AUM162: Week 13 [Last Week]

I managed to finish about 90% of the track this week. Still wanted to add a few guitar parts as the mix was feeling a bit empty and also to finally add some atmos sounds and also some samples. For the verses, I decided to stick with my idea and not have a melody line, but instead have a dialogue sample looped through it. Also, for the end of the track, I wanted it to have a fade out but also have it be gradually drenched with reverb, so then it feels like a hazy, dreamy exit, also with some atmos. After this, this track would need good re-mixing as I can hear a lot of "fighting" with instruments in the track in terms of frequency range, so I definitely need to EQ and space each element out. Click below to hear the track at his current stage:

AUM162 Composition

My lecturer had a listen to my track and picked out some of the things I had to work on such as keeping a consistent groove, and just simple mixing things to look at such as my amount of reverb. At the end of the week, we also needed to write a reflection on this composition so I made sure to note down the instruments/elements I chose for the track and why, and the feed back I got and how I could improve on for next time.

As this is my last week of AUM162, I'm really glad to have chosen an elective that was focused on music production. It's really helped freshen my music theory which I learnt in high school years ago, and motivated me to be open to new things when composing. It was good to meet the students in my lectures as well and learn from them too. The transcription projects were a big help too and improved my listening and analytical skills. Our second project which I haven't talked about much, EarMaster, had many courses that we had to complete which trained the ear. Even though it had a lot of glitches and most times, ridiculous amounts of questions, it did help improve my ear and help me figure out what I need working on.

One thing I regret not doing this trimester was studying more. I wish I had the motivation to have used Lynda.com, YouTube, and the resources in the library as I knew I would've retrieved a lot of information from those.

Apart from that, this trimester was really enjoyable and I got to work on my music composition skills the whole time other than writing essays or focusing on the technical engineering side of things. I hope to continue learning more music theory and keep making more tracks to improve for future compositions!