I chose the song “Love Yourself” by Justin Bieber because I was familiar with it and saw a lot of potential for it to be more upbeat and easier to dance to.

Making this remix was very challenging but a lot of fun. Starting with just the vocal track left me with a blank canvas and I was overwhelmed with all the options I had. I decided to keep it pretty simple and stick to just adding drums. I didn’t want the project to end up being too busy.  On the other hand, I didn’t want it to get boring so I had to make multiple drum tracks. I think I ended up with about 10 different tracks. 

The original song is pretty slow so the first thing I did was to increase the bpm to give it a different tempo. The original is the kind of song that you can just sway back and forth to. I wanted to make a remix that allowed someone to dance to the song. 

Although I wanted to make the song faster and with a heavier beat, I wanted to start off slow and build up. This is why I kept the first 8 bars as a cappella. The next 8 bars have a very simple drum pattern that continues to grow and evolve. The really difficult part was having to make so many drum patterns that sounded good when playing them one right after the other. This was a challenge but I think I did a pretty good job at it. I also had to think if I should repeat drum patterns for parts of the song that repeated. While the choruses have different patterns, the pre-chorus is the same both times. I think that added some continuity to the piece. 

When listening to a remix of a song that I’ve never heard before, I never really know what to expect so I don’t think that I am ever a good judge of the artistic alterations that the remixer made. However, when I know the original song, I can notice all the little changes that were made and I can evaluate how they compare and contrast to the original. This also allows me to see if the original or the remix was more effective at conveying its message. 


Aliya Malcom