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Thursday 27 August 2020
Monday 2 March 2020
Making Music Part 3: Anyway here's Wonderwall
It's the final installment if learning to write music (for now)!
If you missed the first two, here are the links to those:
Part 1
Part 2
Missing from my previous post is another key ingredient in writing music: the song needs to be about something; to have a focus or a message to convey (seems so obvious now). The song that I've developed here is the theme tune to the main antagonist of my game, Winter Solace.
The character is referred to for now as the dark man. His whole deal is being charismatic and ambiguous in motive, while appearing quite easy-going and supportive. To reflect this, I wanted his theme to be a bit shady, but upbeat, maybe a bit casino-like and jaunty, with a flexible melody to use as a motif in other songs in the game.
Motifs are something that Pixar does particularly well. Think about the main melody in Up or Toy Story, they’re first used in happy moments to associate the tunes with a happy relationship. Later when they’re played in a sad moment, it’s the juxtaposition of what the melody is telling you and what’s being shown which is really hard-hitting.
I wanted to write this piece in minor while including some notes from out of the key. I found this gives tunes a curious tone. What came next was lots of humming to myself until I eventually discovered a musical idea to use as a starting point.
Therein lies a beat, bass and melody, basically a song already. When I tried to write it up properly I got this monstrosity:
Hold on, lets take out that bass and replace it with some chords.
I spent a little while humming the melody and playing ukulele at the same time, trying to match chords to how each part of the melody felt. I can't really explain how I did this, I just sort of kept going until it felt right.
Figuring out it was in the key of A minor helped, once again I did this by going through each minor chord in search of a chord that sounded the most “resolved”.
With that in mind, here's a midi sample with new bass, and bloopier instruments:
Next comes instruments.
I wanted the melody to have a sound somewhere between an organ and overdriven guitar, like a kind of warm fuzzy gravel sound. I put the midi together in ableton using the Portasound keyboard samples from last time and noise drum samples from a Famicon. It’s good that Ableton makes sampling super easy, even for drum racks.
The Portasound’s harpsichord had the perfect quality. I threw on a few plugins, making the bass like more warm and fuzzy and the melody higher and sharper.
Having a balance of heavy/light or hard/soft or fast/slow, can make songs sound fuller and add drama. If the bass is heavy like a dense cake, the melody can be light like lemon icing, creating something that feels balanced.
One of my favorite musical combinations is a long slow sound accompanied by a very quick stabby sound. A great example of this is on the climax in Pioneer To The Falls. As it ramps up, the difference in tempo between the instruments gets larger. Super dramatic.
The plugins here which are key are the Overdrive and the EQ Three: Overdrive gives more of that warm fuzziness and the EQ Three lets you filter out high med and low sounds, letting me keep the low tones in the bass, and the high tones in the melody.
Fun fact about 8bit music! The sound chips in most 8bit consoles could only ever output 4 sounds at a time. Usually this was divided into three tracks for notes and one white noise track which was usually used as the drum. That's why 8bit music has so few chords and so many arpeggios. If you want your music to sound genuinely 8bit, try restricting the amount of notes played to at most 4 at once.
So here it is, I’ve hit my limit on how to make a good tune, but I’m pretty happy with this one for now.
If you’d like the instruments used you can download them here: Dropbox link
If you have any advice on how I could improve the tune, let me know, I would really appreciate some feedback.
Anyhow, this concludes this brief exploration into writing music, thanks for coming on the journey! Ever been interested in making clothes? Check this out
If you missed the first two, here are the links to those:
Part 1
Part 2
Missing from my previous post is another key ingredient in writing music: the song needs to be about something; to have a focus or a message to convey (seems so obvious now). The song that I've developed here is the theme tune to the main antagonist of my game, Winter Solace.
The character is referred to for now as the dark man. His whole deal is being charismatic and ambiguous in motive, while appearing quite easy-going and supportive. To reflect this, I wanted his theme to be a bit shady, but upbeat, maybe a bit casino-like and jaunty, with a flexible melody to use as a motif in other songs in the game.
