355 - A Little Bit Krafty

Day 355. One thing I really like about using digital tools for making music is that you really don't need to be all that musical in order to make something reasonably interesting. Take Auxy for example. Auxy is a very cool iPad app for making sequences and arranging them into tracks. It's very simple to use and with a bit of thought I think you could do some very cool things with it. It's very forgiving for non-musicians like me, as you can literally jjst mess around until you get something you like.

Anyway, for what it's worth, here is my first attempt at making something with it. I thought it sounded a bit Kraftwerk-ish, which is probably the style of music that is the most obvious type of thing to make with Auxy. Have a go yourself and see what you come up with.

347 - Game(lan) On

Day 347. While visiting a Balinese temple today I spotted this beautiful set of gamelan and  since nobody said I couldn't play it, I played it. Badly admittedly, but I played it nonetheless. I love the gong sounds they make, and the scale they are tuned to.  So different to the what the western ear is used to.

343 - Oh!

Day 343. As I may have mentioned before, whenever I fly internationally I seem to find myself whiling away the time by messing around in GarageBand, coming up with riffs and musical ideas. Rarely a whole song or anything major, just a few bars to lay out an idea for rhythm and melody. The flight to Bali was no exception and here one I created on flight GA715.

344 - Strings with Pluck

Day 344. Another musical composition idea made on flight GA715. The strings in GarageBand are really interesting and you need to take some time to explore how they work. They can do all sorts of sounds from bowing, plucking, pizzacato, as well as several different chord inversions. Worth playing with. Here's a simple little riff using a variety of string sounds.

340 - Let's Xangi Hime Together

Day 340. Linda was sending me a bunch of text messages today that were a little, um, autocorrected. She was at the gym walking on a treadmill apparently, and the phone had a bit of a mind of it's own as to what the text was supposed to say.

So of of course, when someone is "mat the gym" and is asking " maybe u fine here" and whether you want to "xangi hime together", there is really only one thing to do... turn it into a song of course.

321 - Looking for a Rainbow

Day 321. Inspired by a large Hawaiian schnitzel (don't ask) I spent quite a bit of time this evening noodling around on my ukulele, which I recently started teaching myself to play. As I was messing about stringing a few chords together that attempted to sound like Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Linda shot this footage, which I submit as today's daily create.

300 - Ukulele Baby Steps

Day 300. As I mentioned the other day, I bought a ukulele even though I'd never played one before. Here's a quick video of my progress after a couple of days...  Still a long way to go!

294 - Uke Me

Day 294. I've been wanting to learn the ukulele for a while so today when I walked past a music store, I went in a bought one. I'm a pretty big guy, and ukuleles are quite small so it feels really weird in my hands, but it's fun and I like the sound they make. So today I started creating music on this tiny instrument.

Before today I could not play a ukulele at all. Today I can play it a little bit, so that is some kind of progress I suppose. With a bit more practice I might see if I can write a song and add it here as another create. For now, just creating some progress will be enough...

251 - SQ Groove Riff

Day 251. One of the new Apple ads on TV features a band that makes music using an iPad app called  iMaschine. I thought it looked interesting so I got the app and had a play with it last night on the flight home from Singapore. It's pretty cool and is a good example of what a musical instrument can look like if you allow the platform to be a tablet. Anyway, I wrote this little riff as I was just playing around trying to figure it out... it doesn't really go anywhere musically, it's just an experiment. The app has a pretty unique UI so it isn't that intuitive to learn, but once you get the idea of it it has tons of possibilities. There is plenty more that can be done with it, I just need some more time to play.

227 - Class Act

Day 227. After yesterday's daily create of some fairly funky music with a heavy downbeat and bassline, offset with synth and wahwah guitar, I realised that I often use the same kind of approach to writing music in GarageBand. Start with drums, lay down the bass track, then build up with guitars or keys or more drums. Today I wanted to try building a music track in a completely different way, since part of the daily create process is about trying new things and not falling into the trap of doing things the same way every time. Mix it up. Do the opposite.

So in this track I didn't use drums and bass at all, instead starting with strings, and building the sound in layers. Its different and I quite like it.

 

226 - Canberra Groove

Day 226. I had the pleasure today of working with some year 5 and 6 classes at Holy Family Primary School in Canberra. We got to do some creative stuff with the iPads, and one of those things was learning to compose music in GarageBand. As I was demonstrating how to get started I threw these tracks together, and quite liked the groove it created, so I finished it off on the plane this morning. Enjoy.

223 - Part of the Metadata

Day 223. Politicians should never be allowed to make any decisions about the Internet. Ever. Some of the stupidest, most idiotic, misguided comments I've ever heard about the Internet come out of the mouths of the people who are supposed to be making intelligent decisions on our behalf. This track is a collection of quotes made by George Brandis, an Australian Liberal Senator and the current Australian Attorney General. And apparently a complete moron when it comes to the Internet.

