This instrumental was created in Ableton Live using a Joe Pass song called Giant Steps. In my process to create this rhythmic piece, I thought about how instrumentals are often always 4 beats to every measure. I am a huge Neo-soul fan so I wanted to capture the original feel of the guitar riff into an instrumental that I could hear a Summer Walker or H.E.R. to, or even an Amy Whinehouse type of vocal over. I wanted to encapsulate the soul and jazz fusion, with bits of hip hop mixed into the feel of the beat. I added a different riff at the beginning to indicate a break before the official beat drops. The first four counts after the drop are for the hook. This hook section of the instrumental is varied slightly and repeated at the 12 count as well, leaving room for a few bars or lyrics before the chorus comes in again. I wanted to add a sense of structure to the splices I took from the original guitar sample, without taking away from it's jazzy riff.

Take Me Up

I created this as an experimental piece, adding effects to the last track I created called "Take me Up." This piece, "Underneath It" is an expression of how it feels to be flustered, caught in a windstorm, all of your testimony constantly falling on deaf ears. The difference between the two pieces is I lowered the output of the majority of the beat, to present this idea of being muffled, or unheard. I wanted to describe through sound how it feels to be silenced no matter how hard you may try to express. Within audacity I experimented with a number of effects. The main overlay is vibrato Kaleidoscope, which gave the tune a sort of underwater distorted sound. I changed the output, lowering it to -11db to make the sound lower than the original piece. I also used echo for the last chord on the piece. Ensemble feedback was layered over majority of the piece. The first effect I really touched and liked is called warmth chorale. I love the richness it had to it so there are 5 small parts within the instrumental which has no kaleidoscope on its sound but had this warmth added, those parts also sound most like the original sound quality. I also used vibrato spacial, which was added to the opening sound and then switching for the three same chords, which is why the noises sound sort of inverted, louder, quite, loud, quite. I went back and forth between vibrato spacial and kaleidoscope to add some depth to the piece and convey the message of being drowned out. I also messed around with strings EQ to modify some of the layered effects and make the pitch more evenly toned/smoother.

Underneath It

This project called "Piragua on the Blacktop" was inspired by the neighborhoods in NYC where I grew up. In Dyckman, there was often street vendors near the park, or down the block from my apt. building who would sell shaved ice, also known as Piragua's by Puerto Ricans or Frio Frio as most Dominican's would call it. For this piece I imagine this being the theme music for a narrative illustration or short silent cartoon. There would be a kid walking out of his building to go grab something from a vendor, but the main layer of the instrumental emphasizes the layers of people you have to navigate through and pass in order to just get to the corner. For example, you may have to dodge trash bags stacked up, avoid a barking pit bull dog, dodge the rolling dice in a dice game being played, see old men sitting down slamming dominoes down on a pitched up table, avoid a crackhead begging for change, all of this intensity just to get to the ringing bell of the piragua man, for a bit of bliss. 

To create this sound, I used simpler in Ableton Live. The original sample that I tweaked was a loop of "Amen Brother" by the Winstons. I used majority of the sample with small breaks in the piece which you hear at the beginning and throughout. The breaks were created using midi on my keyboard, and messing around with different notes. I then layered the pieces of the loop that I decided to keep with the effect "amp chord." I played around with mom capture to make the amp sound less full, as well as added drum buss effect on top of it. I then added a second midi track where I created my own underlaying beat using just midi from the Amen loop, so I was playing two notes on my keyboard to create a little rhythm. For this part I focused in on a single splice of the Amen track which was the clash cymbal sound near the end of the loop. I added the effect "chimes finger down" to that, which gave it a "sparkling sound" and layered that with a cha cha bomber groove ie; the jingle "bell" sound within the piece, which is supposed to be the piragua man's little bell to attract people to buy his icee's. It's hard for street vendors in NYC, especially when you aren't licensed to sell. They are just trying to make a little cash selling their slice of culture, without getting harassed by the cops. The main overlay of amp chord is the fast paced sort of pac-man vibe of getting around the "ghosts" or everyday hustle and bustle of the inner-city.