Motifs are something that Pixar does particularly well. Think about the main melody in Up or Toy Story, they’re first used in happy moments to associate the tunes with a happy relationship. Later when they’re played in a sad moment, it’s the juxtaposition of what the melody is telling you and what’s being shown which is really hard-hitting.
I wanted to write this piece in minor while including some notes from out of the key. I found this gives tunes a curious tone. What came next was lots of humming to myself until I eventually discovered a musical idea to use as a starting point.
Therein lies a beat, bass and melody, basically a song already. When I tried to write it up properly I got this monstrosity:
Hold on, lets take out that bass and replace it with some chords.
I spent a little while humming the melody and playing ukulele at the same time, trying to match chords to how each part of the melody felt. I can't really explain how I did this, I just sort of kept going until it felt right.
Figuring out it was in the key of A minor helped, once again I did this by going through each minor chord in search of a chord that sounded the most “resolved”.
With that in mind, here's a midi sample with new bass, and bloopier instruments:
Next comes instruments.
I wanted the melody to have a sound somewhere between an organ and overdriven guitar, like a kind of warm fuzzy gravel sound. I put the midi together in ableton using the Portasound keyboard samples from last time and noise drum samples from a Famicon. It’s good that Ableton makes sampling super easy, even for drum racks.
The Portasound’s harpsichord had the perfect quality. I threw on a few plugins, making the bass like more warm and fuzzy and the melody higher and sharper.
Having a balance of heavy/light or hard/soft or fast/slow, can make songs sound fuller and add drama. If the bass is heavy like a dense cake, the melody can be light like lemon icing, creating something that feels balanced.
One of my favorite musical combinations is a long slow sound accompanied by a very quick stabby sound. A great example of this is on the climax in Pioneer To The Falls. As it ramps up, the difference in tempo between the instruments gets larger. Super dramatic.
The plugins here which are key are the Overdrive and the EQ Three: Overdrive gives more of that warm fuzziness and the EQ Three lets you filter out high med and low sounds, letting me keep the low tones in the bass, and the high tones in the melody.
Fun fact about 8bit music! The sound chips in most 8bit consoles could only ever output 4 sounds at a time. Usually this was divided into three tracks for notes and one white noise track which was usually used as the drum. That's why 8bit music has so few chords and so many arpeggios. If you want your music to sound genuinely 8bit, try restricting the amount of notes played to at most 4 at once.
So here it is, I’ve hit my limit on how to make a good tune, but I’m pretty happy with this one for now.
If you’d like the instruments used you can download them here: Dropbox link
If you have any advice on how I could improve the tune, let me know, I would really appreciate some feedback.
Anyhow, this concludes this brief exploration into writing music, thanks for coming on the journey! Ever been interested in making clothes? Check this out
Monday 6 January 2020
Making Music, Part 2: If music is the food of the soul, I can only make baked beans.
Playing music has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever tried to learn to do. Writing music, however, has been THE hardest.
My first exposure to writing music was a game on the Playstation 1 called Music 2000. It was pretty good, it had all the midi writing tools current music software does, with basically the same UI. If you couldn’t write your own tunes, it had samples which were all in the same key so you could just jam those together and make something that sounds amazing... to a child.
My interest in it waned after I realized there was no way to get my super cool tunes off the PS1 to impress all my friends.
Flash forward to my teenage years. Writing lyrics was the preferred way to kill time while in the back seat during long car journeys and other occasions when my parents didn’t get me. Here are some actual lyrics I wrote:
I was just starting to dabble with the ukulele back then, knowing little beyond the absolute basics. Thanks to my friend's older brother who was a stellar piano player, I learnt some chords that didn't sound terrible in combination. However, a neat chord progression alone wouldn't drive these lyrics out of Sucksville. Plus, I’m poor at singing, which didn't help.
