Song Assignment

These are the songs that my partner, Yingqi, and I created for our assignment. We decided to use two of the same instuments, an acoustic guitar and a piano track. We also decided to have different tempo, my song being much slower, and her song being much faster. Let me know what you think!

Cover Songs

I would like to talk about the song "Just Like a Woman" by Bob Dylan, and a cover of this song. Here is the version by Bob Dylan.

The cover of the song is a version by Amber Rubarth. Although I have her CD, the format is wrong and I wasn't able to upload the studio version, so you'll just have to enjoy this live version. It is still a very good cover.

The musical qualities of both are very different. A prime example of this is the tempo. Dylan's song is much faster, allegro, even. Amber Rubarth's version is much slower, andante, or possibly even adagio. The rhythm in Dylan's version is caused by, I believe, the harmonica sounds. Harmonicas tend to be drawn out, but have very high pitch and change very quickly. In this way, the drums and the guitar have to follow this speed. But with Ambers version, the rhythm comes from her own voice, and the guitar itself.

The timbre of the voices is also very different. When one hears Bob Dylan's voice, it is almost impossible not to recognize it. His raspy, almost wheezing voice has become iconic to many. Amber's voice is much sweeter sounding. The organization and instrumentation is different as well. While Dylan utilizes a variety of instruments, harmonica, drums, and guitar, Amber uses only her voice and a guitar.

There is an intensity in Amber's version of the song that is unlike Dylan's. While they both have intensity in their own ways, Amber uses meaningful emphasis in certain words in the song. This is how she also makes the lyrics different. While the lyrics are technically written the same, and Amber doesn't rewrite any of the words themselves, with Dylan, the song is very fast paced, and the words can seem to be thrown out into the wind. The sounds surrounding the lyrics don't seem to have a connect with the lyrics themselves.
When you look into the lyrics, they can seem very sad.

"Everybody knows the baby's got new clothes, but lately, I've seen her ribbons and her bows have fallen from her curls."

Bows have fallen from a baby's curls? But the baby got new clothes! The way the lyrics talk about the woman who is "just like a woman" seem to say that she wronged someone, the narrator perhaps,  in some way.

Amber's version seems to more aptly express the lyrics themselves, by slowing them down. She enunciates them and puts emphasis on words like TAKES, MAKES LOVE, ACHES, BREAKS. By using different musical qualities, she makes the song so much more emotional. So much sadder, so much more emotionally heavy. It makes the listener feel sad, and we can all relate to the heartbreak the song implies.

I think that is why I like the cover of this song so much more. It seems like Bob Dylan didn't really know what he had his hands on in terms of the lyrics. The version by Amber Rubarth just makes me FEEL so much more. I can connect to it so much better. Amber really helped o express what, deep down, I think Dylan was trying to say with the song.

New playlist3

Soundscape!

This is the soundscape that Becca and I made. So good man! So good!

We combined different types of sounds, some musical instruments, and sound effects as well. Let me know what you think!

New playlist1

14 Ways

For my MDIA 203 Class, the assignment was to read “14 Ways to get Breakthrough Ideas”, by Mitch Ditkoff.

The link to download this file can be found here: http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/49.06.14Ways

You are so totally welcome.

This was actually a very fascinating read. It put a lot of focus on the creative aspects of discovery, things that the fields of science and mathematics have apparently been keeping under wraps. 

The article has, shockingly enough, 14 suggestions for how to begin thinking and get on your way to discovering:

1. Follow Your Fascination
2. Immerse
3. Tolerate Ambiguity
4. Make New Connections
5. Fantasize
6. Define the Right Challenge
7. Listen to Your Subconscious
8. Take a Break
9. Notice and Challenge Existing Patterns and Trends
10. Hang out With Diverse Groups of People
11. Brainstorm
12. Look for Happy Accidents
13. Use Creative Thinking Techniques
14. Suspend Logic

I have chosen three of these tips to talk about in detail.

Follow your Fascination

This tip says to take whatever new idea you have and run with it. “Don’t dismiss it as trivial. Give it room. Give it time to breathe.” Mitch Ditkoff explains that when you are fascinated by something, it is supposed to be that way. There is a reason why you are drawn to a particular idea, and that this is reason enough to delve into the idea. He remarks that the origins of the word fascination should also lead us to this conclusion, with the core “fascinus” meaning “enchanted or delighted”, and that anything that enchants or delights us is sacred, similar to immaculate conception. While I find that comparison to be a little bit over the top, I do think that this tip is a good one.

