Ethan COM109 SoundInClass

V1    
lying motionless counting the stars
the vegetable stares at the walls of his ward
The hand looming just overhead
The blade descends; already dead

Chorus 1
Too good to be true
I refuse to see it through

V2
Hardened skin of heart and of stone
When thrown it shatters like the bone
Burning deep below his ego 
He hidies  from the god he used to know

Chorus 2
Dipped in the caramel-worded treat
Bobbing easy; sweet deceit? 

Bridge
Blinding light; i am ashamed
Yet from my skin ive been cleansed

Chorus (last)
O Body slick with guilt
Eye stares into the quilt 
Sun leaves a cloying taste
I dread the mornings embrace

Piano: Jie Xi (SM58)
Vocals: Raizel (AKG 420)
Room Mic: SM58
Backup vocals: Crane (AKG 420)

PROD-DEMO3-ORIGINAL-ETHANCHEN

PROD-DEMO 4-NEW_ETHAN CHEN

Lyrics: Dinz, Ethan
Vocals: Raizel
Keyboard: Hui Yan, Ethan
Drums: Ethan
Bass: Caleb, Ethan

Lyrics:
Has it been this bad all along
The dissonance between us feel so forlorn 
Drinking from a empty cup
Walking down the endless corridor
Looking for a remedy
Wondering if theres something u could change
Finding my way back to you
back to you
Back to you
Finding my way back to you
back to you
Back to you
I loved that feeling just you and the grass
Throwing notes at each other across the class
Now we spin along with this world 
Shackled down by the duties of work
Finding my way back to you
back to you
Back to you
Finding my way back to you
back to you
Back to you
Drinking from a empty cup
Walking down the endless corridor
Looking for a remedy
Wondering if theres something u could change

Prod - Final Song - Ethan

inspired by Brian Eno and Phillip Glass
tried to emulate their rhythmic and percussive style, which was evocative of something adventurous and mystical, so I wrote a small story of some adventurer in the waitomo caves (which is covered in glow worms)
avoided using percussive instruments for a more cinematic feel, but it trailed off after the second segment of the song.
(sorry for the late submission; didn't feel like it was good enough to submit but elliott and raizel convinced me to "sharpen the knife")

prow 1/7

Summarize the central idea / message /
theme of your piece

friend of mine has an actual grandfather clock which was really cool because you could see the cogs and springs, but whenever it chimed it was quite creepy. reminded me of Scrosese's Hugo, and also Steve Reich's Different Trains, so that's what I based my piece off of.
Instead of directly emulating the vibe of a clockwork mechanism, I tried to create a story of wondering through a clock with an initial curiosity; that moves into a oppressive fear of the big cogs and gears, but ending up in awe of the grand harmony of everything working together.

Articulate your differentiation factor(s)

More experimental and ambient, but still relaying a narrative through means of imitating textures and patterns from the organic inspiration and with a more synthetic sound.

Describe the delivery strategies you
employed to convey the central idea /
message / theme

In Steve Reich's Different Trains, there are segments where the strings imitate the speech of certain spoken phrases, and it has a very eerie feeling to it. Steve Copeland's documentary of him in Africa to find the origin of rock also led him to the realisation that complex rhythms could be created from repetition of actual verbal phrases. I needed there to be a feeling of overwhelming but also a creeping fear, but didn't want to overcomplicate the process, so I used the phrase "gong of grandfather clock", which to me felt like a 3 on 4 shuffling beat alternating between two tones. I formed the middle section of the song with this first before building into it with a smooth synth/string intro and resolving with more harmonic and palatable rhythms.

Prow 2/7

Summarize the central idea / message /
theme of your piece
I used the song We Belong by Pat Beneath as a basis from which I could make my song around, and tried to make it as bright and pop as possible while trying to explore different compositional/songwriting techniques to convey messages of Longing, Fulfilment, and Excitement.


Articulate your differentiation factor(s)
Instead of trying to make a straight up 80s song, I used the chord structure as a skeleton I constructed my piece around, so it has more free reign of sound and expression, not confined by vocal range or standard pop writing styles.