At the time I thought it was the chords' fault, of course, and that I could replace them with better ones if I knew some music theory. Luckily, there are seemingly limitless resources for learning theory, which I understand now, would only get me so far.
You know what actually would have helped? Learning an instrument well enough to compose on it, which I cleverly did not do. With this one neat trick I had created a stupidity feedback loop; Every time I’d pick up my ukulele, I’d eventually get tired of my own lack of skill and go learn some theory. If I knew more theory, I reasoned, the next time I tried to compose would be much more pleasant, right? Spoilers: no.
After 15 years of finding and absorbing as much theory as I could without proper teaching; watching song breakdowns and learning fancy magic words, I have figured out what I should have done from the start. So let me sum up everything I found useful without getting into the nitty gritty:
As for resources, here are the ones I found most useful:
This image of a chord wheel. It's still worth having as a reference for building a chord progression. Play the chords in the pink shape and you'll get an idea of their relationship to each other. Then, you can shift the shape around the circle to hear the same relationships in different keys.
8bit Music Theory is a youtube channel which I found very useful when learning theory, it's very clear and descriptive. It helped me understand how music is like any other art form; there are practices but no rules, and gradation in sound is just as rich as gradation of color. At the same time, the channel breaks down tons of potential directions for writing and techniques you could add into your pieces.
This latest stint of learning to write music has stemmed from making my game, Winter Solace. It needs a soundtrack at some point, which is enough to motivate me to have another crack at it.
So, armed with all this knowledge and experience, would I do any better?
My first exposure to writing music was a game on the Playstation 1 called Music 2000. It was pretty good, it had all the midi writing tools current music software does, with basically the same UI. If you couldn’t write your own tunes, it had samples which were all in the same key so you could just jam those together and make something that sounds amazing... to a child.
My interest in it waned after I realized there was no way to get my super cool tunes off the PS1 to impress all my friends.
Flash forward to my teenage years. Writing lyrics was the preferred way to kill time while in the back seat during long car journeys and other occasions when my parents didn’t get me. Here are some actual lyrics I wrote:
I was just starting to dabble with the ukulele back then, knowing little beyond the absolute basics. Thanks to my friend's older brother who was a stellar piano player, I learnt some chords that didn't sound terrible in combination. However, a neat chord progression alone wouldn't drive these lyrics out of Sucksville. Plus, I’m poor at singing, which didn't help.
At the time I thought it was the chords' fault, of course, and that I could replace them with better ones if I knew some music theory. Luckily, there are seemingly limitless resources for learning theory, which I understand now, would only get me so far.
You know what actually would have helped? Learning an instrument well enough to compose on it, which I cleverly did not do. With this one neat trick I had created a stupidity feedback loop; Every time I’d pick up my ukulele, I’d eventually get tired of my own lack of skill and go learn some theory. If I knew more theory, I reasoned, the next time I tried to compose would be much more pleasant, right? Spoilers: no.
After 15 years of finding and absorbing as much theory as I could without proper teaching; watching song breakdowns and learning fancy magic words, I have figured out what I should have done from the start. So let me sum up everything I found useful without getting into the nitty gritty:
- All the music theory I learned was not useful as a starting point for making music. It became useful much later as a diagnostic tool, though could still have been replaced with experimentation.
- Instead, if you play your instrument a lot by learning a lot of different songs you will begin to recognise patterns. A circle of fifths diagram can tell you how chords could be arranged, but only playing will make it intuitive.
Also, by playing a lot, you’ll find particular sounds you enjoy to make on your instrument. When you go to write, you will draw from what you know and these sounds will be not only your building blocks, but your signature. - When playing or writing music, repetition is your friend. You may get bored playing the same thing over and over, but the listener does not. In fact, it gives them an idea of what comes next. Like with any art, setting expectations for the audience allows them to become invested, whereas inconsistencies are jarring.
- Restrictions on your practice will serve to both prevent becoming overwhelmed, and format your art to be more consistent. Try writing using only 4 chords or only a few notes, etc.
