard in classical songs, many artists began adding it to their own work, snowballing the sound into nearly every song you heard until recently. Now, new technologies have enabled us to use fake sounds produced by computers, so most instruments are not needed in creating a song anymore.

The percussion consists of some of my favorite instruments because each piece of it has such a unique sound. Also, they are so important to music because they keep the time and add the structure to the song. The tambourine is awesome because even though it is so simple, it adds so much to a song and can have very complicated rhythms that add something special to each melody.

Bibliography

• http://www.x8drums.com/v/blog/2007/02/history-of-tambourine.asp
• http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tambourine
• http://www.vsl.co.at/en/70/3196/3211/3215/5813.vsl
• http://www.promusicaustralia.com/drum/TocaImages/T-H_Series.jpg