My Work
All of my projects were completed in class on the iPad. We use various apps to help create many wonderful projects.
Mad Pad
The Found Sound Remix project was created using the app MadPad HD. On this app you record 12 individual segments of different audio off of a single object. For my project, I utilized a music stand. To make the noises, I had to do continuously tap the stand in different ways. I went as far as peeling the tape on the back of it. Once I had all the individual clips, I was ready to make an ostinato, which is a continuous beat that plays the entire time, using the loop feature. After the groundwork is laid out, the next step is to make two different beats, four measures each. You then record your beat while your loop plays. Once you're done recording all you have to do is hit the button and send it on its way.
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GarageBand
First/Last Name Project |
First/Last Name Project
Rockstar Drummer
Tango Blues
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For the first and last name project, we used GarageBand. First we recorded our names and were able to play back what we said on a keyboard. From there we recorded eight measures of playing our little blurb of audio at different pitches. We then proceeded to add in other instruments like smart drums, bass, and guitar. All we had to do was tweak the volumes and we had a finished project.
Rockstar Drummer
GarageBand is a wonderful music making app developed by Apple. It lets you create different songs on your iPad/iPhone. For our drum projects we were to use the Garageband drums to make four beats and then make a small presentation about how to use the drum feature. Making a beat on the GarageBand drums is almost easier than paying the drums in real life. You don't require any prior knowledge or equipment. With just a few helpful hints included in the program, you are ready to start recording. No one in this class is a professional drummer. As a result, we had to apply a different tactic to get the sounds we wanted. We used a technique called Merge Recording, which allows you to record separate parts of your piece to make it easier to play. Then, you bring them all together like the pieces to a puzzle. I did two different drum beats, one on the rock kit and the other on a drum machine. Both of my beats only consisted of a couple notes each, like the bass drum, cymbals, and the high tom. I decided to take my project to the next level and add more to the songs. I added in recordings of rifts similar to what I already had, like the hard rock guitar loop. On my drum machine, I added in some different notes on an electric piano, the Solar Sail. I am really proud how this project turned out, and I feel that I made some very sweet beats. After we completed our songs on GarageBand, it was our turn to teach people how to play the drums.
Tango Blues
For our tango blues project we used GarageBand to make two different Blues songs. I took Pop Music last year, so I had learned some about the history of the Blues. Its the twelve bar blues that holds the whole song together. It goes in the order: I I I I IV IV I I V IV I I. What this is saying is that the first four bars are the chord you start out with. Then, you play two bars of the four chord, this chord is four up from the one you started with. Next, its back to two bars of the first chord, one of the fifth chord, one of the fourth, and you finish it off with two chords of the first chord. Each bar has four measures in it, meaning this is a long song at 48 measures. This part is played by either the smart strings, smart guitar, or even the smart keyboard. They are all "smart" because none of us know how to play these instruments with enough precision to complete this piece. After the main instrument, we added in a smart base. The base is really helpful because you play it on autoplay. The second time around, I was having trouble trying to keep on track while playing the chords on the guitar. Once I added the base in the background, it made recording a whole lot easier. The third instrument we added was the smart drums, theses are really fun and easy to use. It gives you a grid that has varying degrees of volume and complicity. The more right you go, the more complex it is. The higher up you go, the louder it gets. So the top right is a loud/complicated drum solo. I decided to make a semi-simple beat as to not take away from the rest of the piece, besides who ever heard of a metal/blues mashup? The final part was the solo! This is what separates the two projects. The defining quality of a Blues song is the soul in the music, no ones project is the same here. On my first song, I used the smart strings in the minor blues scale to make my solo. Your solo could be really good, but if it does not have funk, you may as well get recording. My second solo was made using the smart guitar. I enjoyed my piece with my guitar over the strings because I've always been a fan of the guitar. They are both good options for this type of music, but I feel the amplified version is better. Plus you can't beat a Classic Guitar. Most of these projects seem like they would be similar, and that is true but only in their foundation. Each part can be played in a different key, of a different instrument, in each part. For instance all projects require a drum, but that could be a drum set or a drum machine. You can break those down even further, like the live rock kit, classic studio kit, or the vintage kit. The same goes for the drum machines but with electronic versions. This allows for a variation that ensures diversity between all projects. The only thing I regret not trying was actually using a drum machine to make an electronic/blues mashup. It would have been really cool or a big flop. I never listened to blues but this project is like an open door down that path.