If it were not for the fact that these people are actually running the country, it would be funny. But it's scary and pathetic.

205 - We Got Rhythm

Day 205. Today's create was made with a fun little iPad app called VidRhythm. You record video of yourself making some noises, then the app sequences them into what you see here. It's easy and fun.

177 - Drums and Guitars

Day 177. Being an ex-bass player, I really dig a good grove. In fact, just building up a good rhythm and percussion track, laying down a nice clean bass track, and adding a few simple riffs can sound pretty sweet. In this little audio piece I made in Garageband I started with a basic drum track, then added some bass, then added some guitars, then added some more guitars, then some more guitars, then some more drums and then some more drums, and, well, you get the idea. It builds up, has a few breaks, then subsides again. I kinda like it.

Feel free to use it or remix it.

163 - Cinematica

Day 163. Today's create is a short piece of music (24 bars) made in GarageBand on the iPad.  I like to dabble in GarageBand and just put together short tracks, trying to match sounds and rhythms. I think it's a great way to learn more about using the software and a fun way to spend an hour or so.

I seem to discover something new each time I play with GarageBand. It's an incredibly powerful app, and very impressive that music editing like this can be done on a tablet.

145 - An Audio Tool

Day 145. I've always enjoyed building audio tracks in GarageBand using loops. It would be nice to have a non-Mac alternative to GarageBand but there really isn't much around that competes with it. Maybe Sony Acid Pro, but that's quite expensive).

So when I set an audio looping task for my students recently I had to start looking around for alternatives for those who don't use BYOD Macs. And I found it in AudioTool, a powerful, sophisticated, free audio editor that runs entirely in Chrome. Yes, that's right. In Chrome.

Here's a little rhythm track I knocked together on my first attempt. I think this has LOTS of potential in the classroom.

And here is a screen grab of the editor...

Best of all, the tracks you create are all built on Creative Commons licences by default, so it supports remixing and open sharing really well. Build on the work of others and let others build on the work of yours. Love it!

115 - Trans Tasman Groove

Day 115. For some reason I always seem to find myself playing with GarageBand on international flights. Not sure why. Anyway, today was no exception, and I composed this little 24-bar riff while flying across the Tasman from Christchurch to Sydney. I don't claim it's perfect, it's just an idea.



I do think though, that getting students to use Garageband to come up with simple riff-style compositions, even just bass and drums to get a good groove happening, is a great way to get them started with GB. Start with a drum track, add some bass, then keep layering in more sounds. I want to do that activity with my Year 5 kids this term.

088 - Sleeping Lions

Day 88. So the other day I discovered the iPad app called Loopy and I made a silly little sample with it, totally having no idea what I was actually doing. After playing around with it a bit more,. it makes a lot more sense to me now, including the recording function. Then the following day, I saw a YouTube clip with Jimmy Fallon and Billy Joel using the very same app to record The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

Using that as a bit of silly inspiration, I decided to have a go at making a version myself. The big thing I now know about Loopy is that you can set up loops of various duration (number of bars) and then turn them on and off as you record. Interesting possibilities. More play needed.

083 - Making Musyc

Day 83. I'm very interested in the effects of randomness on creativity. Or if not true randomness, then at least the effect of what happens when a creator gives up a level of fine control and allows "happy accidents" to occur. Today's create uses an iPad app called Musyc to create a simple rhythm. It's an interesting approach to creating music, by throwing objects at walls to allow them to bang and crash and bounce against them, making sounds. By added sequence generators which spit out objects in a regular pattern, some interesting effects are created.

I really like seeing different approaches to music making. The video doesn't really do it justice as the screen capture must be quite processor intensive as it stuttered a little, making the regularity of the rhythm less regular than it actually was. Still, you get the idea.

079 - 42 Seconds

Day 79. Today's create is a result of messing around with an iPad app called ProKeys. This was one of those apps that I had on my iPad but hadn't really played with much so I didn't know what it could do. I thought it was just a playable keyboard app, but in fact it has some pretty sophisticated digital synthesisers built into it, as well as a multitrack recorder. I made this track by overdubbing 4 keyboard tracks over each other. I'm not much of a musician, but it was fun to play with.

Getting it off the iPad and into the blog was a little fiddly. I had to connect the iPad directly to my computer with a cable, and open the track via iTunes. I then did a minor edit to the audio using Adobe Audition before uploading directly to SoundCloud (which is actually an export option inside of Audition. Nice!)



There is no copyright on this: I put it in the public domain so if you can use it for something, go for it.