Garage Band Song

Brainwashed Analysis

Acknowledge the Lizard- This section of the essay basically discusses the part of our brain that causes us to shutdown when we begin to diverge from instructions that have been given to us. This shutdown, which the authors refers to as "the resistance", is something that inhibits people to make art. The author suggests that in order to make something genius, we must acknowledge this resistance, or feeling of doubt, and choose to ignore it.

Learn- In this section of the essay, the author discusses how we must learn new things every day. He writes that the past ways of schooling are long outdated, and that in our time school continues forever. We need to constantly be failing, learning, and creating in order to make ourselves better creatively. If we do not continue to learn, then we are surly destined to fail.

I think these two sections of the essay both support how these blog assignments are helpful. These assignments teach us to begin to ignore the feelings of doubt we have in our creative minds, as well as continue to stress our minds creatively and make sure we are constantly learning. These blog assignments are teaching us to collaborate with our fellow students and showing us one possible avenue to get our creative work out into the world. I believe that assignments such as this are far more practical than a traditional paper and inspire more of a collective learning environment.

Audio Response Two

Audio Response One

Comparing and Contrasting I Am the Walrus and a cover of it.

My choice of song for this assignment was I Am The Walrus by The Beatles with the cover version by Zappa. Both these songs have many similarities and differences, and both reflect the unique styles of each artist. Both of the these songs require the listener to be actively involved in listening to get the full meaning of what the musicians are trying to achieve More similarities from the two songs come from the melody, organization, and lyrical parts. Melodically the songs are basically identical. The Zappa orchestra takes some artistic liberties here and there, but the melody is in the same key and is the same rhythmically. Structurally the song is also the same. Zappa uses the same sequence of verse and chorus that give both the original version and the cover the same organization. One final aspect of these songs that is similar, are the lyrics. Zappa keeps all the lyrical parts of the song the same, because lets face it, changing the lyrics of a Beatles song is musical taboo. However, there is one thing about the lyrics that is a bit different. The timbre of the vocalists voice in the Zappa orchestra is more raspy and soulful which gives starts to give the Beatles classic a more Zappa feel. Another difference between the two songs is their speed. The Beatles version has more of a medium/moderato tempo while the Zappa takes a faster tempo. This may be because the Zappa version is live and he is trying to keep a high energy so that the crowd remains entertained. Due to this faster tempo, the Zappa version has a higher intensity and the instruments are playing much louder. This contrasts the intensity of the Beatles version, which has both a slower tempo, string ensemble parts, and less distortion on the guitar.            

            If I had to pick my favorite between the original version and the cover, I would pick the original. The Beatles are one of, if the best musical groups in history. Their genius is something that may never be seen in music again and I Am The Walrus is one of their best songs.  While this song does not make much sense lyrically, it shows the bands diversity and ability to switch up styles during changing times. I like this version better because I think the tempo used in the original is far better suits the emotion that this song conveys. Additionally, I think that the melody fits into a slower tempo rather that the faster one that Zappa uses. That is not to say that I dislike the Zappa version, because Zappa, like The Beatles, is a musical genius. He is well known for odd musical arrangements, and freakish lyrics. These two aspects of Zappa’s style make I Am The Walrus a perfect song for him and his orchestra to cover. The aspects that Zappa adds to his cover certainly make it an interesting song to listen to; it is however, impossible to beat The Beatles. 

I Am The Walrus-Zappa Cover

I Am The Walrus-The Beatles

Soundscape

Nick is messing with my audio....lets hope this works

Just click on the title to go to the audio link.

Nicks a Nihilist...he must be exhausted.

In his article Johathon Flaum describes a story that his fifth grade classmate had written. The story basically involves a Tiger who is stuck in an infinite amount of cages and when he escapes one, he only finds himself within the confines of another. This story, understandably, had an adverse affect on the psyche of a fifth grade version of Johnathon Flaum, and the story, in is point of view, an expression of how life actually is. Flaum writes, “Nick’s lesson is this: there is nowhere to run! This is our situation in a nutshell.” The writer believes that we as humans are perpetually stuck within this cage that is both “a prison and a home”. We like the comfort of what we know, however, we all want to break out of our comfort zones and better ourselves as people and do something meaningful with our lives. We need to “dig” our way out of this sequence of cages and get to the bottom if what our true potential as human beings is, and to do this we must defeat the notion of comfort that this original cage has for many people. Only then can we see what our true authentic form is, both intellectually, and personally. To sit inside the cage would be to just wither up and die, and to not truly understand what our full potential is. 

My take on Mitch Ditkoff’s “14 Ways to get Breakthrough Ideas"

This article can be found at http://changethis.com/

Mitch Ditkoff’s “14 Ways to get Breakthrough Ideas”, is basically a 14 step plan to help ones mind attempt to make the concept of coming up with a great a idea less intimidating. While reading this I took special liking to three of Ditkoff’s suggestions.            

