Midi Music!

Midi music is one thing that everyone who was born before 2000 definitely knows but honestly, doesn't think about.  Midi music was one of the first, easiest exportable ways to transfer music from an instrument and be able to replay and edit it. Another way that people know it, is because its the most commonly used method for creating video game music.

Actually about every game pre-2000 was made with midi music and even beyond. I compiled a list of some of the consoles that have lots of games in it that use midi and i was actually extremely sup-prized at how many there are. For the Nintendo Consoles: Nintendo, game boy, super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, VirtualBoy, GameBoy advance, GameCube, Nintendo DS, Nintendo WII.  For the Sega Consoles stuff like Master System, Game Gear, Saga CD, and Dreamcast although there are more not many people know those consoles. Some computer based system: Commodore 64/128, Dos-Win8, Atari, Amiga, Apple products.  Sony products are Playstation 1-3 and portable. Both Xbox consoles, all NEX consoles, and both Atari consoles have all used midi.

Some of really popular games that used midi very heavily and were know for it was the Nintendo Mario, Or Star Wars old video games which all have over 200 different songs per game. Even a video game that came in a cereal box was loaded with over 20 tracks of midi but then again, when do they ever give away anything good in cereal boxes anymore?

Evolution of Music

One thing that I never really thought about until the last year was how much easier music is to get a hold of.  Growing up all of the music i was ever use to hearing was from putting taps into a player and listening to it and after while re-winding it it order to play it again. We had and still have a fairly nice collection of records that still work beautifully but even until CD's were popular it seems like music was a lot more of a hassle to get. But now in days whether people really think about it at all or not, its extremely easy to buy music. Itunes has stormed the internet with easy and fast downloading of music that can be burned into a CD or more commonly put into an MP3 player, ipod or phone.  Although everyone knows this, I wanted to talk about creation of records. When records were first created it all came from the original idea that you could put indentation into tin foil and be able to go back over lighter to re-hear whatever vibrations were around the tin foil tracer when the machine was running.  The idea was first invented around the same time as the first light bulb and was perfected soon after that as well. The record was improved more and more and was the main source for music until the creation of 8-tracks which then quickly transferred into the CD extremely fast with the invention of computers. That's pretty neat if you ask me.

Making the Making of music

In order for anyone to make music, you need an instrument.  An instrument can be anything like and like I said before it can be beat boxing. But this week I want to talk about guitars.  There something that can be a pretty cheap way to create your own music like buying one at Walmart or even going to a better place like guitar world and getting a higher quality acoustic or electric guitar.

Electric guitars are very popular for there unique sound that can be changed by the click of a button.  The shapes can be about anything and who hasn't seen someone slide on their knees across stage shredding on one of these?

Although a lot of people don't realize that acoustics are actually extremely customizable. The bodies can be different sizes, the guitar necks can change widths and every wood in the acoustic guitar can be changed to just about anything. Adjustable guitar necks among acoustics is becoming more and more popular. One company that does all of this is called Charis Acoustic.

Making Music

You know, I have always been a listener of music.  I have listened to it the originals  people's remixes of the originals  and even the acoustic/piano versions. I have learned songs on the guitar and bass, and even some drums.  I have sang in a band, and but i have never actually written any music for myself.  It turns out being able to play music isn't always the hard part, in fact some of the hardest parts are making the chords go from one part to the next and making the lyrics match and resonate from chorus to the bridge and such. So i decided to go to the task of writing a song myself.

I tried writing by listening to some of my favorite music first. Meanings meanings, there's love and hate which are extremely common among songs.  Then there are songs that are stories but it seems to me all songs that are stories are country songs and I cant do that. Songs about religion, life lessons, even songs to just be funny... nothing clicked so I decided to start with making the music and then writing lyrics. After about twenty minutes of plugging in music I concocted a rhythm containing four or five chords for the main, and a couple different cords for the chorus. But honestly, I never got to lyrics, its a lot tougher then I thought.  I guess Ill leave it to the pros to write and make great music and for them I give props.

Beat Boxing

Beat Boxing has become quickly its own type of expressing music.  I mean if you can sing along to the lyrics of the song, why cant you also make the sounds of the music which more popularly done is the drums. The whole idea bloomed in the 1980's when people were introduced on stage as the human beatboxer. The word beatboxing comes from the original meaning Beat Machine and/or drums.

One of the earlier introductions where beat boxing wasn't very popular but was put into a song alot of people know.  Africa by perpetuum jazzile was preformed on stage where everyone used there hands and feet to mimic a thunderstorm and then the main beat was started by a beat boxer while continued doing so throughout the whole song to make it acapella.

A popular beat boxer after stormed the internet on youtube with his many different sounds he could make and ended up getting millions of views on his video and a career to go professional. Felix Zenger is a well known beat boxer who now is in a class of champions.

Needless to say it takes allot of time and practice and skill to be able to preform these songs and stay on beat.

Beat Making

Its not new news to find out that more and more young people are creating and mixing music. The most common type of music made most people would think to be dub step or techno but actually the most created music is RNB and Rap.

A very cool piece of technology that anyone can try without a limit is called FL Studio.  Although on the free versions you can not save any of the tracks, all of the features are completely unlocked.  The software gives the freedom to use many different instruments. Fruity Loops is the mots common name for the software and has actually give many artists the ability to get there name out.  The software combined with youtube and youtube's advertising and money making makes it also very profitable to get lots of views on videos.

"FL Studio is one of the world's most popular and exciting music production systems. Everything you need in one package to compose, arrange, record, edit, mix and master professional quality music." - http://www.image-line.com

Although it making beats isn't you thing but you still like making the music a little more personal, Virtual DJ is another very cool program I recommend.  Ive personally used this program, and it lets you use all of the music on your computer, shortcut favor commands and remix your music or slide between sings like a real dj.  The software is fairly easy to learn, and if you even obtain a vinyl turn table you can actually hook it upto this software. Don't have money? it doesn't really matter because when you're learning you get to use the home version which gives you all the features of the real deal without paying a cent.  this program is DEFINITELY a must for anyone need starting off.

- http://www.virtualdj.com/

Gaming Music

I had someone mention video game music to me in my previous post and I loved it for a lot of reasons.  Many people know have played video games growing up and they know there familiar songs that are coming on when they’ve reached a certain point in the game! Or sometimes in the main menu, where the music plays and you know what game it is.  There are a lot of games that are older that started with this such as Zelda, Mario, Or Poke’ Mon. I wanted to bring up some of the new games people are know but probably don’t think about very much.  One of my favorite examples is Halo, pacifically Halo 2.  Both the first Halo, second Halo and games after that had a song that would play in the main menu.  It would sound like people singing and would build into music and such until the game was actually picked.  One of my favorite memories for Halo 2, would be when you go into the level outskirts and the music starts to kick up.  The familiar music that came right as the hunters were starting to gather at the door they are breaking down or when you get to the alley ways.

A lot of the same music comes on, and on the other hand you have video games like the assassins creeds where the music flows with whatever task your trying to do.  As you get closer to a target, it just so happens that the music starts to get more intense and depending on what location you are in the game. Whether it be the Middle East or Italy, the music corresponds to the situation which you’d expect. Another game some people might also remember the music from would be Runescape. Entering into the game, you would heard the not so lovely Lumbridge sound that honestly reminds me of when I joined the game 5 years ago. If you ever play a game you’ve not played for a very long time its amazing what memories you can get just from hearing the game startup!  But these are only a couple examples, expand if u have more.