Many people combine Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years or they celebrate them all in the same season so I decided to mash up these holidays in a gif. These are also three of my favorite holidays.
I created a scene of a turkey celebrating Christmas in a snow globe on New Years. You can see the ball dropping and the fireworks in the sky telling you it is New Years. And inside the snow globe a turkey is sitting next to a Christmas tree opening presents. I also gave the turkey a piece of pumpkin pie.
I added all of the elements together using SnapChat and converted it into a gif using imagflip.
For my first mashup assignment, I decided to edit two characters into the same setting and make it look natural. I decided to edit Rapunzel from Tangled and Remy from Ratatouille.
Since she has the frying pan and Remy is a chef, I decided to put them in the kitchen! I put Remy in her pan just because I thought it was cute. This includes two of my favorite Disney movies so I love it! I also think they would be a great pair. I even thought that this could be a whole new remixed movie. Remy could help Rapunzel cook in her castle. She becomes a great chef and he gets to live in a castle. I really love how this turned out. I think it is very cute.
We all have favorite holidays, but sometimes it’s hard to pick just one! For this assignment, use a photo editing software like Pixlr or Photoshop to mashup your top THREE favorite holidays/cultural celebrations. Use whatever elements you would like from each holiday, creating a character or scene with the images/symbols you’ve chosen.
For my first mashup assignment, I chose to combine my top three holidays and create a scene. My favorite holiday is Christmas (like almost everyone else’s), and Halloween and St. Patricks Day are tied in second place. Knowing this, I decided to make the main focus of this scene Christmas themed. I signup up for the website Pixlr, which I had never used before, and found it to be sooo easy to navigate. Then, I looked for a “Christmas scene” and put it into Pixlr as my background. From there, I found little symbols of each holiday: a leprechaun, pot of gold with a rainbow, jack-o-lantern, and a witch on a broom. I then dispersed them all throughout the Christmas scene. For these elements, I figured out how to remove the backgrounds of the images so they could lay on top of the main image without all the little white boxes around them. Lastly, I uploaded the final image onto Flickr.
For this assignment you are to take a picture of one of your friends or just a person that is in the moment doing something exactly like an emoji and then mash them together for comparison.
For this emoji mashup assignment, I had to to take a picture of someone posing like an emoji. I recruited my boyfriend for help on this one. He makes a lot of funny faces normally, so I didn’t think this assignment would be too hard for him. He chose to do the one making a thinking or confused face. After he took the picture I uploaded it, and a picture of the actual emoji, to Pixlr and put them side by side to make it easy to compare. I uploaded it to Flickr then embedded it into here. This was a fun one to make, especially because I was collaborating with someone.
I originally completed the âPostcards From Magical Placesâ assignment back in Week 6, where I made a postcard for the 4077 MASH unit from the television show M*A*S*H. However, anyone who may had read that post might remember that I mentioned I originally did not want to generate a postcard from M*A*S*H. Instead, I wanted to make a postcard for Stalag 13, the World War II German P.O.W. camp that serves as the setting of the television series Hogan’s Heroes. I mentioned back then that I wasn’t sure how to incorporate an image from the show into a postcard, since I could not find any aerial views of the set the show was filmed on. To make matters worse, the set was burned down in the 1970s while making another movie, so there aren’t any modern-day pictures to base it off of. However, there are plenty of photographs online that feature the cast in their costumes, which gave me an idea that I didn’t have before.
In true Hogan’s Heroes fashion, I devised a concept that makes the Nazis look utterly foolish. The one looking the most foolish in this case is Colonel Wilhelm Klink, the German Kommadant of Stalag 13 (played by Werner Klemperer). A running gag in the show is that Klink is, so be frank, a gullible idiot. He can be talked into almost anything by his senior P.O.W. officer, American Colonel Robert E. Hogan (played by Bob Crane). Now, the prisoners of Stalag 13 are not being held there by force. They’re there by choice. You see, the entire concept of the show is that the prisoners are running an underground espionage and sabotage ring, quite literally underneath the P.O.W. camp. However the Nazis don’t know this, and Hogan and his “heroes” are constantly manipulating Klink and the other Germans into helping them, or throwing them off their trail by order of Allied High Command back in London.
