foreign contaminant
"tray ben," what's that mean?
as my last history assignment, i had to write a song encompassing developments in american history between 1989 and the present. it could be any length, any genre, anything you wanted, as long as it did what my teacher asked. he assigned the project in the spring, figuring the project would take a little while to do for some people.
i was really nervous about it. i could play music to a certain degree, which i love and will gladly continue because sounding good on an instrument is so inspiring, but not good enough to perform in front of people. when i started "writing" the song, i had never written lyrics for anything. i had never really sat down and played a piece for more than a minute or two, partly because i was incapable of doing so.. regardless, i felt up to the challenge. the time allotted to write the song was something i was grateful for; that way, i could keep thinking about how i would want the song to sound.
i started piecing the song together towards the end of my spring break (early april). i originally intended to rip off the avalanches or dj shadow (not playing any real music, instead throwing heaps of samples into garageband); while i was undeterred, having to cut up songs without a lot of extra software proved to be a really difficult process. i later abandoned that idea..
come may, lots of family-related troubles came up and i filed the song towards the back of my mind. i had other projects to worry about, too. but once those got finished, and my parents cooled down a little, i still kept thinking about the song.
by the time i came back to it, i had better resources. i had written different "lyrics" (i hesitate to call them "lyrics" seeing that i probably won't feel confident writing music for them for another few months, but i wanted to get a feel for it. besides, i knew writing them that i wanted to put music to them) and had a month's worth of practice on this snazzy new guitar i had bought before the project was assigned. all i had to do was just go for it, and i did.
writing lyrics was the hard part. i hadn't tried singing and i wasn't about to start. people in my class probably weren't going to be able to discern a message through just music, though, so it had to be done. and really, the process wasn't so bad. it went through the most revisions, but i never caught a snag or felt that my final result was less than it could be. before, it was kind of loose phrases; then, it went into a sort of rhythmic form; and finally, i said, "screw it," and just wrote a pretty dull short story set on top.
as for the music.. i did play guitar on it. i stole the riff from liars' "the other side of mt. heart attack", which is a great song by a great band off a great record. underneath that, i threw in a sample of "midnight souls still remain" by m83. i made a handful of mistakes while playing guitar; however, i felt that the mistakes were often so similar that they actually added a little less monotony to the music. if you asked me, it sounded like cat power collaborating with brian eno after they both heard "the gift" together.
today was the day we had to present the song. i didn't want to, but i got volunteered. i briefly explained it to the class (fuller than usual; both classes tried to cram projects into one day, which i wish wasn't the case) what i had done and then let it rip, retreating to my desk so i could tremble more comfortably. after the monologue closed, i actually got fairly loud applause. my teacher even shook my hand, which he did for only one other group. i didn't think it would be so well-received, given that what took a lot of thought ended up being a pretty minimalist affair thrown together in about an hour. i even had people who didn't compliment it on my way out tell me they liked it on my facebook.
i'm still in disbelief.
anyway, if you're interested, here it is..
my history project - "fred's story"
i was really nervous about it. i could play music to a certain degree, which i love and will gladly continue because sounding good on an instrument is so inspiring, but not good enough to perform in front of people. when i started "writing" the song, i had never written lyrics for anything. i had never really sat down and played a piece for more than a minute or two, partly because i was incapable of doing so.. regardless, i felt up to the challenge. the time allotted to write the song was something i was grateful for; that way, i could keep thinking about how i would want the song to sound.
i started piecing the song together towards the end of my spring break (early april). i originally intended to rip off the avalanches or dj shadow (not playing any real music, instead throwing heaps of samples into garageband); while i was undeterred, having to cut up songs without a lot of extra software proved to be a really difficult process. i later abandoned that idea..
come may, lots of family-related troubles came up and i filed the song towards the back of my mind. i had other projects to worry about, too. but once those got finished, and my parents cooled down a little, i still kept thinking about the song.
by the time i came back to it, i had better resources. i had written different "lyrics" (i hesitate to call them "lyrics" seeing that i probably won't feel confident writing music for them for another few months, but i wanted to get a feel for it. besides, i knew writing them that i wanted to put music to them) and had a month's worth of practice on this snazzy new guitar i had bought before the project was assigned. all i had to do was just go for it, and i did.
writing lyrics was the hard part. i hadn't tried singing and i wasn't about to start. people in my class probably weren't going to be able to discern a message through just music, though, so it had to be done. and really, the process wasn't so bad. it went through the most revisions, but i never caught a snag or felt that my final result was less than it could be. before, it was kind of loose phrases; then, it went into a sort of rhythmic form; and finally, i said, "screw it," and just wrote a pretty dull short story set on top.
as for the music.. i did play guitar on it. i stole the riff from liars' "the other side of mt. heart attack", which is a great song by a great band off a great record. underneath that, i threw in a sample of "midnight souls still remain" by m83. i made a handful of mistakes while playing guitar; however, i felt that the mistakes were often so similar that they actually added a little less monotony to the music. if you asked me, it sounded like cat power collaborating with brian eno after they both heard "the gift" together.
today was the day we had to present the song. i didn't want to, but i got volunteered. i briefly explained it to the class (fuller than usual; both classes tried to cram projects into one day, which i wish wasn't the case) what i had done and then let it rip, retreating to my desk so i could tremble more comfortably. after the monologue closed, i actually got fairly loud applause. my teacher even shook my hand, which he did for only one other group. i didn't think it would be so well-received, given that what took a lot of thought ended up being a pretty minimalist affair thrown together in about an hour. i even had people who didn't compliment it on my way out tell me they liked it on my facebook.
i'm still in disbelief.
anyway, if you're interested, here it is..
my history project - "fred's story"