Thumb Jam
ThumbJam is a music creating app a bit like GarageBand. There are many key differences but they are pretty close. ThumbJam is nice, because it has many different instruments preloaded onto the app. These range from drums to symphony strings to the Wahtooth. Tapping a button to play music is a thing of the past. ThumbJam gives you total control over the notes you play, by allowing you to tilt the iPad itself, using gravity to alter the sounds.
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ThumbJam.m4a | |
File Size: | 566 kb |
File Type: | m4a |
Thing Link
Using ThingLink, we put nubbins over a screenshot of the drum set. Nubbins are interactive dots that you can tap to add media or a text box to easily show people specific information without taking to much screen space. You can use these to add in text, audio files, videos, and even links to other websites. I had never heard of Thing Link before. Once we were shown that you add nubbins by tapping that part of the screen, it was self explanatory from then on. I described each drum and their additional feature if there were some present. I think that Thing Link is a great way to present a small project on a single picture.
http://www.thinglink.com/scene/703959687921401858
Spooky Sounds
Our spooky sounds project was a fun little piece where we got to let our creativity shine. Ms. Chase showed us a couple of different methods in creating these creepy sounds like drawing out a note on a violin, or recording a cough and lowering the octave. It was never supposed to be a song or organized in a special manner, but a combination of different sounds that would be in a thriller movie. There was one requirement, you have to have 8 different sounds. Mine stared out with a terrifying play of chords that makes your skin crawl. Then it leads into a long drawn out note that adds suspense to the piece. The rest of the piece involved a random striking of high pitched keys and strings to keep you on your toes. Then I added two more different drawn out notes, one on the violin and one on the viola. Finally to finish it all off, I added in a horrifying monster roar to chill you to your bones. It was a fun project that let our inner John Williams flourish.
App Smash
Our App Smash project was our first group collaboration. We were to make a story using three pictures, our narrator's voice, and different sounds made from iPad apps. Our story was a heart-warming tale about a family out for a nice day at the laser tag park. After winning their first game, they develop a thirst for winning and go on to win the championship. While Ben was telling the story, the rest of the group was busy making the background noises and music. It ranged from a suspenseful drawn out note on a violin, to the cheering as they take the cup, we used every sound we could squeeze into that small amount of time. Our project ended up being a nice story about how a family took the championship laser tag title and was a nice way of learning how to combine different apps to make a wonderful piece.
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AppSmash.mov | |
File Size: | 2005 kb |
File Type: | mov |
Singing Fingers
Singing Fingers is a very silly yet extremely fun app that allows you to creature a funny picture using the pitch and volume in your voice. The louder you are, the bigger the brush size, and the higher or lower your voice is determines the color of the brush. The coolest feature is that you can run your finger over what you drew and play back your voice. The playback can even be in reverse order, so you hear yourself backwards! You can even overlap the sound strokes to play back all the sounds at once. It is definitely one of my favorite apps we have used and is a cool way of creating artistic masterpieces.
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singingfingers.png | |
File Size: | 204 kb |
File Type: | png |
Loopy HD
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Loopy HD is the pro beat-boxer app. It lets you create awesome beats with only a few taps of your finger. There are six loops that allow you to record six different audio clips. To record, you tap the loop and start making noise. It will automatically stop itself when . Once they are all recorded, you have a master piece that could rival Adam Rupp himself. Beat-boxing is a skill that I never had, nor knew anything about, until I found Loopy. Its simple process allows for endless creation. There wasn't really much to this project. It has very simple qualities, but that does not diminish the fun you can have with it. Six different sounds may seem a bit overwhelming but once you get a good baseline down, you crave to add more. It took me at least four or five sounds before I decided on what my foundation was going to be, and then each of those sounds took at least three or four times to record correctly. This sounds like a lot but they are only a couple of measures long. The way you can alter your loop with a swipe of a finger, is a really nice feature. By encircling the loop you change the decibel level, swipe down to get rid of it, and you can even transfer your loop to another spot. This project is one of the most unique ones we have done so far, because it is close to impossible to copy someones voice. That's what this stems from, someones vocalization. Everyone will have similar forms of this project, but the sounds will vary greatly. I only wish that I could have added in more differences between each loop. This is wonderful app for a fun time.
