Whats New?As I said I would have to do last week, I spent all this week and a majority of Sunday practicing/recording the whole song so I can edit the song together, but this time with less of those awkward cuts that would've been in the old final product. I believe what I have got this week is a greater example of what I can do as a musician regardless of its flaws, which I will address later. The JourneyAt the beginning of these 12 weeks I had my first "plan" as to how I would tackle this problem. Learn each instruments part and record it all as one. At the end I planned to stick them together like a puzzle. I later had an epiphany (or so I thought) that it would likely be easier if I just split the song into parts and recorded one a week leaving time for revisions at the end. I split the song into 7 pieces and got to work, some weeks I was admittedly lazy and decided to work more on learning how to edit or changing my style, but for a majority of these 12 weeks this is how I thought the project would be like. That was until week 11. I planned for that to be the week I edited and created the final product and this week I would spend editing or fixing any mistakes that were left behind, but then I realized everything sounded sub-par. I didn't like the sound quality, instrumentation, transitions, any of it. I knew I had to start over but I didn't know what I would have to change to make it work. This WeekThe first major change that came this week is that I changed my microphone. I didn't like the sound my original microphone made as well as its one major flaw- during the part at the end when the song transitions from it's first act to its second, when the song takes a more heavy sound, the audio would pick up more chords instead of the D flat that was playing in the left hand. Once I let up my right hand after playing a chord, the D flats would permanently be so quiet to the point you could barely hear them until the point the song begins to buildup into the finale. So I had to change my microphone to the one on my phone, which sadly also had a flaw. Sometimes, and as far as I could tell this was random, the audio quality and volume would spike for a few seconds before coming back to normal. You can hear this happen at the end of the recording I submitted week 10. This glitch occurred several times throughout the song, but I had an easy time fixing the sudden spike in volume, not so much the issue with audio quality. I ultimately decided to use my phone because not having to line up the audio from my microphone and the video from my phone had a big appeal to it. I did use my microphone for the guitar part though since the microphone could reach my amp while my phone couldn't do that and record me at the same time. The second major change this week, and possibly the greatest difference in my original vision for this project is the lack of other instruments. It went from a one man band to a piano song with a guitar solo, but that was the easiest option for me considering all my other progress was bad in quality. What Don't I Like About The Final Product?Transitions, transitions, transitions. I hated them with my last attempt, and I hate them equally as much with this one. I don't dislike this video as much as the last since I made there be less transitions in the video, but I still hate them. Especially the transitions before and after the guitar solo. I also have a strong disliking to how the blue shirt recording right after the guitar solo came out. I will be honest and admit there are wrong notes in there, but the thing is that I recorded over 250 attempts over the course of 4 hours with a few breaks in that time. That was the best recording that came out of that and I felt as if feeling my sanity slowly slip away wasn't the best way to spend my time, as well as the fact I was running out of time when my family was out of the house, which is the only time I can record without tons and tons of background noise. I also dislike the change in volume that happens when the guitar solo comes in. The people I showed the video to said I was overthinking that section, but I truthfully think it sounds terribly awkward but I couldn't find a way to fix it. If I was going to play that part with a guitar, that's the way it had to sound. Other than the two blue shirt parts I am happy with the way the rest of the video came out. I kept the mistakes to a minimum on the rest of the recordings and I will likely perk up after the parts I dislike have passed during my presentation, but all in all I think the evolution of my final product leading up to now has fit my initial vision for how I wanted this to sound, and I think it is something I can be proud of seeing as it's my first attempt at any sort of video like this.