The story I came up for rework assignment was that the prisoners made off with Colonel Klink’s military-issued stationary, leaving behind custom made postcards that make the P.O.W. camp look like a vacation resort. Now, this is something I could see the heroes doing. The cover story is that it is a practical joke meant to irritates Klink (which they take great pleasure in), however they needed Klink’s official Luftwaffe paperwork to forge documents to free another prisoner. The stationary will reappear, but not before Klink has to pen a letter to his commanding officer, General Albert Burkhalter of the Luftwaffe. Having no other stationary available, Klink uses one of the postcards the prisoners left behind in his office.
The writing on the postcard is in German, though since I do not speak the language I used Google Translate. I apologize to anyone reading this who knows German, however I wanted it to appear as authentic as possible since it is supposed to be from Klink’s perspective.
The letter says the following:
General Burkhalter,
Forgive this vulgar form of correspondence, but it appears all my stationary has gone missing. I have no doubt the prisoners are the ones responsible, and they shall be dealt with accordingly! I am writing to inform you that the Gestapo has finished their investigation and have found no lead on the elusive Underground agent, Papa Bear. They will be moving on to Dusseldorf until further notice. Oh, and greetings from Stalag 13, Herr General!
Colonel Wilhelm Klink
This short letter include many references to the show. The Gestapo (the Nazi secret state police) are constantly showing up at Stalag 13 for some reason or another. I image their presence is why the heroes need Klink’s stationary to forge documents, mainly to release an important prisoner from them. They do this by performing a sabotage operation out near Dusseldorf, which is a place in Germany that is constantly mentioned in the show. They play it off like Papa Bear, the elusive allied agent, is the one responsible. Little do the Gestapo know that Colonel Robert Hogan is, in fact, Papa Bear, and are being led away from him and suspicion of him and his tear. And he letter isn’t complete without Klink making a foolish remark, hence the final sentence, “Greeting from Stalag 13!”
I personally like to imagine Klink getting a phone call from Burkhalter after the “letter” arrives and berating Klink for using such a childish mode of correspondence. I can just imagine him telling Klink off, and saying something like, “What would the FĂźhrer (Adolf Hitler) think of one of his Luftwaffe generals passing around postcards like schoolchildren?!” Afterwards, Hogan would make a remark: “What’s wrong, Kommandant? Did General Burkhalter not like our craftmanship?” To that, Klink would forcibly dismiss Hogan (“Disssss-missed!”) and sulk in his chair, ending much like an episode of the show.
Having time to rework this assignment was really fun. I made the original M*A*S*H postcard in a hurry, so having time to think out a scenario for the original idea I had was really fun! I’m happy I got to create it too! Now it’s not bugging me so much that I didn’t get to complete the assignment how I wanted to!
Unlike the M*A*S*H postcard, I decided to use Canva for this one. I had forgotten Canva allows you to make postcards, and I’m very happy with how this one turned out. I used a template that originally had a tropical scene on it as the basis, but then changed everything around. For one, there isn’t any English on this postcard! I used Google Translate quite a bit, changing the “Greetings from” to “GrĂźĂe aus” and so forth. I mentioned before the entire note is in German, though it might not be grammatically correct because of my use of Google Translate. I have no way of checking that unless I plan to learn German, which I sadly do not have time for. The image on the postcard is a fairly common one that pops up in Google Image Search, but the one I used can be found here. I also included a Nazi-era postage stamp that I found on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website.
Overall, reworking this assignment was a lot of fun! I’m glad I got to use my original idea instead of the throwaway one from the original assignment. That assignment is linked below for anyone interested in taking a look at that one!