Piragua On The Blacktop

I created this track using Ableton Live 11. For this instrumental, I used MIDI tracking. I used a total of 4 midi tracks to create this piece, I do not own a midi controller, so I simply auditioned the instruments within Ableton and tried the sound out on my laptop keys, which serve as a MIDI controller. I explored different sounds in drum synth, analog, instrument rack. I ended up going with a couple of different sounds after digging and auditioning what I felt worked best together. I do not play any instruments nor do I know how to read sheet music, so I was just doing my best to use my ear and mess around with different notes on the keyboard. I created all of these beats within the instrumental by hand, using my fingers on the keyboard in what felt like a naturally rhythmic pattern for me. Although, I can hear some delay in certain parts, I was okay with that, and was able to edit it down to just specific clips I needed for the sound to come together in a synchronized way. The instruments I applied to my midi tracks are, Flute Mell, Sunrise wave, basic brush and DS kick, I also added a 5th one called brain freeze as a last minute adjustment. Luckily in Ableton when you capture midi it assists you by recording the sounds all in the same 1/16 pattern, but for me this sounded too stagnant so I adjusted things like attack, decay and even changed certain parts to 1/8, 1/32 to make the sound pattern a little shifted in certain areas, and add contrast to the piece.
To describe the different sounds. All of the sounds combined create an intense, sort of edm dance vibe for me. I named the track Uptop, because it reminds me of the pulse of NYC and how one must feel to leave their hometown or a more slow southern state and feel motivated and driven to come to such an electric place. The flute mell sounds like polka dots to me, like rain drops, like the many people all around constantly in the city, every corner you turn, which is why I played the keys both slightly sporadic and then fast to create sort of forward moving sound. Sunrise is a airy wind sound like a chime underlaying some of the rhythm, which represents the sort of polluted darkness of Gotham.  Basic brush to me sounds exactly like a Mbira, a west African "thumb harp" which my dad always had and played in our household. I like the curiosity of this sound and how it serves as a beat on top of the DS kick, which are the drums, the constant pulsing behind the beat which I think lends this piece to the deep house/edm genre. It makes me think of entering a smoke machine fuzzed club with purple strobe lights. The brain freeze is the strong electric guitar type sound that overlays every few counts on the beat. That is like the drive, ambition, anxiousness and gitty naiveness a person would feel when venturing Uptop.

Uptop

This track was created on Abelton Live 11, using MIDI capture from my keyboard. After creating the beat I recorded a single vocal track over the beat. I freestyle the lyrics of the song, which is what makes it sort of longer than your average 3min. song as it includes bits of conversational parts mixed in with the lyrical jazzy vocals. This is a dedication to being in lust during the summertime in NYC, it is an ode to childhood and recapturing the simplicity of feeling and being vocal as we are as kids, within a mature love letter to a crush. 

If you would like to use this instrumental or one like it, please let me know I'd love to collaborate! <3

You If Anything

This composition was created as a conversation piece about the  hypocrisy of our justice system and the racism that the police force operates by. While working in audacity, using only a singular sample of a door opening and closing, I extracted particular parts of the sample and begin to play around with effects that could portray a story. I started off with just a tiny snippet of a sound I felt could be used as an introductory melody, similar to those we hear in Hip-Hop before the beat drops. I then played around with different parts of the track clipping, splicing cutting, pasting and adding effects, to create a story. Some effects I used were reverb, echo, invert, fade out, wahwah, reverse and a plethora of others to distort the original sample, and create the sense of tension, heartbeats, gun shots, and pleading. I also used generate to create a pluck out of the sample, this pluck sounded like a siren to me, and that is where I was inspired to pay homage to the life of Breonna Taylor. I feel that art is a form of activism and should always seek to change ones opinion on a particular discourse. 

Breonna Taylor was a 26 year old African American woman who was killed by the police. Wearing plainclothes the police broke and entered her home in the middle of the night, while she was sleeping. The cops let off 32 shots, 6 of which struck Breonna Taylor. The police were blocks away from the actual home they were supposed to be investigating. I tried to convey this scene through my composition. Showing the duality of the siren how it is both used for intimidation and emergency. It can be both a triggering sound and also, like an ambulance, a sound of help. Lets all say her name.

daisydrift