I think that, since I have gotten to college, I’ve had a hard time following my own personal fascinations. From now on, I’m going to make a point to go out and do things when I am drawn to it. One of those ideas that has been nagging at me since I started school is the idea of going and tagging the wall at Seigfred, under the building, by the stairs. Before the end of this quarter, I’m going to do it. I’m going to create a design and then make it come to life on that wall. It doesn’t need to be big, just there!

Fantasize

For this tip, Ditkoff shuns the idea of fantasizing as only being for “perverts or children” (quite the opposites...), but also as being used master chess players, for people in the business and corporate world, and for dreamers of all types. He makes another point about the roots of words, this time between “fantastic” and “fantasize”. They share to common root of meaning “use the imagination”.

This is, I believe, another good tip. Honestly, it’s one I already actively participate in. After watching a movie, after a particularly good book, enacting conversations and fights with people in my head, “She would say that, and then I would say this! Yeah that would get her!”. It gives me the chance to develop my own ideas and put myself in situations, helping me decide what the best course of action would be to accomplish a certain goal.

Look for Happy Accidents

This is the final tip I would like to talk about. In this tip, Ditkoff explains that we need to wait around and keep an eye out for things that happen accidentally. Saying that sometimes, it isn’t about the idea, but what can happen without even thinking, when you just notice something is different or new or unexpected. He also talks about how some of the most world-altering inventions and discoveries happened by accident. 

Honestly, in comparison to some of the other tips included on this list, this one is a little bit disappointing. It just seems to say to me, “Sit around and wait for something to happen,” which is the lazy route. I don’t want to be relying on the fact that eventually something will give me an idea or the fame and fortune or whatever will just come to me. That’s just silly. 

Activity! Yeah!

At the end of each tip, there is a prompt, a little activity, to get the wheels in your head turning. I decided to use the prompt from Tip #4: Make New Connections. It prompts you to Make three lists, parallel to each other, one with nouns, one with verbs, and one with adjectives. It then says to find new and intriguing connections between those words. Here are the words I chose:

Nouns:

Puppy

Sorority Girl

Planner

Movie

Blanket

Paris

T-Shirt

Fence

A bouquet of flowers

Laptop

Verbs:

Run

Dance

Sing

Paint

Read

Activate

Destroy

Push

Slash

Smash

Adjectives:

(For these, I needed a little help from the good old internet! Random Adjectives, oh yeah!) 

Clumsy

Jilted

Belligerent

Fantastical

Deranged

Defensive

Exceptional

Fuzzy

Wonderful

Sloppy

I started seeing connections almost immediately, and it was all I could do to try putting down adjectives that I was already connecting with between the nouns and verbs. Even after finding the most random of adjectives, I found connections. I’m going to try to outline a story, or maybe a short film,from some of these words in a few sentences:

Open on a girl with her laptop, outside, on a sunny day. She is engrossed in her work, checking her planner. She looks defensive. A boy and a puppy on a leash walk up to her. The puppy is clumsily stumbling over it’s paws, which are too big for it’s puppy legs. This is where the relationship begins, the puppy noticing, going over to the girl, sniffing her. She looks down, smiles, and tries to go back to her work. But the puppy is belligerent. The boy apologizes and tries to lead the puppy away, although he himself doesn’t want to. After a little more Badgering by the puppy, the girl puts her things down, begins to melt, playing with the puppy, and a conversation between the boy and the girl starts. Flashes of picnics on blankets, dancing, a bouquet of flowers on a table, Paris, the girl in the boy’s T-Shirt, a wedding all exceptionally lovely moments, memories.

I thought of making it a love-lost story, with verbs like smashed, slashed, and destroy, and with adjectives like deranged and jilted, I certainly could have done that, but I decided to keep it nice. 

Bottom Line: Anything with puppies in it has to be nice.

I really liked doing this. I didn’t think it would be very fun, but now I have a few ideas for a short film, or a short story, or whatever! These tips really did end up being helpful.

Who Influences Me?

"C'est le temps que tu as perdu pour ta rose

  qui fait ta rose si important."

-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Le Petit Prince is a wonderful book. Full of wonderful quotes. And this quote is one that explains the way I create, and how I work as a creative person. Roughly translated, it means "It is the time that you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

My room is a mess, and I procrastinate like no one else. But when the inspiration hits me, I can focus as if I'm a completely different person. When I would work on my AP Art pieces, I would spend days getting the details right. It is always important for me to have my works of art be exactly how I see them in my head, to be perfect. And I chase that perfection until I am thoroughly satisfied with the end result. 