For my last assignment of the week, I decided to choose one from the Mashup Assignments called ‘Animoji Karaoke‘. The assignment is to lip-sync to a song using an animoji. I love music, and this seems fun, so I had to do it. I used the unicorn animoji and lip-synced to “God is a woman” by Ariana Grande.
Out of all of the animal choices, I chose the unicorn. I made this decision because firstly, my favorite color is pink. Additionally, I see myself as a creative and fun person, and that’s how I view unicorns. They are magical and majestic. None of the other animals really spoke to me as much as the unicorn did.
I chose “God is a woman” by Ariana Grande because it empowers women. I am a feminist and would love to see that glass ceiling shattered one day. This song lifts women up and I believe is a feminist anthem. If you watch the music video for the song, there are so many references to historical things that are androcentric. Ariana Grande puts herself in the men’s places. I just love this song and what it stands for.
The process of creating this signing animoji was pretty simple. I just used my phone and lip-synced to the song. Then, I saved the video and posted it here. I guess the hardest part was choosing a song and animal that meant something to me personally. This was a fun assignment to work on!
For my first creative assignment, I chose one from the mashup category, specifically the vocal instrumental mashup submitted by Amber May and rated at 3.5 out of 5 stars of difficulty. I’ve always been a fan of mashups on YouTube, perhaps even more so now that I can appreciate the ways different songs can fit together from a music theory perspective.
I knew pretty soon that I wanted to pair a rap verse with different music under it so that I could avoid the step of trying to match melodies with chord progressions. I considered a variety of potential artists for the instrumental and quickly chose The Kinks. My favorite Kinks album would have to be The Kinks Are The Village Green Presevation Society (1968). I think Ray Davies’ harmonic sensibilities are their sharpest here, as well as great, energetic bass and drums from Pete Quaife and Mick Avory, respectively.
“Picture Book” stood out to me due to its off-tilt groove. The instrumental reminded me, in a strange way, of one of my favorite rappers: MF DOOM. DOOM is a unique lyricist because of how he will deliver his lines freely, often finishing sentences past the bar line (DOOM himself references this style in the opening line of the verse I used: “Trippin’ off the beat kinda/Drippin’ off the meat grinder”). I think the ultimate result works so well because The Kinks’ instrumental is similarly free in its rhythms, which allowed for DOOM’s lyrics to fit nicely with the ever-changing backdrop.
This was a fairly easy piece to put together, but I’d attribute that to me having music production experience and I think the 3.5 rating would certainly be fair for people with less background in the process. I was lucky enough to find an instrumental version of “Picture Book” and an acapella version of “Meat Grinder” online, which saved me the tedious and difficult task of removing vocals frrom a track or vice versa.
I used Logic Pro X to stitch the two tracks together. I slowed “Picture Book” down quite a bit. Originally, the track is around 120 bpm and it ended up being around 100. Meanwhile, “Meat Grinder” was around 93 bpm, so I had to speed it up a bit. Once I felt the speeds were similar enough, I lined the vocals up to the beat and listened to it a few times to see how/if the lyrics were clicking with the music. The first result is pretty close to the final product, but I did use the moments when DOOM takes a breath or pauses to cut the track and readjust the timings of certain section.
I also EQed both tracks, boosting and cutting where needed. I wanted to create distinct space for each component in the frequency range, allowing the lyrics to stand out. I also put a compressor on the vocals simply to give them more punch and make them a bit crisper.
Finally, I made some artwork for the track, which involved creating a digital cut-out of the MF DOOM mask in Photoshop and then placing it on the Kinks’ album cover.