As for resources, here are the ones I found most useful:
This image of a chord wheel. It's still worth having as a reference for building a chord progression. Play the chords in the pink shape and you'll get an idea of their relationship to each other. Then, you can shift the shape around the circle to hear the same relationships in different keys.
8bit Music Theory is a youtube channel which I found very useful when learning theory, it's very clear and descriptive. It helped me understand how music is like any other art form; there are practices but no rules, and gradation in sound is just as rich as gradation of color. At the same time, the channel breaks down tons of potential directions for writing and techniques you could add into your pieces.
This latest stint of learning to write music has stemmed from making my game, Winter Solace. It needs a soundtrack at some point, which is enough to motivate me to have another crack at it.
So, armed with all this knowledge and experience, would I do any better?
Tuesday 3 December 2019
Making Music Part 1: I fell in love with a dying keyboard
Like many, I tried to learn an instrument from a young age, and also like many, I was terrible. I've always been a more image-y kind of guy.
My instrument was the piano, but neither my parents nor the teacher could really motivate me to play. I even had a nice electric keyboard, but I rarely turned it on to do anything but laugh at the synthesized orchestra hits.
One day, I stumbled on a YouTube video of a guy called Jake Shimabukuro playing ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ on a ukulele and felt deep in my gut that this was a feat I had to accomplish.
So I bought a ukulele, found the tab, and it was the first thing I learned. To this day it’s still the most complicated piece I can play (mediocrely), though I'm in the process of transcribing Chopin’s nocturne op. 9 no. 2.
From then on, learning to play was a challenge I'd gladly face. Ukuleles are plain fun to use even if you're just pumping out musical gibberish, and taking it seriously presents a very unique kind of challenge, like learning a new language.
During uni I felt like rekindling my piano skills to see what I'd retained. But my uni dorm was small. Really small. Enough room for a bed, a desk and chair. There might have been space for an extra person, if they were standing and the door were closed. A keyboard would not fit.
After a little searching on eBay, I spied a keyboard with a few octaves missing (four instead of the normal seven) and snatched it up. Only when it arrived did I see that not only were there fewer keys, but they were smaller too. Truly the ukulele equivalent of a piano.
And it's gorgeous. Boasting nine instruments (including the world's simplest drum machine), it can be played out and about for the low low cost of six DD batteries. But the sound, oh the sound. The beauty that pours out of this machine is something hipsters can only dream of emulating.
I had no idea what I had bought but it was perfect. I didn't care that I'd retained nothing from my childhood because just pressing the keys was, and still is, a joy. The way the tones crumble when you press too many keys at once and how the circuitry is slowly coming apart produces a sound I find absolutely heartbreaking.
It may not be long for this world, so I quested to save it while I still can.
Over the last week I've been learning Ableton Live, a surprisingly approachable music program, sampling the whole keyboard to make digital versions of all the tones. With help from friends and tutorials, I’ve managed to get past the interface, learned the magic words, and come to terms with the software.
So here it is. It took me a couple of days to clean, trim and master, but if you'd like to play a digital version of my keyboard, now you can too.
Dropbox Link
Now that I can make any sound I desire, nothing should be able to stop me from writing my own songs, right?
One day, I stumbled on a YouTube video of a guy called Jake Shimabukuro playing ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ on a ukulele and felt deep in my gut that this was a feat I had to accomplish.
So I bought a ukulele, found the tab, and it was the first thing I learned. To this day it’s still the most complicated piece I can play (mediocrely), though I'm in the process of transcribing Chopin’s nocturne op. 9 no. 2.
From then on, learning to play was a challenge I'd gladly face. Ukuleles are plain fun to use even if you're just pumping out musical gibberish, and taking it seriously presents a very unique kind of challenge, like learning a new language.
During uni I felt like rekindling my piano skills to see what I'd retained. But my uni dorm was small. Really small. Enough room for a bed, a desk and chair. There might have been space for an extra person, if they were standing and the door were closed. A keyboard would not fit.
