Ocean Beats

I'm taking a class called Radio-Rithmetic. In this class we studied the relationship between math, science, and music. In the second unit, the class went over topics like pitch, frequency, notation,waves, intervals, scales, and many other effects in of music. The FE's for this unit were super fun. We were able to take a tour of a radio station and a recording studio. Both were very helpful to this unit. For the action project, the class was assigned to make a musical collage with existing samples, and see how we could change them with some of the effects we learned about.  I hope you enjoy listening!

This project took some time, especially when it came to picking the right sample songs. I looked at my own playlist to find some inspiration, and it worked. I really like the vocals to Ocean Eyes by Billie Ellish. Her voice is very dreamy, and I knew I wanted to include her voice in my project. I also really like the melody. I did some searching and found a piano cover of it. Even though both samples are from the same song, they sound really different, and I had a lot of fun mixing and playing around with them.



 In the beginning of this piece, I added a little drum beat. The notation is below.

Drum beat notation (RD)

For the interval, I decided to pick the piano piece at the end. It's a long G and B.

Interval (RD)

To make this track a bit more interesting, I added some cool effects. I included a reverse tape sound effect to highlight the differences in the quality of sound. I added a delay on that reverse tape, which means that the same sound is repeated quietly after it’s done playing. And as I stated before, I added my own little drum beat to the beginning, fading into the the first piano solo. I added the wah-wah effect to the first vocals that are featured. The wah-wah effect is when the resonance of musical notes are altered, to extend expressiveness, which makes it sound like a voice saying “wah”. I think the vocals are dreamy, so I added a solo with vocals. I really enjoyed the reverse tape sound effect, so I added that again to fade into the vocal and piano solo towards the end. 

Labeled Piece. (RD)

In this class we discussed consonance and dissonance, which means what does or doesn't sound good together. In the beginning, there was probably a hint of consonance with the drums and piano, but it doesn't sound horrible. The form of this piece is ABCD. It's sort of choppy but it starts off with an instrumental break, and then goes into the first verse. After that verse it cuts off to another verse and then ends with an instrumental. 

Although this project was kind of difficult and time consuming, I had a lot of fun completing it. I enjoyed exploring and learning about the cool effects that can be done to music and sounds. I also had fun mashing some sounds together, and trying to figure out which sounds sounded good with which.

Citations:
"Billie Eilish - Ocean Eyes (Official Music Video)." YouTube. YouTube, 24 Mar. 2016. Web. 15 Dec. 2016.

"Ocean Eyes" by Billie Eilish-easy Piano Arrangement." YouTube. YouTube, 15 Jan. 2016. Web. 15 Dec. 2016.