âThis is some sort of variation on Katy Chaseâs The Contest That Nobody Could Win assignment, but instead of clips from a TV show or movie, do clips from your favorite songs and see if anyone can guess what they are. Or at least the artist. Do two or three second clips using 4 or 5 songs. Make them all different. Use SoundCloud to post!â
Without further ado, here’s my Christian rock mix:
30 seconds of Christian rock music
Songs
Invisible by Disciple – “You’re not stranded on your own, you’re not invisible”
Be My Escape by Relient K – “And I’m begging you, I’m begging you, I’m begging you to be my escape”
Feel Invincible by Skillet – “You make me feel invincible, earthquake powerful / just like a tidal wave, you make me brave”
Hanging On By A Thread by The Letter Black – “So I’m holding on to You, no I won’t let go…I’m hanging on by a thread”
Now, you may be asking, “Why did you choose to make two separate Christian song mashups?”
Well, it all lies in the contemporary vs rock differentiation. They’re distinctly different sounds to me. I grew up listening almost exclusively to Christian contemporary, music, so by my teen years, I wanted something with more energy that would still be Christian. I started listening to secular rock music shortly before I discovered that Christian rock existed, and once I found that Christian rock was indeed an actual genre, I began listening to bands like Skillet and Relient K. Because of that, many of the songs I’ve included are “firsts” in different ways.
Invisible was the first Disciple song I heard, and I discovered it through a friend’s Instagram story. The lyrics “You’re not stranded on your own, you’re not invisible” call out to the listener, and the song reminds me that God is on my side and that He cares for and truly loves me. He sees me in my struggles and is there for me when I feel completely alone, which is immensely comforting.
Be My Escape was one of the first Christian rock songs I heard that I played on drums. I was in a band at the time, and this was one of the songs we played together. It’s a song where the artist talks about both his struggles with doubt and his insecurities and his plea and trust that God will get him out of the rut he’s inâhence the lyrics “And I’m begging you, I’m begging you, I’m begging you to be my escape”. The tone of humility and the need for God comes through strongly, and it’s very relatable.
Feel Invincible was one of the first Christian rock songs I heard, period. I knew that Skillet was a Christian band, but I hadn’t realized that they were a Christian rock band. And they really areâall of their songs pack a powerful punch. It’s absolutely rock music, and it’s rock music that’s Christian, which I think is awesome. Several of Skillet’s songs focus on their identity as Christians, and these lyrics are one aspect of that: “You make me feel invincible, earthquake powerful / just like a tidal wave, you make me brave”. Without Him, I’m nothing; with His support, I can be the best version of myself.
Hanging On By A Thread was a song that came up in my Spotify recommendations, and the first couple times I didn’t really pay attention to it. However, last spring, I relistened to it and realized how much I liked it. The song is about dependence on God: “So I’m holding on to You, no I won’t let go…I’m hanging on by a thread”. When nothing else in the world is stable, He is. He is there through all of the changes I experience, both internal and external, and I need Him more than anything else.
This is the first in a series of 3 posts with the same assignment, but the assignment is done differently each time.
As per the title, first up is a set of Christian contemporary music.
When I saw the assignment “10 second song mashup” in the ds106 assignment bank, I thought, “Huh. That sounds like it could be cool.” Here are the instructions:
“This is some sort of variation on Katy Chase’s The Contest That Nobody Could Win assignment, but instead of clips from a TV show or movie, do clips from your favorite songs and see if anyone can guess what they are. Or at least the artist. Do two or three second clips using 4 or 5 songs. Make them all different. Use SoundCloud to post!”
3.5 stars
My modifications:
Make the mashup about 30 seconds long
Do it by topic or genre
Don’t use SoundCloud
Not enforcing the “can anyone guess” thing
When I was first considering what to do for this assignment, I thought of all different songs and genres. I didn’t want to only do favorite songs. So, I decided to do three different versions of this assignment: Christian contemporary music, Christian rock music, and rock music.
Here’s the first mix.
