Full Sail Portfolio
Hello! My name is Janine and here is my track from Portfolio I Week 1, with an additional 16 bars and new instrumentation. This has been a time, I tell YOU! I have truly enjoyed learning so far and am doing my best to take in and store all of the information. In rearranging this track, my subconscious came bleeding through and it ended up sounding like a travel ad! Lol! With that said, in reflection, I am very glad I chose to learn how to do what I love the RIGHT way! This track is a culmination of all my efforts to put to use what I have learned. I hope it communicates that to my peers and instructors.
I chose the Key of G Major and set the tempo at 100 bpm (beats per minute). In my rhythm section I alternated patterns in rhythmic structure. Bars 1- 4 are simple and get more complex in bars 5- 11, then back to the original pattern in bars 12 - 14 and repeats. The Kick Snare and Hats all switch rhythmic grooves to create fills. I also added some instruments for sound design such as Congos and kalimbas. The Bass was written in free hand to flow with and support the changes in the melody. I like bass lines that move more than the harmonies and sometimes just as much as the melody.
With my Harmony chords in the key of G Major, I chose the chord progression (1st *8 Bars) : Cmaj Gmaj F#o D Cmaj(inverted) Gmaj F#o Gmaj D Cmaj D F#o Cmaj.
I have to be very honest and admit that I am still challenging myself to think of music in terms of notes and chords and not just sounds, so describing the movement of my chord progressions is like trigonometry to me. I know my chords are diatonic for the most part. I definitely have some inverted chords because I did some voice smoothing along the way. I would describe the melody as arching in the first 16 bars and motif in the second 16 bars. Overall, the harmony chords are kept simple in whole notes with a few quarter note chords. I attempted to arrange the melody and bass line compliment each other, as they are set up as call and response in some places.
For my audio recording, I was moved to add a few suggestive words. I did not use any particular notes since I was speaking, but I was sure to have some inflection in my voice. I simply mentioned that it may be time for a vacation. For my original synthesized track I added a mixed choir in the second 16 bars. I imported a short recorded sound for the sampler track and used it to create sound design, along with a few other added audio and midi loops.
I pan tracks as I create them because I like to hear the sound spread out, so getting into the mix, the first thing I did was add the dynamic processor EQ to each track. My bass track is bussed to time based effect Space Designer and Tape Delay. One other time based effect used was ChromaVerb. I put some compression on the melody so I could add some thickness to it. In the mix, I feel like there is a lot going on but, at the same time, the ocean adds this “swashy” sound, which is kind of what I was going for. An almost tv white noise sound to add to the washing away of stress, which is just what a vacation brings!
I hope you enjoy!