After a little searching on eBay, I spied a keyboard with a few octaves missing (four instead of the normal seven) and snatched it up. Only when it arrived did I see that not only were there fewer keys, but they were smaller too. Truly the ukulele equivalent of a piano.
And it's gorgeous. Boasting nine instruments (including the world's simplest drum machine), it can be played out and about for the low low cost of six DD batteries. But the sound, oh the sound. The beauty that pours out of this machine is something hipsters can only dream of emulating.
I had no idea what I had bought but it was perfect. I didn't care that I'd retained nothing from my childhood because just pressing the keys was, and still is, a joy. The way the tones crumble when you press too many keys at once and how the circuitry is slowly coming apart produces a sound I find absolutely heartbreaking.
It may not be long for this world, so I quested to save it while I still can.
Over the last week I've been learning Ableton Live, a surprisingly approachable music program, sampling the whole keyboard to make digital versions of all the tones. With help from friends and tutorials, I’ve managed to get past the interface, learned the magic words, and come to terms with the software.
So here it is. It took me a couple of days to clean, trim and master, but if you'd like to play a digital version of my keyboard, now you can too.
Dropbox Link
Now that I can make any sound I desire, nothing should be able to stop me from writing my own songs, right?
Thursday 25 April 2019
Wednesday 2 January 2019
The lens into another place
Last year I found my art to be a bit lacklustre, I don't feel like i've gotten better since last time I had a crack at a drawing. So i decided to dedicate the start of the year to reflection and development.
Something I've found really facinating is Twin Peaks' depiction of two opposites existing in parallel, like being inside and outside at the same time. I tried to get that feeling here.
While reflecting, I went looking for some new art and found a couple new artists that inspired breathed life into my own style:
Jules (@Cy_lindric)
Sachin Teng (@SachinTeng)
Over time i've collected a huge folder of reference images, as catalysts for concepts at a later date. One of which is a book on abstract photography called Shape of Light, with photographs from the Tate Moderns exhibition of the same name. I find abstract photos are high fedelity enough to give you an idea without describing any specific place or scenario. If you're having an art block, I reccomend.
In this year I want to check that folder more often, flick through, get inspired and clear asside time to make more thoroughly planned drawings. I haven't been satisfied with a drawing I've done in a while.
If you'd like to be updated whenever I make anything, you can sign up to my newsletter!
Something I've found really facinating is Twin Peaks' depiction of two opposites existing in parallel, like being inside and outside at the same time. I tried to get that feeling here.
While reflecting, I went looking for some new art and found a couple new artists that inspired breathed life into my own style:Jules (@Cy_lindric)
Sachin Teng (@SachinTeng)
Over time i've collected a huge folder of reference images, as catalysts for concepts at a later date. One of which is a book on abstract photography called Shape of Light, with photographs from the Tate Moderns exhibition of the same name. I find abstract photos are high fedelity enough to give you an idea without describing any specific place or scenario. If you're having an art block, I reccomend.
In this year I want to check that folder more often, flick through, get inspired and clear asside time to make more thoroughly planned drawings. I haven't been satisfied with a drawing I've done in a while.
If you'd like to be updated whenever I make anything, you can sign up to my newsletter!
Wednesday 12 December 2018
Chevron Hakama Trousers
I was inspired by a piece of art I saw at the Jameel Prize 5 exhibition at the V&A earlier this year. The Jameel Prize celebrates contemporary Islamic art, and the work that inspired me was by Hala Kaisow.
Hala Kaiksow is a sculptural clothing designer who works with natural fabrics, naturally dyed and handmade. Her works have a natural emergent quality, as if they were either grown, or used to be something larger that became weathered over time. Her clothes have a nomadic aesthetic, and look like they are hung on a person, rather than enclosing.
They reminded me of Japanese traditional clothing and how they too feel like they drape bodies in cloth. A haori for example, feels like it rests on your shoulders, unlike a western jacket which feels like it's attempting to reshape you.