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DM1
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DM1 is an app that lets you create drum beats in a fun and easy way. There is a grid split up into four measures, with four parts in each measure. Tap these parts once to highlight it. It then turns yellow and will be played when the light up top makes its next pass. Double tap to make it orange, the instrument will play louder than normal when the light passes by. There are nine instruments you can play at one time on this drum pad, but normally the simpler the better. You don't have to have most of the squares filled up to make a cool sounding beat. Start out with something light and add more patterns by coping and pasting the last over a new pattern. After five or six times, you can have an intricate piece that will get any dance floor bumping. The coolest part about this app is its headache-less transfer to other apps. When shifting to GarageBand is as easy as tapping a couple of buttons, anyone can become a pro DJ.
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Symphony Pro & NotateMe Now
Symphony Pro
NotateMe Now
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Symphony Pro and NotateMe Now are two apps that let you make sheet music on the iPad. They have their differences but ultimately they are the same. The way you go about making music with these apps is where the uniqueness lies. With Symphony Pro, you play the music out on a keyboard and it records the notes for you. You can go one by one and put the notes in by hand for extra precision, or go back and edit a part that wasn't right. On NotateMe Now, you draw in the notes on the staff with your finger or a stylus. Just make the note you want and it will play. When drawing, you have to make sure to be pretty accurate otherwise it will register as the wrong note. Both these apps are great for creating music, but they do have their problems. Neither one seemed to run as smoothly as I would have liked them to. NotateMe Now crashed several times and I had to restart my iPad twice before it would stay open for more than a couple of seconds. On both apps, their interfacing seemed clunky, and it took a long time to swap between the menus, which was never smooth. They are both great apps but could use some further refinement to get some of the bugs out of the way
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ChordBot & iReal Pro
ChordBot
iReal Pro
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ChordBot and iReal Pro are two apps that allow you to create lead sheets, the bare essentials of a music piece. ChordBot and iReal Pro are very different from each other. ChordBot can be considered somewhat cheap because many of the features seem to be broken. It has the option to export using various programs but none of them work. When you are choosing chords you want to add they don't sound the best, because of the instrument effect that is defaulted. At first glance, ChordBot looks like a low quality app, but in reality, there is just a high learning curve with it. I had to learn how to adjust this and take off the excess instrument noise by experimenting with each chord. It would be helpful if they had a tutorial to help guide you through the process. Once you get over those problems, it isn't terrible. You have a wide variety of different chords, as well as their major and minor forms. After a little bit of time adjustments, I was able to make the seven nation army song using ChordBot. It is not a perfect match, but I got pretty close. iReal Pro, is much easier to use. It also has the ability to quickly upload and share between all users on their forum page. This allows you to find just about any song you can think of. With the ability to edit the measures the way you want them, it lets you create anything you want. You can change the play style of your song at any time between blues, rock, and country. It allows you to label all of your work, helping to reduce any clutter. It is a well made app with working links and optimization that exceeds ChordBot tenfold. I wouldn't put ChordBot out of the running, but iReal Pro is a much better option.
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Final Project
Lead sheets
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The last project we did for Music & the iPad, was the most difficult one of the entire class. We were to make a song on Garageband using as many other apps as possible. We knew how to use every piece so this was like a giant review. We used audiobus to transfer the files from app to app. This project was quite difficult, in total it was 104 measures. Most of my tracks were made through Garageband and it's instruments. The easiest way to use the instruments is through autoplay, which allows different complex play styles. There were eight total section in this project; the intro, three choruses, two verses, a bridge, and the outro. The intro, bridge, and outro were 8 measures, while the choruses and verses were 16. Each section had it's own requirements ranging from including a Loopy HD track, to a use of the sampler. I found it hard to add certain tracks like Loopy HD and apple loops, because they didn't always fit with the rest of the song. I tried to make the song have an Oldies Rock feel by using the roots guitar and classic drum set. It was difficult to add the loops because they didn't have that rock feel to them. Although there were a few guitar loops that made my song sound a lot better. The most difficult part was trying to fill the empty space that was left over after I had already used five or six tacks. The requirement was to make eight tracks worth, but it seemed hard to get that many. When I started out, I was having a rough time trying to get this project started off. I initially thought we were supposed to do it with all real instruments. Once I remembered autoplay, I was finally able to get with it. Up until then, I thought it was a terrible project. For some reason my mind completely skipped over it. I experimented quite a bit with different sounds, like blowing into the mic, and vocals of a singer from apple loops. My song was a bit choppy but I think I did pretty good for my first time.
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Screenshots