One thing that has always had a way of influencing me is music. It just gets into my head, and can change the spring in my step to more of a stomp. (And vice-versa)

One of my favorite artists is Panic at the Disco. Their theatricality and their style of music-- which is a combination of emo, pop-punk, acoustic, big band, electro-pop, and was even described on Wikipedia as vaudeville-- resonates within me.

This is their song “The Ballad of Mona Lisa” (which contains the lyrics that are now the title of this blog!)

This video is, I believe, a good indication of text and subtext. Firstly, we cannot take the actual text, the lyrics, very seriously at face value, with the “main character” being a woman called Mona Lisa. As we all know, Mona Lisa was once painted by Da Vinci, and cannot be the actual person in the song, especially if she’s surrounded by gin. There are also some seemingly-nonsensical or contradictory lyrics, like “let the sun rain down on me,” and while the lyrics are meant to tell a story, it is not a story we can decipher by just reading the lyrics themselves. 

This is something I like about Panic at the Disco. It allows me to make my own opinions about what they mean, put myself into the shoes of the songwriter-- “What could he mean by this? Who does he mean by Mona Lisa?” 

The music video itself also adds to the subtext of the music. The entire song is performed by the singer at a funeral, who also resembles, pretty exactly, the ghost of the man who is being honored at the funeral (in fact, it is the lead singer, Brandon Urie, playing both parts.). The singer also goes in and out of focaus, and can be seen in triple. This creates an unreliable narrator. It takes place in an unrealistic, steampunk-styled world. It’s completely fantastical and really makes you look behind what they are merely saying.

This next song is called "Bad Day", and is by the artist Darwin Deez. It’s very electrical, and is a great example of tension and release.

The song begins with a very jarring, high pitched, electrical beat. It almost hurts the ears to listen to. It continues just until you cannot take it anymore, and then the song changes to a very different style, with guitar, drums, and a tambourine. It is very much indie in it’s style.

The shrill sound comes back in the middle of the song, creating that tension again before continuing with the song. It’s very effective, reinforcing the theme of the song, “I hope that every day is a bad day for you, because I just don’t like you.”

The song also has a way of using only quick, short guitar chords, or even the sound of maracas shaking, in between the chorus, setting up the tension again until that easy chorus comes right back in. 

I would like to end, perhaps shockingly, on a movie that is my considerable favorite, "The Dark Knight".

And here's another scene:

Now these videos can’t show every scene I would like to talk about, but it should give a good idea.

I think that the dark knight does a great job of visually using contrast and affinity. The scenes with the Joker, who is loud, colorful, warped, and dirty, contrast considerably with those scenes with Batman, who is dressed in black, is considerably cleaner, has no rough edges, and thrives on silence and the ability to come and go without notice.

Through those differences, we see that Batman has a set of rules he abides by, he is clean, clean cut, and stands tall. The Joker is hunched, warped, dirty, and he is simply crazy. He has no rules. One affinity between the two would be that they both rely on fear to make people do what they want.

Batman also contrasts with the character of Harvey Dent, before he becomes Two-Face. He is seen in bright light, with a certain halo-like effect given by the lighting. With this contrast, we can see that Harvey is meant to be a savior for Gotham City, and he is even often referred to as “Gotham’s White Knight”. However, Harvey Dent also shares this “halo” and “bright lighting” with Batman’s secret identity, Bruce Wayne.

These are all things that inspire me in some way. Things that make me want to do more, to achieve more, to explore more. 

MDIA 203 Post #1 Baby!

God, why did I sign up for the 8-10am lab? I am really feeling the drag this morning. Ugh... sluggish, tired, achey. And this is after a night in. In all honesty, I had my pick of the lab times. Why didn't I choose something later in the day?

Maybe I chose this time because, at the end of last quarter, I was feeling a little more ambitious, a little more productive. "Hey, as long as Winter quarter is over, I can handle anything." Or maybe I wanted a little more time to get things done before friday night. "If I wake up early, I'll push myself to do more in the day."The fact that my sorority has brunch every Friday at 10:30 certainly was a factor. (I refuse to miss out on eating breakfast food.) I even knew of a friend or two who would be gracing the 8-10 lab with their presence.

As tired as I am now, maybe it will all pay off. I really hope I can get used to it, even learn to appreciate it. The reasons I listed were all real reasons I chose to take this class early. I would like to get more done during the day, or at least feel like I haven't wasted the day by the time I wake up. I love being able to see my sorority sisters at brunch, I really would hate to give that up. And the fact that I know people taking it, suffering the early morning heavy eyelids with me, makes me feel like this will be far from impossible.