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.

Movies and Music

Whether you really think about it, music is one of the most important things that have ever been introduced into movies.  The first moves ever produced where black and white, and a music orchestra played and was recorded over the film itself. No talking or singing was traditionally put into the films. Instead of having voice slides would come up between different parts of the movie and say what needed to be said for difference characters. The music fused everything together to make something that was actually meaningful to people. Each person would have a different sort of tune or theme to them when something import came up for them. The process was adopted later on to newer movies that everyone still knows today. Star Wars whether it was the original trilogy of four, five, and six, themes were MAJORLY used. The actual movie itself had a starting theme that anybody who has seen the movies can recognize. Anakin skywalker had a theme from the start of the first movie until he brought balance to the force in the last movie. The theme changed more and more to the empires theme to make what side he was on. For the rather hated character jar jar binks, he had a very peppy theme and it always gave hit that he was around the corner.  Deferent planets had themes, different characters, different movies has similarly developed themes for music.

Another popular movie that came out packed with different themes would be Lord of the rings, going difference places and characters. I mean even the titanic had themes that were played throughout the movie that help give hints as to what’s happening next.

Jaws is another movie, when the theme starts to get fast and faster jaws is just around the corner of course!

What movies can you think of that are majorly music themed?  Where u hear a song and you know its from the movie instead of this movie has this song in it. For example star wars had there music scored and recorded for the movie while a movie like step up 2 has music from different artist!

Share in the comments below, I’d love to know: D

High school Dances

So dating a senior at western high school this past weekend I got to experience the true culture that is a high school dance. In a normative situation in high school, most kids would never grind on each other or scream the F word with all there friends to music or make out with someone for long periods of time. The music for high school dances are filled with Pop Culture, Rap, RnB and so on. This music I guess Id have to call the music of intimacy. It creates an environment of hormones that rages across the dance and make people do completely ridiculous things. Finding a way to dance to rap music is very difficult, most people either jump up and down or they grind. For other songs that people know from the radio, they just sing to the music.  The only music I found that had potential would be the cha cha slide, which is a pretty common songs among dances.

I think it would be very interesting if a set of people learned different dances to different songs and all requested those songs. Then they could do that and get the group doing the same thing. Or change up the music style, because personally I only knew about three-four songs total throughout the entire night. After all there are thousands of genres, and tons more in artists I’m sure they can do more than radio songs in my opionion. 

But the main idea of this post was to get some feedback from what you guys think. Did you enjoy the music at the dances? Was the music different at yours then it was for me? Do you think Im over dramatic about the music itself, or is my problem that I dont grind?

Electronic/Techno/Dubstep

In the world we live in today, its honestly hard to go through live without hearing about electric, techno or dub-step. Although the background behind it is someone what of a mystery to most! With the outbreak of technology in the last 10 year, is no wonder why people have all been able to start messing with and creating new sounds, although many of these first sounds started from before technology as in computers was popular. The first popular sound on scratching on a record was from an attempt to stop the record from play, sense then the idea took over into greater detail. Grand Wizard Theodore was a DJ in 1991 who played for clubs that oven were all night clubs. He would gather tracks that had a good beat and use two difficult players to move between songs and often repeat certain parts of a song in order to keep the crowd dancing and alive. Among the myths of technology rising up, the repeats were edited and formed into a more technological sound. Something produced from an original instrument yet unique, the mixer. While normal artists were producing anything from jazz, to pop, to rock, to country and even metal, a new group of individual were making there own generation of music. Today from those original leaders have formed multiple different kids of music. Electronic, which is a combination of techno/trance and singing in where most music wasn't produced live. And then techno and dub-step stepped up as a new generation or genre of music. Some of the most popular dub-step artists are: Deadmau5, Skrillex, Cosmic Gate, Flux Pavilion, obsidian and many more. While Deadmau5 is more of a relaxing/dance music that you can listen to any time, Skrillex is a heavy party music that is often played at clubs and produced live along with deadmau5.

Music Aids

For some people trying to sleep, absolute silence or the natural sounds around them is needed. For people in Michigan who spend the summer cooling there house and the winter heating their house, they know how sound changes can effect trying to sleep. If you've ever used an Air Conditioning unite and had to remove it for the fall, you know how horrible silent it can become. In the same way Air Conditioning unites, or noise from around can help you to fall asleep, music can have the same effect.  Its said that people who listen to calming or instrumental music while trying to sleep can sleep faster and sleep longer.  Also most MP3 players or Ipods have an automatic sleep feature so don’t get interrupted sleeping. Another study has shown that virtual rain storms, or white noise can have the same effect on people who are either studying or attempting to sleep. Personally I listen to “The virtual thunderstorm” on youtube or also on youtube “My pain guys” which have a big collection of instrumental pieces that you can listen to for free.

