Hey everyone, I decided to work on another chrome lab song this week because I enjoyed this assignment! https://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/chrome-music-labs/

For this one, I decided to stick with the default instrument, the Marimba. The Marimba is a fun instrument with a wide range of notes laid out in the style of a piano. The notes sound different based on wood or synthetic material, but they often take on a fun and distinct tone. They are also an enjoyable instrument to play with others!

As I was making this song, it reminded me of a particular character and the games that they appear in! I hope you all enjoy this song as much as I did making it!

I used the Song Maker application on Chrome Music Lab to create a tune that would be inside of a Nintendo videogame. I was inspired by my urge back in the early pandemic days to have my old 3DS back to play with (it was sadly traded in into a Gamestop in the mid-2010s). Even though I was never into Animal Crossing, I wanted the new game so badly. However, I could not justify purchasing a Nintendo Switch nor could I justify the price and effort into rebuilding my DS collection back to its former glory. To fill the void, I decided to create some Nintendo vibin tunes.

When choosing the two instruments for my tune, I went with the marimba and the drum kit. The marimba carries the childlike, upbeat vibe that all Nintendo video games have and the drum kit added some fun. I went with an intercrossing diagonal pattern because it looked nice and a lot of Nintendo games use the pixel art style.

After completing the musical image, I downloaded the sound as a WAV file and uploaded it to SoundCloud. The result is a very energetic, playful, and upbeat tempo that could easily be in an Animal Crossing game.

Using the crome music labs at https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Song-Maker/ , Specifically the Song Maker application make a song that’s at least 20 measures long. Then share your Piece on your blog or tweet it and explain your artistic process.

Chrome Music Labs Assignments

My artistic process was beautifully childish. I opened the link to the Song Maker and started clicking on boxes. They changed color. When I played them, they made sounds. It was lovely.

The first segment I experimented into being looked like this.

Then I liked the sound, so I repeated it.

Then I got curious about what the blue dots at the bottom did, and they turned into shapes when I pressed them. And I got percussion. I went with a simple alternating beat, nothing too complicated.

Then I wondered what the boxes below the light blue line did. So I pressed those. When I liked the initial pattern of sounds, I repeated it.

I really just got lucky that everything sounded halfway decent together.

I then played around with the different settings on the bottom bar, where it says Marimba. They had several other types of instruments that these notes could be played as, but they didn’t sound as good. I think this is because I made the ‘music’ as it was set to Marimba so I s based my choices on that. Trying to make it woodwind just didn’t quite work.

All in all, I would definitely recommend playing around with this, it is very easy and simplistic. The opposite of overwhelming music software, and more like a fun video game.

I used the Song Maker in Chrome Music Labs to make this short clip of a song: https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Song-Maker/song/5467698036736000

I started of by just making a face in the middle of the song, which ended up creating some pretty good chords, added a squiggling percussion track, and then added some decently satisfying intro and outro chords.

Once I had familiarized myself a bit with the website, I got a little carried away. It’s by no means a masterpiece, but I’m pretty happy with what I managed to come up with.

https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Song-Maker/song/6198229493874688

It was a lot of fun to play around with sound again. I haven’t really touched music composition for a few years since I was in my school’s marching band, but this started to remind me why I liked it so much. The interface makes the Song Maker pretty fun to work with, and it’s surprisingly versatile for short clips. It’s a great springboard for any casual composer.

For this assignment I was tasked with making a short song on Chrome Music Lab. The title of the song is Feed Me More Paper, and symbolizes the oppression of the Printers’ stuggle with a lack of food-supply from it’s cruel masters. The Printers are coming to take over the digital art landscape, no one can escape!

I wanted to write a short little song in a minor key. It kind of transformed into this rythmic pattern that reminded me of paper printing. I think for a short little song this little creative app works well enough but I didn’t really like the limitations. Sometimes its important when creating art however, to restict the tools available because if forces you to make the most of what you have!

I also think the song because of its rhythm reminds me of this YouTube channel, the creator is brilliant for making songs out of old disk drives.