Senior project is halfway done and I feel pretty happy with what I have done so far. I have to admit that the third week, due to a slew of commitments, was significantly less productive than it could have been. Regardless, I am still at a point that I am proud of. I have been able to figure out how to play along with a movie rather than a metronome, which was a challenging barrier to overcome. I have rapidly improved at sound design/subtractive synthesis. This has been so helpful both in the context of the project and the music I do outside of this.
The volunteering opportunity at P.S. 290 fell through, which was a bummer, but luckily I am working with the Brooklyn Book Bodega, so it was alright. I was ghosted by one of the composers I was planning on working with, but there are two other composers who are willing to give feedback on the project, so it is fine. I have also been struggling to bridge together the recordings I have done. Some of them are in different keys or just do not make sense when they play back to back. Certain things, even if they sounded good, did not fit in the larger score. This leads into the question I am now trying to answer: How can I create a continuous score that sounds dynamic and does not get repetitive? The movie is an awkward length. It is too long for a short song, but too short for multiple songs. Regardless of this challenge, my main goal has not changed. As long as I have a score by the end of the project, I am happy. I like the way my project sounds so far. It is really exciting to finally be making the music I have spent so much time listening to. Emulating this genre has been such a learning experience and made me further appreciate synthesizers and the musicians that use them. It is a completely different workflow to the rap and electronic music I regularly work on.
In the second half of this project, I really just need to double down on recording. There is still so much to record, and if I do the same amount of recording in the next three weeks as I did the first three, I will not complete the score. That being said, I did not record the first week and the second two weeks were not full weeks for me, but I still want to double the amount of work I am putting into the project moving forward. I have full confidence that I will finish, but I have to pick up the pace. It is going to be challenging. I really do not know how I plan to bridge all the sections together, but I will figure it out (I have to). My senior project has been very fun and I am excited to continue working. I will include a tiny snippet of what I have been working on below.