oldhollywoodhills-blog

[oldhollywoodhills-blog]

Process Statement

The first thing I did was I brainstormed what I wanted the piece to be like. I decided that I wanted a slow, sort of distant sounding, ethereal sounding piece. Then on garageband I laid out the different sections of the song I wanted to split the piece into, then started composing my main guitar part. The first day was spent coming up with a cool guitar piece and adjusting the guitar tone, which I ended up leaving for the entire guitar track, and then trimming the parts to fit two bars or either four bars. Then I added these to the loop library and then I started making my drum beat. I used my electronic drum kit at home connected to a midi cable, and spent an entire sunday doing the drum beats. Next, I came up with the bass parts, which took at least 3 hours. After recording them and trimming them down, I pieced together the final piece. I added more layers and changed the echo, reverb, and volume levels of all the tracks, and add more guitar layers (again) and started thinking about my voice recording requirement. The piece was starting to come together and so I moved bits around again and tried to make it sound as good as it possibly could. 

Next, I added section B which was just a basic guitar chord progression (Dm, Am, E) then added a drum beat to the section. I then recorded the whispering part of the beginning of the song, which is actually me whispering “The signs are speaking to you.” I was inspired by the brain melting song Maggot Brain by Funkadelic. In that song they whisper in the beginning, then go onto do some amazing stuff on the guitar. 

Last off, I adjusted some of the levels of the tracks and made it all fit together, trimmed some of the audio off my recordings to make the piece a bit shorter, and toggled around with the reverb on the guitar tracks to make the guitar seem more distant and achieve the vibe I was going for. 

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Artist statement: 

This musical piece was inspired on an art piece by John Frusciante, which can read more about if you click on my blog. I started off with no ideas but as I went deeper into the project, more ideas kept flowing into my head. I would say that this project was a huge success, I have never spent this much time on a project in my life before. If I could guess I would say I spent around 10 hours on this project, including recording the guitar parts, bass parts, and the drum parts, then organising them in a way that fit my original plan. I would say that my final product, compared to my original plan was much better. I didn’t change much in the original plan, except maybe now my piece structure is more like ABAC than ABA. 

I think that this could be considered an avante garde piece, due to the lack of proper lyrics or being able to fit into any category. At the beginning of the piece, (and at the end of the piece) I am whispering a phrase I randomly found using an online lyric generator. I am whispering “The signs are speaking to you.” This is inspired by another of my favourite songs, Maggot Brain by Funkadelic, where they whisper  “Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time, For y'all have knocked her up, I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe, I was not offended, For I knew I had to rise above it all, Or drown in my own __” at the beginning of the song, then spirals into a 10 minute guitar masterpiece which you can hear if you go on my blog. 

The feeling that my piece is supposed to evoke from a person is sadness, loneliness, and maybe a slight “creepy” feeling from it because of the distant guitar and slow tempo. I showed this song to my family members, and some of them commented that while it made them feel sadness, it also evoked a sense of bittersweet from them. 

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Day 4 (Final Day)

I finished all the drum parts, (which I played on my electronic drum kit although some were garagebands ‘smart’ drummer. 

I added bass parts (which I played) to the track too, and then I added some eerie distant sounding audio parts. Then twitched around with some of the guitar bits and removing some and adding some. 

I finished the project!

I have around 12 tracks in total! 

[oldhollywoodhills-blog]

Day 3

I added some drum beats and reorganised some of the guitar, I still have alot of work to do, because I’ve only done half of the drum beats. 

I also have to add voice recording of some sort and also a bassline. Much work to do in the next work day!!!

Check out the audio on my blog. 

[oldhollywoodhills-blog]

Day 2

Oops, the metronome is still on, forgot to turn it off. 

[oldhollywoodhills-blog]

day 2

I wanted this to be inspired by ‘before the beginning’ so i used a minor key, i picked Am.

My main chord progression is Dm, Am, E. 

I wanted the tempo to be a rocking, slow jam speed, and so I used 90bpm as the tempo.

The main ‘riff’ in the song is the overlapping guitar tracks I have overdubbed.

I haven’t come up with a drum beat yet, but I will use the drum set I have at home and connect it via midi to produce a drum beat.

I wanted distant sounding guitar sharp noises so I added that in too, those squeaky guitar noises. 

Here’s what I have so far... 

[oldhollywoodhills-blog]

the music that is playing on my blog is the recommended music you listen to when you read the artist statement etc and read through the blog. some of the songs are produced by the artist of the drawing

[oldhollywoodhills-blog]

song plan

name: old hollywood hills. because the actual artwork doesn’t have a name, i’m going to name it after the place the artwork was made

feelings: sad, melancholy, dark

structure: probably aba

key: minor key, to evoke a sad sounding piece

i hope to make this song sound sad, and melancholic, with alot of guitar in it. this is sort of a tribute to john frusciante? he’s the person that made me really find the guitar beautiful

[oldhollywoodhills-blog]

art analysis

artist: john frusciante

circa 1992/1993

medium: oil pastel on paper

what this painting makes me feel is sadness. i know that during this time in 1992/1993, john frusciante was holed up in his hollywood hills home, doing heroin and cocaine daily and spiraling into a full blown addiction. he has stated before that during this period of his life he was at his most down and he has talked many times about a fourth dimension that he believes in and how he likes to bring listeners of his music to a different dimension. 

this painting evokes sadness and the darkest and hardest struggle that the artist has been through, you can tell he was under the influence of such drugs when he did this piece of art. 

the name of the blog is a tribute to the location which he made this piece of art, his house in hollywood hills which unfortunately burnt down in 1993 which supposedly started when he was preparing his drugs for injection. 

i think this artwork shows alot of desperation and pain that he was going through, and he was in his darkest period and it can be seen in the painting, the subject of the painting seems to be a demon, which could be symbolizing his inner demons. we also see the words “passage to another world” just under the haunting figure.