Connection in emotion

Probably the only way that anyone can express themselves are through the arts. Obviously there are tons of kinds of arts... There are paintings from thousands of years ago or new ones that are constantly being created.  For young children one of the most powerful arts is being able to put your hands into the pain and get the actual feeling of the expression come out of you!  Another art is creating building designs, or being in the wood crafting businesses.  There are so many ways but what almost everyone can connect to is... music! Most of the music that is played on the radio is all the same stuff and a majority of the older generation feel as if there is not much class left into today generation. But all the music isn't based on the radio. Did you know that the most popular radio station in New York is actually Pandora radio? Its because they get to pick there own style for listening, therefore not having to worry about music they do not like. Or at least if they get music they don't like they can thumbs down and avoid that some kind of music for the future. I decided I wanted to do some more research on the basis of music as an expression, a way of expressing emotions from daily life or just what there passionate about.  While Visiting www.beatlap.com I found out that not only where there hundreds of thousands of people making music or remixing music.  From the new dub step genre, to techno, to rock, to country, and even just guitar and singing. Turns out that about thirty of my friends from facebook are on beatlap and that some of my cousins I know pretty well own an account as well. There is music of every kind on beat lap and I highly recommend going there and checking out peoples music! There just might be something that you like.

Story Telling/Old Songs

It’s funny how many songs from the past told stories. From winning of ancient battles, like the high school English classes you always heard the different stories from and how several different stories had songs that presented a battle of good and evil. Some of the most popular songs that told stories were in the medieval days. Jesters’ would tell tails in song to kings of their glorious pasts to keep kings at ease, They would often play with string instruments like lutes, mandore, gittern, and psalteries. Also flutes (not to be confused with lutes) were played with recorders and gemhorns. A lot of the songs we’re either battle based on religion, and when played on the streets and most jesters/artists would play for a living.

Also from multiple religion sides there presents more songs with great age. For one instance there stands the bible, which goes from 500- BC to 200-300 years AD.  The songs hold different meanings that still relate to everyday life today which is pretty cool considering these people had nothing we have today. Songs 2000 years old stories written by people without electricity, where paper wasn't available at any general stores, without an easy to obtain instrument, and where most of their living was based on making their own food. Whether you believe in the bible or not, a lot of the stories and songs are from historic documents elsewhere as well and its pretty cool to see all the connection.

Although its obvious that the music genres from medieval times to back around 200 bc have changed, its gone from around 50-60 known genres then, to now over 8,000. Here’s a cool fact! If you started from birth and listened to a new music genre every day until you graduated high school, you wouldn’t even be half way through when u started college!

Intro to music

Music is defined as “The art or science of combining vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion”.  Music for thousands of years has been a way of expressing emotion of joy, love and also sadness. For the year 2012, the same concepts are still imbedded into every living person in the world. Whether music is something you listen to mainly on the radio driving to work or being a main part of being home and relaxing, it’s there. Music has been turned into a science of sorts, meaning that the different aspects including: Instruments, Rhythm, and lyrics, are carefully combined to change emotions.  Most popular songs are known by the chorus that gets into everyone’s head, or has a catchy beat to the song.

Music fuses into minds of many people. From all my experiences with my music loving friends, each of them has a certain band or kind of music that they listen to for different emotions they are feeling.  Songs like ‘Mad World by Gary Jules’, ‘Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley’, ‘9 Crimes by Damien Rice’, are all very popular sad songs that people listen to. Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley was used in the movie Shrek to derive a stronger mood as for the song was already wildly known, so the effects of the scene where much greater. The point for a lot of this blog is to show different artists and reactions to it, including some different artist I like that you may also like as well. 'Saosin by Fireflies' released in 2009, 'Apologize by OneRepublic' released in 2007. A list of some artists that share these kinds of songs include Red, Flyleaf, Safetysuit, 'Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, and many more.

With music fusing, its also controlling. There are a lot of positives and negatives of music. From research and general personal experience, it's easy to see that music has become one of the worlds most powerful influences, and most of the popular music on iTunes isn't always the best. I will be covering different ideas and aspects as we move forward in the next fifteen weeks.