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Whats New?This week I learned the last part of the song and tried to edit it all together. The problem- they don't fit together at all. I know the song well enough by now to be able to record it again in time to finish the project, but it is pretty inconvenient. That also means I will have to do a recasting of instruments once again, making most of the song piano since that's easiest for me. I think I can record the song in large enough chunks to where it wont have breaks as often. What Do I Have To Do This Week?In order to get this project done before the deadline I have to be able to play a large majority of the song with minimal mistakes, something I feel as if I can do if I really start to practice this next week. The editing should be easier as well since I have less segments to edit together and only one part where more than one instrument plays at once. This is starting to seem less like a one man band and more like a one man duet, but this is my first time and this has proven itself to be much more difficult than I first imagined it being. Whats New?This week I learned and recorded the 6th part of the song. It was very short, and not as hard as the rest of the song, so I plan to learn the rest of the song before next week then begin to edit and fix any problems for week 11 and 12, leading up to the end of the project. What Could Be Better?For whatever reason, the very end of the video is immensely louder than the rest of the song. I recorded the segment 5 times, each had that same issue. I am not really sure whats causing that problem, but its something for me to fix in the following weeks. Whats New?I recorded and edited part 5, which was really short and easy to learn. It was nice to have a easy week where I didn't have to put a lot of time like I usually do. Especially since next week is more complicated than other weeks are. Whats Left to Do?I still have 2 parts to record and edit as well as the final touches and the editing of the final video. I still have a decent amount of work to do before the week is done, but I think it is doable and I can still make a good final product. Whats New?I've recorded part 4 of the song and started to work on learning part 5, which is pretty short and simple. I don't expect myself to have much trouble getting all parts recorded with extra time to spare at the end for editing as well as final touches. What Could be Better?I feel as if what I recorded this week is pretty strong, even if it is only one instrument. I think I made the right choice when it comes to how I played what I did, as this exact part is played earlier in the song with guitar. Whats New?This week I mostly focused on making sure that my instrumentation still made sense for the rest of the song. I have made some changes to my original plan which changed when instruments play and what instruments play during specific parts to ensure I can get the project done in the time I have left. Other than my planning I began to learn the rest of the song on piano and have part 4 well enough learned so I can have it done by next week. How Has The Instrumentation Changed?I will be recording a lot of piano for the rest of the song, it's my most comfortable instrument and it keeps me less stressed for the rest of the song. I still plan to record background parts with different instruments and there is still guitar to record with the sudden change in the mood of the song at the end. Whats New?In last weeks blog I planned to have parts 2-4 completed and this week I have completed 2 and 3. I'm not going to say that I wasn't lazy this week when it came to working on genius hour, but it's Spring Break, and that's what its there for. I am still proud of what I have created though and I will continue to work on the project until its over. I am half way through the song, which sets me well on schedule since Genius Hour is now half way over. What Could be Better?I obviously could've finished part 4 this week and that would've been some very good progress, but other than that I think what I've made this week is a good step towards finishing this project by its deadline. Parts 2 and 4 are very similar so I am not anticipating much issue next week when it comes to learning it. Whats New?I finished recording and editing part 2 as well as beginning to work on part 3. I plan to edit parts 2-4 into one video that will be edited fully so that I will have less pieces to put together when I work on piecing together my final product. I still plan to make parts 3 and 4 this week over spring break, especially since part 3 is short and mainly consists of a piano part. What Could be Better?I am still having the issue when the video has to be stretched out in order for it to fit the screen. I have tried to crop the video a little bit but it's hard to use that as a solution because then I end up cutting out too much of the instrument and it just looks really dumb, so I will still have to work around to find a way to make it look better. If I can't fix that I will just have to make a sacrifice for the stretched screen in order for the video to not be cropped to the point it looks bad. What Have I Learned?My time management and editing skills have both improved since I've first started this project. I find it much easier to find time to quickly record guitar than it was when I first started, and I also edit videos so much faster than I used to, so it leaves more time to mess with the recording and augment it to look like I want it to.
Whats New?This week I was left with only 3 days to work on my video since MPA for band took out my Wednesday and my weekend vacation to Roanoke, VA took away my weekend. So, in order to still be productive I decided to take a break from the music and begin to really dive into my editing software I will need to be very familiar with in order to make this work. Last week I went over what I wanted the editing to look like and my main disappointments with last week's results were all dependent on how my editing turned out. Granted, timing and keeping an internal beat lies entirely on myself as a musician, getting the audio lined up in the first place is editing. What Could be Better?The picture I put above is a screenshot from last weeks video, but edited in the way that I had initially wanted it to look. The first thing that's bothering me is how the videos look to be stretched out. This problem is happening because I'm attempting to put 2 full sized videos in the space of one, which requires some stretching and resizing. I believe the solution to this problem is for me to crop the video into a smaller size (one that still shows at least what I'm playing) and then hopefully not have to resize as much. The Future of this ProjectEver since week 2, I had planned to create one part of the song a week and share it, with a few extra weeks at the end for polishing up the final product or even starting a new video with a new song. In the 4 weeks that this project has been going on I've done 1 part. My first goal when making this project is to make something I can be proud of, and if I don't complete the song and present my video which is only 5/7ths of the song I would be fine doing that as long as I don't present a final product that's filled with mistakes and rushed editing. In order for me to have a shot at finishing the full song I will have to spend next week finishing part 2 and over spring break I will make parts 3 and 4. Part 3 is a piano solo, and I'm confident in my ability to quickly and effectively record piano which would leave me plenty of time to complete part 4. Whats New?This week I fixed up the first part of the song to where I feel happy with what I made and I can put it out on YouTube for everyone to see. There are still a few kinks to work through and the video is not edited exactly as I would like it to be but I am taking steps in the right direction of this project. What Could be Better?There are some spots where the audio for the piano and guitar tracks don't exactly line up as well as I hoped they would. This is something that I would need a metronome to fix and practice with the individual parts. I would like for the video to be edited where you can see the piano video on one half of the screen and the guitar part on the other half, while extra parts pop in and out when they come in, but i'm not too sure how to do that is DaVinci Resolve, so I will need to work on that until I can get it the way I want. What I've LearnedI have learned how to better manage my time with this project as well as how to get parts to line up better. I have also begun to work on the second part of the song which I hope to have ready by next week, edited the way i'd like it to look. Overall, i'm optimistic as to how this project could turn out by the end of the 12 weeks. |
My ExperiencePiano - 10 Years |