Yes, that’s right. It is Sara Bareilles time! For those of you who may not know (which is probably most), my favorite singer has been and probably always will be Sara. Yeah, I love her so much I like to think that we are on a first name basis. What makes her even better is that she has a song about princesses, which I feel is more like my life. Check it out, it’s called Fairytale. If she sings it, I own it. If she covers it, I have it. If she sings near me, I see it. Call it a girl crush or whatever you like, just know that I love her. So when I came across the opportunity to make a music tag assignment, I jumped right on it.

I know exactly what you are thinking “What? The princess isn’t doing something based on Disney? That seems insane!” Well don’t worry I totally made a Disney one. Actually I made my Disney one first. When I saw the assignment I was just so excited to do something similar to the riff-off from Pitch Perfect that I didn’t really focus on telling a story. When planning my Disney music tag I just focused on combining different songs from Hercules, which is my favorite movie when it comes to the music. It was really easy to access the songs because there was a YouTube video which included all of the songs, and I came across and amazing web-site that had all of the lyrics to the songs together which made catching duplicated words easy with the find feature.  And here was my final product for the Hercules Riff-Off as I like to call it.

(SoundCloud is currently processing this mp3, so I will post it as soon as I can).

After looking back at the assignment I realized that this was telling the story of Hercules, and not a story that I was creating. So I went back to the drawing board and focused on the songs that I know, Sara’s songs. (See? A first name basis.) The songs that most people know from Sara are very upbeat “screw you” type songs. So I knew that I wanted to tell the story of a break-up and what I like the call the 5 stages of breaking up. Consider it my artistic interpretation to the 7 steps of grief. So give it a listen here (but I must warn you that there are some “grown-up words” in it) and read along with the words below if you want!

Lyrics (bolded lyrics are  the transitions):

Once upon another time, somebody’s hands who felt like mine turned the key and took a drive, was free. Highway curve, the sun sank low, Buckley on the radio, cigarette was burning slow, so breathe. Just yellow lines and tire marks, and sun-kissed skin and handle bars, and where I stood was where I was to be. No enemies to call my own, no porch light on to pull me home, and where I was is beautiful because I was free. Leave me be. I don’t want to fall another moment into your gravity. Here I am, and I stand so tall, just the way I’m supposed to be, but you’re onto me and all over me. You loved me cause I’m fragile, when I thought that I was strong. But you touched me for a little while, and all my fragile strength is gone. It’s clear this conversation ain’t doing a thing, cause these boys only listen to me when I sing. And I don’t feel like singing tonight all the same songs. Here in these deep city lights, girl could get lost tonight. I’m finding every reason to be gone, nothing here to hold on to. Could I hold you? The situation’s always the same, you’ve got your wolves and they’re close whispering Hollywood’s name. Stealing gold from the silver they see, but it’s not me anymore. And I’m not the girl that I intend to be. But I dare you darling, just you wait and see; but this time not for you, but just for me. I said, how am I gonna get over you? I’ll be alright, just not tonight. But someday. I wish you want me to stay. I’ll be alright, just not tonight. But like most creatures down here on the ground I’m composed of the elements moving around, and I grow and change and I shift and I switch. And it turns out I’m actually kind of a bitch, but that only happens when I get provoked by some piece of shit asshole we all sadly know. And I sit and I write while reminding you all that mean songs are still better than going postal. And that guy’s an asshole, and that girl’s a bitch. Baby it’s natural, no getting away from it. So sing it out with me, and then let it go. Fuck that guy he’s just an asshole.

So here is my analysis of it all:

I start if off with the song Once Upon Another Time because it is the beginning of the story, and it talks about what the relationship was all about. It was relaxing and she had no worries during it. But, the somber tone of the song plus the title of it being another time ago is what is causing the audience to know that this is in fact a break up. This is her reflecting on the relationship about what it was. I call this stage lamenting.

Second on the line up is probably the song that you have heard if you kind of listen to Sara, Gravity. It’s pretty simple to understand she was tired of being held down and back. She is sick of having to depend on them for everything, and breaking up just made her realize how much they pushed, and still is pushing her down. I call this stage realization.

Next up is City in which Sara talks about getting lost in the land of independence as I like to call it. I like to imagine this as she is finally ready to branch out, she has learned how to be dependent but the whole idea of actually being independent is scaring her. I call this stage self-realization (not to be confused with the realization stage).

Self-realization then turns into courage when Gonna Get Over You starts playing. We go from the sad slower songs to the more upbeat and happy song, and you finally hear that she is feeling a lot more confident and realizes that she will get over the guy that brought her down. Like I stated earlier, this is the courage stage.

Then comes the grand finale, and grand it is indeed. Sorry for those who don’t like curse words (I’m from Jersey, it’s pretty much second nature to me), but it just all fit so perfectly together. Needless to say, this is the closure stage. Do I really need to explain it? The guy is a jerk and she is over it and has no problem telling the whole entire word. You go glen coco!! The best part about this song is the title, Sweet As Whole (get it???).

How I Did This:

Since this post is super long, I’m going to write up a separate tutorial for how I did this and post it on the tutorials aspect as well. You can read it here!

The first audio assignment that I chose to do was titled Song Story (***). For this assignment, the task was to pick a song and talk about what memory that song triggers when you hear it.

Picking a song was a little hard. I feel like every song triggers some kind of memory for me – whether it be positive or negative. For this assignment, I wanted the memory to be a positive one.

So I chose Wouldn’t It Be Nice by The Beach Boys. Here is my song story:

https://soundcloud.com/#klasalata/sound-story

I made this song story with Audacity. I changed the volume of the song while I recorded my memory. I wanted the song to still play in the background while I was talking. What I ended up doing was recording the song {from my iTunes} on audacity first. I turned down the volume while I said what I was going to say in my head. Then, I recorded me saying my story. The timing was a little off, but I fixed it with the Audacity tools. Here is what my work looked like:

This is my 17 second cover of the song “Kryptonite” by Three Doors Down. The people singing are, Me and Me, and on the beatbox we have the glorious Me!

I created this in Garageband in about 35min (it took so long because I was trying to sing in tune with myself. Honestly! The other me is always out of tune!) This was made for the Audio Assignment called “A Capella With Yourself” where you had to create at least 3 audio tracks,record with 3 different voices, and mash them up to make it sound like you’re singing with yourself.

My Process:

1. Think of a song to sing
2. Split the song into harmonization and beat by listening to the original song over and over
3. Record the main melody
4. Record the harmonization to the main melody
5. Make sure the 2 vocal tracks sync up the right way
6.Record the beat (consisting of a snare drum and high hat)
7.Mix the 3 tracks together and hope for the best!

The main challenges with this was, as I said, staying in tune with myself, so I dont sound icky, and singling out the harmonization pattern in the song. Once I found out what notes they were (or at least what key the song is in), it became easier to mix the 2 vocals together. Oh! in the image there are 4 tracks instead of 3. This was so the 1st half of the harmonized track could overlap the 2nd half of the track, so that the 2nd half could come in a beat early. So the middle 2 tracks are the same voice, just split apart.

Hay preguntas, alguien?