Starting your research

 Thinking about your project, what might you need to research and where might you start?

Some suggestions are:

Academic articles

News/music magazines

Podcasts

Interviews

Documentaries

Surveys

Books

Music

Practical experimentation

YouTube tutorials

TASK:

Make a list of the areas you think you will need to research and select at least 4 suitable types of source. From these 4, find one example of a source.

ie.

Project - creating a multi-sensory EP

Things to research - 

4D performance

How our senses work

Synaesthesia

How senses have been incorporated into music before....

Sources-

Academic article 

Survey 

News/magazine reviews 

Practical experiments

Example-

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01352/full

citation: 

Velasco, C., Balboa, D., Marmolejo-Ramos, F. and Spence, C. (2014). Crossmodal effect of music and odor pleasantness on olfactory quality perception. Frontiers in Psychology, 5.

Blog for dissertations and EXPs

Keith and I have started to create a new blog with a wide range of articles (industry and academic) and some specific academic skills info to help you with these big projects. Rather than labels, you can search using key words such as 'feminism', 'electronic'....

https://westkingmusicacademic.blogspot.co.uk/

podcasts as research sources

Here is a list of some podcasts that may be of interest....

Sound Matters - all about sound

soundcheck - interviews with creators

stopGOstop - field recordings and sound art

Sound Perspective - film music

soundworks - sound design

music student 101 - overall musicianship and working in industry

MPCs/Production performance

Today we looked at MPCs (Music Production Centers/Controllers) and how they are used.

STEMS: https://www.stems-music.com/

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/specials/stems/

Task:
What are MPCs?
What are the differences between the main makers (Akai/Novation/Native Instruments) and controllers (MPC60/3000/2000/Maschine/Launchpad/Traktor/Stems?
What are the functions and how are they different from drum machines?

What new ways are producers and DJs able to perform?
Find some wide ranging artist examples.
What software is available and how interchangeable is it?

Post your research to MPCs on classroom as you will need to refer back to it for your assignment.

Je Suis Charlie? Intro to project

 What is happening in the world that you feel strongly against? Does it affect you directly? Does that matter? What do you do if you see that something that is happening is just wrong? What are you going to do about it?

Who is Greta Thunberg? What has she been doing?

Interview with Afrikan Boy about his recent involvement in the 'Jungle' in Calais.

Task: find out what 'Je Suis Charlie' means and why people adopted it as an avatar on social media for a time.

vocal effects

Vocoder

 

Auto-tune (as an effect, not to cover up poor tuning!)

Pitch changing

Doubling

Backing vocals

Effects units:

https://www.roland.com/uk/products/vt-3/

https://www.tc-helicon.com/tchelicon/product?modelCode=P0DLT

TASK:

How might you use vocal effects in your music? Can you double the vocal line? Do your own BVs? Pitch change? Delay? Reverb?

SAMPLING

Sampling is taking a small section of pre-existing music/sound and putting it into another recording or playing it (as a recording) live.

A sample can be:

a) a recorded found (non-musical) sound or field recording
b) a section of a pre-existing recording* i.e a drum break
c) re-creating a previously written section of music*
[d) to a certain extent, the sound of a particular era ie Mark Ronson/Amy Winehouse but then cleverly putting new life into it so as not to make it a pastiche]

Sampling came directly from early musique concrete where found sounds were played live. This idea was then adopted in hip hop where vinyl records were cued up and sections were 'dropped in'.

* if you sample a pre-existing recording/piece then you must get clearance from the copyright owner of the recording and negotiate a royalty % with them before using. See PRS for full details.



TASK:
Using www.whosampled.com find who sampled the drum intro from 'When the Levee Breaks' by Led Zeppelin. Why did they sample it rather than recreate it? 

15-minute extension task: How did led Zeppelin record the drums for that?

Further resources for researching for your assignment:
Modern Approached (Red Bull Academy)
Examples of frequently sampled drums
Kendrick Lamar's use of sampling