30 seconds of Christian contemporary music
Songs
Write Your Story by Francesca Battistelli – “They say You’re the king of everything / the One who taught the wind to sing”
Joy by Newsboys – “If life’s a battle, the invasion is complete / if it’s a rhythm, I have found the perfect beat”
Shout to the Lord by Hillsong Australia – “I sing for joy at the work of your hands / forever I’ll love You, forever I’ll stand”
I used Audacity to make the mashup. I first had to convert the songs to a .wav format because Audacity was not a fan of my iTunes files and insisted on another format. So, once I had them in Audacity, I quickly clipped the parts I wanted and stuck them together. I realized that including all of the clips would be more than 10 seconds, so I decided to make it 30 seconds (or 28, if you’re being picky). I followed the same format for all of hte
Before I get into explaining why I picked each song, I want to note that I created a mashup of Christian songs because my faith is a key part of my life. I did not create it to shove my beliefs down anyone’s throat; I made it because both music and my faith as a Christian are important to me, and I wanted to invite people into those parts of my life. If I chose to only create a mashup of rock music, I’d be holding back out of fear of disapproval. I want to share things I make without that fear. (I talk about this a little more here.)
“Write Your Story” is a song by Francesca Battistelliâan artist I’ve seen in concert and whose music made up a lot of what I listened to in my preteen and early teen years. I love many of her songs, but this is one of my favorites. The lines “They say You’re the king of everything / the One who taught the wind to sing” are beautiful and so poetic.
“Joy” is a song I first heard on the radio and instantly fell in love with. I remember replaying it over and over again for weeks after I first heard it. I still absolutely love it. Newsboys infuse their music with a earnest sense of, well, joy, and that very evidently comes through in this song. The lyrics “If life’s a battle, the invasion is complete / if it’s a rhythm, I have found the perfect beat” refer to the freedom, peace, and happiness found in Christ. Not only do I think those lyrics are amazing, but the music at that point feels very catchy.
“Shout to the Lord” is a song that I grew up hearing in church. There are several others like this that stir up feelings of nostalgia and a desire to truly worship God in song. I don’t really know how to describe it. The lyrics and the people singing them are so worshipful and passionate, and even just listening without singing along makes me feel so much love for the Lord. The words “I sing for joy at the work of Your hands / forever I’ll love You, forever I’ll stand” ring with steadfast trust in Him, and this is a song that reminds me that He is king of all and that He is all-powerful and loving.
This assignment was one of my own creation, because I didn’t see anything quite like this in the ds106 assignment bank. It’s pretty straightforward: mashup two songs that are similar to each other (regardless of if it’s the same artist or if the artists are different).
These are the details of the assignment I created, “Similar Songs”:
Mashup two (or more!) songs that are similar to each other, by either the same or different artist(s). Do your best to show the similaritiesâedit parts of the songs next to each other. If it’s possible to do this without making it sound terrible, try to overlay the songs at parts to highlight how much they sound alike.
4 stars
Over the course of my life, I’ve found that there a lot of songs out there that sound similar. The ones I picked for this assignment were the two that seemed the most alike out of the songs I could think of: Don’t Bring Me Down by Electric Light Orchestra and Love Runs Out by OneRepublic.
Don’t Bring Me Down / Love Runs Out Mashup
I’ve thought for years that these two have so much in common musically. Lyrically, not so much, but the musical vibes and the rhythms match up quite well.
For this assignment, I used Audacity to mix and match parts. I worked my way through both songs, listening to each one on and off, picking parts to contrast. I knew initially that I wanted to have the instrumental intro for one and then the first verse of the other together. Another part that I very intentionally orchestrated was this transition around 1:24-25:
(starting at 1:18) “Don’t bring me down / no, no, no, no, no” / “whoooo, I’ll be running ’til the love runs out, ’til the love runs out”
The ending is definitely more chaotic than I would’ve liked, but I really wanted to put the endings for both together. I got a kick out of adding the short “crunch” sound from the end of Don’t Bring Me Down right after both songs ended. (That sound is actually a metal fire door being closed in the recording studio.)
I have to say, it was very satisfactory to hear them mixed together. It took about 2 hours to edit, and it was well worth it. I really enjoyed this assignment!