His eighth suggestion is to take a break from the stress of and frustration of trying to come up with something big. He writes, “from years of experience…more is often less”.  Sitting at a desk for hours, only thinking of how to solve a problem that has come up in a project, will usually lead to nothing but increased stress and probably a headache. Ditkoff instead suggests that we take breaks from our problems and do something entirely different. With this strategy we may subconsciously come up with a solution to the problem. I think this suggestion is something that people overlook all to commonly. I have found that if I take short breaks in between working, I am far more productive than when I just working straight through every problem.  While I might not be solving world problems during these breaks, I think the concepts are the same.

For Ditkoff’s 10th suggestion, he says that we should try to hang out with diverse groups of people. If we constantly hang out with like-minded people, the odds of coming up with a breakthrough idea are much smaller. This is because if we are always in the same group, we always get the same perspective for every situation. I guarantee someone from NYC will have a totally different ideas and solutions to problems than someone from a farm town in Italy. While this may be a drastic difference between people, it illustrates the point that we need to constantly be diversifying our point of view in order to make a useful breakthrough.

Finally, in his first suggestion Ditkoff tells us to follow our fascinations. I think that too many people choose career paths involving straight number crunching, or sitting at a desk all day because it makes the most sense for the finance future. And while these are great career choices, think if everybody pursued their childhood passions and fascinations. These fascinations might seem useless, trivial, or even impossible at the beginning, but could have the possibility of turning in to something great. The Wright brothers were two crazy bike mechanics from Ohio, with the insane fascination of taking to the skies like a bird. Think if they had not followed that passion for wanting to discover something new and revolutionary. Why not take hold of that small fire inside and see where it takes you? As Ditkoff writes, “what enchants us and delights us is sacred –or could be sacred- a clue that something significant is knocking on our door”.

At the end of his ninth suggestion, Ditkoff asks us to notice trends in the market place that are most intriguing to us. I am very interested in the world of electronic music, and therefore, stay up to date on what is going on in the industry. And for someone who is looking to add creatively to this industry it is a very exciting time. Over the last couple years I have seen music that is traditionally more popular on the other side of the ocean begin to fill iPods closer to home. For example, artist like Tiesto, Deadmau5, and others have started to become massively popular in our part of the world. Tiesto now has a residence in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas has collaborated with international Hip-Hop stars such as Three six Mafia and Busta Rhymes, and both have gone on massively successful tours in both America and around the World. In addition to this DJs at nightclubs have started to spin electronic music into their sets rather than traditional Hip-Hop and top 40 music. One doesn’t even need to look outside the Athens city limits to see this trend. For the first time ever a DJ headlined the main stage at Athens’ Halloween block party, spinning Trance, House, and Progressive music. This trend syncs right along with many of the ideas I have. Making a living in the music industry is tough and sometimes impossible task, however this trend shows that there is a growing interest for the style of music I create. While this might be only a small consolation, it gives me some confidence to know that there is a body of people out there that actually cares, and that that body of people is continuing to grow. 

Mat Zo is a producer who I have been listening too and admiring for the past couple years. He is one of the few people in the industry who really have a distinct sound and style, which is something I aspire too have as well. Mat Zo was born in London England in 1990 and was first became involved in music by playing the drums. He was in multiple jazz and rock bands as a kid, but slowly converged to electronic music with age. (oddly similar to my path.) His style of music is considered to be progressive trance, which is sort of hard to describe since it is still developing as a genre. But, a basic overview is a producer slowly builds a track by adding more and more layers of either percussion or synth until a climax. This track, called Land of The Free, is one that shows all the talents that Mat Zo has. His ability to build the song from the ground up with out the original beat getting old makes this song a progressive masterpiece.

This pair of producers called W&W (Willem Von Hanegem and Wardt van der Harst), introduced to me to the world of tech trance. I have been a drummer all my life, so rhythm is one of the most important parts of music to me. W&W met at Trance Energy in 2007, and haven't looked back since. All of their music relies heavily on the subdivision of the beat with seemingly random clicks and clocks. If you mix them right, however, you get a product like this. This track, called DNA, is just one of their many massive releases from 2010, and 2011 is sure to bring out even more from this duo. Tracks like this have gotten them props from world wide stars, Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, and.... me..... Their tracks feature massive beats under string soundscapes that can give you the sub-conscience feeling of flying through space. And no I'm not on drugs.

For my first example of someone who has influenced me creatively I have selected the music producer Tiesto. This track is called Elements of Life, and while I cant give this song/producer full credit for my developing my love of this style of music, I'll give it about 95%. Tiesto himself is a Dutch born DJ and producer, and is widely recognized as the best in both fields (depending on who you ask). He began mostly in the genre of Trance music, which this track is classified as, but now has moved to a synthesis of many styles. For this he has received criticism from many of his older fans (Oh no Dylans gone electric!), however, I think he is just attempting to advance Dance music as a whole despite the contrast in his past and present styles of music, there is one thing that is certain. Tiesto has a sound like non other in the world.

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