Harvard Extension MUSI E 190 R Ableton: "Why You Treat Me So Bad" Chopped and Screwed remix for my Final Project. I made a chopped and screwed version of "Why You Treat Me So Bad", a 1986 r&b song. I thought it would be fun to chop and screw an 80's song rather than a hiphop song because it's not as common. It was fun to learn all the methods such as adding reverb, and skipping and doubling the beat.
Most people associate the slowed-down sound with Atlanta trap music. Popularized in the early 2000s by DJs like Michael Watts and rappers Paul Wall and Chamillionaire, chopped and screwed began in the mid-90's in Houston, Texas with a DJ Robert Earl Davis, better known as DJ Screw. For this project, I used Ableton to emulate the original lo-fi sound DJ Screw created using live turntables.
To complete this final project, I used skills I learned from the beat-making project to skip the beat without losing the tempo. I also used techniques from the mashup and mega-mix projects by layering the tracks and mashing the song up with itself.
Harvard Extension MUSI E 190R Ableton Podcast: Aspiring voice actor, Christina Jeon was kind enough to share her character pieces and the steps she is taking to pursue her goal of being a voice actor. She is a 27 year old student at Harvard Extension School. I went in direction of adding a little bit of narration instead of doing a soundscape. I added an introduction and some interstitial narration for some form, clarity and structure.
I put space between the different audio clips to make sure she didn't sound like she was rambling or talking to herself in different voices. Christina re-recorded the interview so the sound quality would be better. She added some parts explaining what the character piece was about, and I narrated her summary of the second character piece.
For the sound design, I added songs throughout, with the two initial songs being samples of Christina's singing and the last song being Jodi Benson's "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid soundtrack.
Harvard Extension MUSI-E 190R Ableton Drag Rap Remix: mini mega mix with the xylophone sounding notes from The Showboys Drag Rap (Triggerman beat). I was essentially using the xylophone sounding notes found at the beginning of "Drag Rap" by The Show Boys. There are other parts of the song that is sampled by other songs but I only chose songs that use the xylophone sounding notes at the beginning of "Drag Rap." A lot of hip hop has come from New Orleans bounce music and I tried to illustrate examples of current hiphop songs that sample the same part of the same song. If you listen to the minimix every song uses the xylophone sounding notes, although some of the songs use a much fainter sample than others. From the first draft, I lowered the levels and changed warp mode from Beats to Complex. I changed the first transition so that it would "hinge" more than fade out and into each other, since the two pieces clashed with each other and lent to an awkward transition in the rough draft. I brought back original drag rap to the ending to give it more finality rather than the fade out of Chris Brown's song. The piece of the original drag rap that I used has the same xylophone sounding notes that was used at the beginning of the song and is sampled in all songs chosen. The xylophone sounding notes are fainter in some pieces than others but all songs have the same sample taken from The Showboy's "Dragrap"/ Triggerman beat.
Harvard Extension MUSI E 190R Technomusicology Ableton Head like a Hole/ On a Roll mashup project. I did a mash up of Trent Reznor's vocals in Nine Inch Nail's "Head Like a Hole" with Ashley O (Miley Cyrus in 'Black Mirror')'s "On a Roll" which is a remake of "Head Like a Hole". The instrumentals of "On a Roll" is playing throughout, along with the vocals of the chorus. I have a (low quality) mp3 of "Ashley F***in O" singing "Head Like a Hole" which she sings at the end of the Black Mirror episode, which is Ashley O once she's found her own voice. Her "real self," that is not the persona of this happy pop star (Ashley O), sings a cover of the Nine Inch Nails Song in the gritty rock version and not a techno-pop version with the words changed, as in "On a Roll".
MUSI E 190R Technomusicology at Harvard Extension Ableton Etude 1: I used to work at Amazon Whole Foods Soundscape Last Weekend, I worked as an Amazon shopper at Whole Foods in Fresh Pond, Cambridge. Within this audioscape, I captured the snippets of working class Boston, including the accents and languages of immigrants. There are also American employees of Amazon/Whole Foods working to help pay their children’s college tuition. I captured the voice of an English coworker in conversation with an American employee. Her wife is a Harvard Celtic Studies Professor. They were talking about a third employee who just began working for Amazon. They mention a simple mistake he made, with the automatic assumption is that he would be fired. I find this part interesting because it reflects the reputation of a company that notoriously punishes honest mistakes.
In editing for the final draft I took into consideration the comments made by my peer-editor students as well as the comments made in class by Professor Wayne and our classmates. Sarah James mentioned that I could make the transitions between samples flow more. Axel Fay mentioned if I could play a track over the transition then the sounds would not be so abrupt. He suggested background buzzing or ambient music to hide the transition; another student made the same suggestion, though Dr. Wayne mentioned he liked how the sound ducked out, because it signified a scene change.
Ultimately it was up to me to make the final edit decision. I decided to take the students’ advice, although there is one moment toward the beginning that evokes a silent transition. That is because I decided to play the track of the background music throughout the whole piece, instead of just at the beginning. There is a part of the background music that is also very quiet, and that part coincides with one of the transitions. I decided one part where the sound almost completely ducks out is okay, since Professor Wayne mentioned he appreciated it. For the rest of the track I have layered the transitions with background music. Axel Fay also mentioned that there were two short bus clips that may have seemed abrupt, but I decided to keep them because they give a sense of location. They are short clips and seem to come out of no where, but if it gave a sense of direction or location then I decided they would be worth keeping.
Professor Wayne also mentioned that I should include some panning/ spatializing where the music goes from side to side. I added panning and slowed down the waves so it would not occur too quickly and more gradually. Professor Wayne also mentioned a lot of hissing and machinery noise from the refrigerators, and suggested that I play with the EQ to bring up the voices and dampen the hums and hisses. I turned down the low, middle and high end of the EQ which seemed to work quite a bit in dampening the background machinery noises.
In regards to the permission to record, I told my coworkers that I was recording for school and that if they see me leaning towards them and standing there, that I was recording for a school project. Jordan, the girl from England laughed and said that she felt that she was “being watched” every time I walked by. I caught a good opportunity to record her when she spoke with an Amazon employee. I stood there for over two minutes recording them speaking. I was glad I told Jordan what I was doing because it would have been quite awkward otherwise.
I also added a new clip of cash registers. In order to fit in these new clips I shortened the ones from last week. I recorded the new clips through my AirPods. The microphone helped quiet the ambient noises such as the hissing of the machinery. At various points throughout the soundscape I turned down the music and turned up the volume of the voices.