Describe the delivery strategies you
employed to convey the central idea /
message / theme
I used 3 compositional/songwriting tools to explore the messages I wanted to convey, namely the graphic score, motifs that were both improvised and scripted, and contrasting stable with unstable tones. I decided to split the song into three segments for each of these, with no relation to the lyrical sequence of the song, but a vague feeling of how the song flowed. Inevitably I mixed a few techniques together, but I mainly followed the graphic score (the album cover for the song) for the first sequence, then the motifs & stable/unstable tones in the second, and a combination of both for the final resolution.

Prow 4:7

Summarize the central idea / message /
theme of your piece
A sonic interpretation of a stefan burnett painting of a few people floating in the air. An eery and unnerving painting that seems to imply a lot of internal conflict, arguing and bargaining with oneself, but with an insidious disguise of some other distraction.
Heavy emphasis on cloaking your own emotions by keeping yourself too busy to confront them, or too tired to bother trying, ultimately left hanging and disconnected with your own spirit

Articulate your differentiation factor(s)
A more consumable form of stoner metal and modern classical, with a simpler form of abstract expression derived from a visual medium.

Describe the delivery strategies you
employed to convey the central idea /
message / theme
Took Stefan Burnett's painting as reference. There are four "hanging" bodies in the painting and the painting is black and blue, so I created a background that was cool but ominous, and also made a short story for each of the subjects. It felt more like 3 different subjects in the painting (with 2 men as 1 subject), so I split the song into three different movements, and bonded each of them together with a chiming bell to represent the sort of looming death you see depicted in the painting.
In the start and at the end theres a sort of screaming strings and horns like the sort in horror movies because this painting is straight out of a horror movie, and each character has their own voice that mimics the sort of timbre in the screaming. So all the voices have some sort of irritability in them, and compensate for something inside them by being loud and annoying.

Prow 5

Summarize the central idea / message /
theme of your piece
A sonic story about how an ant walked across my table, but also injected with a personal attitude towards my current situation
Looking for something, but angry that everything is just a blurry mess with no discernible direction, eventually looking inwards for answers.

Articulate your differentiation factor(s)
An unpredictable melody surrounded by unstable harmonies; emulating anger without means of distortion or overly harsh tones.

Describe the delivery strategies you
employed to convey the central idea /
message / theme
Plotted out a small story beforehand about the ant; about how it felt and where it wanted to go, but eventually grew into a more personal project about my own frustrations
Organised the sequence of the segments, then identified the textures and timbres I wanted for certain characters or moments
Built a few patches to emulate my feelings using those textures and tried to stay away from my habit of using too many sounds by combining a few of them together for a denser, richer sound.
Initially followed the plot as a structure, but took note of last comment about music being a temporal experience and went back to reorganise the sound into something more cohesive and clear.

Prow 6

Summarize the central idea / message /
theme of your piece

started off from a poem scratched onto the walls of a nazi concentration camp called "I believe", themes of hope and belief in troubling times.
there was a song written by Mark A. Miller using this poem, which I took inspiration from, and also took inspiration from a chorale piece called O Magnum Mysterium to evoke the grander narrative the author of the poem seemed to believe in.
Tried to create a sort of bittersweet atmosphere, though it still feels like its lacking some depth, and focused more on telling a story of resolve/determination and hope.

Articulate your differentiation factor(s)

It has a dense atmosphere thats more immersive, but utilises an ambiguous melody that still tells the same story even in different voices.

Describe the delivery strategies you
employed to convey the central idea /
message / theme
Began with creating my environment with pads and flutes, and tried to imitate the chorale movements and progressions harmonically. Had a lot of difficulty trying to make it not sound cheap and gimmicky because there isn't a lot to work off of, but rearranging the chord progressions came up with some nice twists in the song.
Experimented with a muffled melody to couple with the compressed instrumentation to make it seem more ambiguous and drowned out by the harmonies, until the final break at the end to signify being suffocated and coming out on top.
Tried to incorporate some sound effects though the term effects is used very loosely because the sounds are still from instruments though they don't function so much harmonically as they do as sonic accents.

ethan chen