Hala's work re-stimulated my desire for more varied clothing, because men's fashion is a graveyard of jeans and t-shirts.
I've designed clothing, but never made any; this is my first atempt. I decided on starting with a pair of trousers because I didn't like the idea of figuring out how sleves work. Later I was told by friends who make clothes that as a starting place, I had chosen poorly.
And boy did I learn.
Fuelled by optimism, I started designing. They were going to be a sort of mix between the following clothes:
Some features that I wanted:
Time to design, and the ideas were flowing. I was getting so into it that I thought maybe I could design a top at the same time? I mean, why not?? So easy amirite??? I decided not to for now.
**Top Tip** If you're ever looking for sewing patterns for clothing, add the magic word "drafting", otherwise you'll just get lots of patterned fabric. That's right, I made my own pattern, because I have no self control. With pens, paper, rulers, and a little basic maths, it felt like I was making a map, so I found it super fun.
It wasn't until version 1 2 3 4 that I had something that was actually wearable.
There was a lot of trial and error, I'll spare you the detail, but as you can see below it took till version 8 till I had something that I liked. It was tricky to figure out where extra fabric was needed and where it was too much.
And here they are!! As a bonus, I added buttons to the ankles so they can be tightened, and an obi belt because they're so darn cute.
If you'd like to recreate these in your fit, I've made a clean version of the pattern you can download below. It's scaled to 10 pixel per cm. The red parts, just try to make a smooth curve as best you can. There was some improvising in cutting and stitching, but this was the pattern I worked to.
If you'd like to be updated whenever I make anything, you can sign up to my newsletter!
Hala Kaiksow is a sculptural clothing designer who works with natural fabrics, naturally dyed and handmade. Her works have a natural emergent quality, as if they were either grown, or used to be something larger that became weathered over time. Her clothes have a nomadic aesthetic, and look like they are hung on a person, rather than enclosing.
They reminded me of Japanese traditional clothing and how they too feel like they drape bodies in cloth. A haori for example, feels like it rests on your shoulders, unlike a western jacket which feels like it's attempting to reshape you.
Hala's work re-stimulated my desire for more varied clothing, because men's fashion is a graveyard of jeans and t-shirts.
I've designed clothing, but never made any; this is my first atempt. I decided on starting with a pair of trousers because I didn't like the idea of figuring out how sleves work. Later I was told by friends who make clothes that as a starting place, I had chosen poorly.
And boy did I learn.
Fuelled by optimism, I started designing. They were going to be a sort of mix between the following clothes:
Some features that I wanted:
- Loose easy fit - The gratuitous amounts of sweeping fabric never fail to look epic.
- High waist - A lot of women's trousers have high waists and I am dead envious. They look like they give the hug equivalent of a waistcoat but for your hips and belly.
- Loose crotch - So I can stretch in them and not be castrated by fabric.
Time to design, and the ideas were flowing. I was getting so into it that I thought maybe I could design a top at the same time? I mean, why not?? So easy amirite??? I decided not to for now.
**Top Tip** If you're ever looking for sewing patterns for clothing, add the magic word "drafting", otherwise you'll just get lots of patterned fabric. That's right, I made my own pattern, because I have no self control. With pens, paper, rulers, and a little basic maths, it felt like I was making a map, so I found it super fun.
It wasn't until version 1 2 3 4 that I had something that was actually wearable.
There was a lot of trial and error, I'll spare you the detail, but as you can see below it took till version 8 till I had something that I liked. It was tricky to figure out where extra fabric was needed and where it was too much.
And here they are!! As a bonus, I added buttons to the ankles so they can be tightened, and an obi belt because they're so darn cute.
If you'd like to recreate these in your fit, I've made a clean version of the pattern you can download below. It's scaled to 10 pixel per cm. The red parts, just try to make a smooth curve as best you can. There was some improvising in cutting and stitching, but this was the pattern I worked to.
If you'd like to be updated whenever I make anything, you can sign up to my newsletter!
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