Lucas Q -- Blogmeister

For my final project in Music Tech, I did an arrangement of “Precious Lord Take My Hand.” I used a recording of Traveling choir singing this song as my recorded audio. I cut it down to the three verses leaving the ending at the end of the third verse. After the first verse of the recording, I put a four-part verse with instruments. This was difficult to do because the song is in 9/8 time. I could not play it in, so I had to plug in the notes individually. I picked the instruments I did because I wanted to put two instruments from each family in the verse. The instruments of my verse are violin on soprano with flute on soprano an octave higher, French horn on alto, clarinet on tenor, and tuba on bass with the double bass an octave lower. To bridge the gap between the recorded audio and the instrument verse, I put two measures of the piano accompaniment to play so the gap sounds more natural. I then had verse two of the recording go after this. At the end of verse two, I again made a piano track to bridge the gap to my next verse. On this verse I have a clean electric guitar playing the soprano line with the cello playing the soprano line an octave lower. I also have drums playing along with a high hat hitting on each beat and a bass drum/snare hitting on every third beat (two bass drum hits, then one snare drum hit). I tried playing the guitar tabs I found online with this, but it sounded horrible. I made up my own part, where when there was a sustained note, I played that note’s chord. I ended up putting in a D, D7, and G chord on guitar. After this verse, I had the third verse of the recording. When I got to the ending of the song, I had a four-part brass part play along with the singing. I got the rhythm in by ear and then added the four parts with trumpet on soprano, French horn on alto, trombone on tenor, and tuba on bass. I am pretty happy with the ending product that I made, especially considering all the time I put into it.

My hymn for Chapel is Hymn 9 "Jesus, Your Church with Longing Eyes." In this hymn, I have an introduction and three verses. The Introduction is the second half of the hymn played by an organ. I doubled the soprano and bass lines an octave higher and lower, respectively. The first verse uses the woodwind family with a flute and piccolo playing the soprano an octave higher, oboe on alto, clarinet on tenor and bass, and bassoon on bass an octave lower. The second verse is played by the brass family with a trumpet on soprano, French horn on alto, trombone on tenor, and tuba on bass which is doubled an octave lower. In this verse, soprano starts by itself, alto comes in on the second line, tenor on the third line, and bass on the last line. The last verse has strings, with woodwind and brass to help accent it. The soprano is played by violin, which is doubled, and trumpet, alto by viola and oboe, tenor by viola and clarinet, and bass by cello and double bass and tuba an octave lower. The hymn worked well in chapel. The only things I didn't like about it was it was a tad fast, the soprano could have been brought out a little more, and the start of verse 2 should have come out a bit stronger.

The "Glory Be To Jesus" project is done. I just finished adding panning to all the verses. The first verse is played by the string family with a double bass playing an extra bass line an octave lower. The second verse is played by the woodwind family, and the third verse is played by the brass family with a tuba playing another bass part an octave lower. The fourth verse has a Soprano Sax on soprano, Oboe on alto, Trombone on tenor, Cello on bass, and a Double Bass on bass an octave lower. The fifth verse has a Glockenspiel on soprano, Viola on alto, Clarinet on tenor, Trombone on bass, and Tuba on an octave lower bass. The sixth verse has Violin on soprano, French Horn on alto, Tenor Sax on tenor, Bassoon on bass, and Double Bass on octave lowered bass. I chose the instrument combinations just because they sounded good together.

The "Glory Be to Jesus" hymn project is done. For the last three verses, I mixed and matched combinations of instruments to make the Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass lines. I tried to use at least one instrument from the three main instrument families in each verse. I also moved lines up or down an octave as needed for the instrument being used. I added the glockenspiel, a mallet family instrument, in verse 5 to do the Soprano line.

Today in Music Tech, I worked on taking the recorded verses of "Glory Be To Jesus" and making them into three verses with a different musical family with each verse. In the first verse, I used the string family. I added an extra bass line that's an octave lower with the double bass to give it a richer bass sound. In the second verse, I used the woodwind family. The soprano and bass lines were moved an octave higher and lower, respectively, so that those lines were in the range of their respective instrument, the flute and bassoon. The third verse uses the brass family. Again, I added an extra bass line an octave lower with the tuba to enrich the sound.

Today in Music Tech, I worked on "Glory Be To Jesus". We are supposed to put that hymn into Garageband. To accomplish that, we have to play it in on our keyboards. We are supposed to play in one part at a time, so in the end there will be four tracks of music that combined will make the hymn. Today, I recorded all four parts into Garageband and just have to polish up the finished piece.

There are two main types of scales: major and minor. Major and minor scales differ from each other in the way they are made and they way they feel. Major scales have a pattern of WWHWWWH while minor scales have a pattern of WHWWHWW. Major scales also differ from minor scales because major scales sound happy while minor scales sound sad. When you listen to a scale, the best way to tell if it is major or minor is to listen to the third note. The third note in a major scale has a whole step between it and the second note, while a minor scale has only a half step between its second and third note.

Today in Music Tech, I worked with MIDI. MIDI allows you to make music on Garageband with different instruments. The notes are put in with your keyboard and then can be edited on the screen. Today, I recorded "Mary had a Little Lamb" onto Garageband.

The time to start counting eight counts is when you have a strong downbeat, that is one.

Audacity and Garageband have many differences. In Garageband, when you make a split, the music before and after the split is there, so you can extend the music. In Audacity, you have to make an entire new cut. Also in Garageband, you can duplicate splits just by dragging the cut out. In Audacity, you have to manually duplicate it. In Garageband, you can adjust the volume of the song to make fade outs and fade ins easier than in Audacity. Also, in Garageband, you can scroll with the scroll thing on your mouse which you can't do in Audacity.