Music and Lady Gaga

Slur — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 15:08:10 +0000

Basically, I’ve been on a Lady Gaga binge the past couple of days. Why? I have not the slightest clue. I mean, she’s certainly not my favourite artist–she has Fleetwood Mac, Susumu Hirasawa, and Coldplay to contend with! Despite that, I find all of her singles quite catchy and pretty good to dance to. Now imagine an ORCHESTRA playing Lady Gaga. Strings. Woodwinds. Brass. Percussion. Wouldn’t that make her music even better? I can hear in my head what Bad Romance or Paparazzi would sound like played by an orchestra. Not only can I hear an orchestra playing Lady Gaga’s music, but also the music of Coldplay, Susumu Hirasawa, video games, and so forth. This leads me into what I want to talk about.

Susumu Hirasawa

I can make music on my computer; I can emulate the timbre of each instrument in an orchestra; I have the hardware and software …I sometimes create music for a well-known project in the videogaming community called Zelda Reorchestrated (or ZREO for short). The goal of the project is to “reorchestrate” every track from every Zelda game. By reorchesrtate, I mean transcribe each song by ear and then apply high-end instrument samples to the transcriptions. ZREO has inspired numerous, although less successful, sister projects like Super Mario Reorchestrated and Metroid Reorchestrated.

The point is, what if I take some time and arrange and orchestrate these songs by Lady Gaga, Coldplay, etc? I think I can do it. I think this would make a great idea for a project this summer. I just have to wait for some cables to arrive in the mail so I can hook up the M-Audio Firewire 410 that my uncle gave to me. …Or even arranging songs for concert and marching band. My band teacher jokingly suggested performing a Lady Gaga marching show one time. I think the idea has a lot of potential in terms of both the music and the visuals. The same goes for a video game marching show, such like the show that UC Berkeley did a few years ago. Lady Gaga’s music is not the most amazing work ever created, like some of her fans think; however, I think–and this goes for just about any piece of music–if arranged in an impressive or “unique” way, her music could cater to non-fans and even the most ardent haters.

Not only do I envision orchestral arrangements of songs, but also electronic-orchestral fusion. Much of my inspiration for this comes from Susumu Hirasawa, a Japanese electro-pop artist. He has done several anime soundtracks and has released numerous solo albums. His work is incredible to say the least, and I’m not sure if I’d be going too far to say that he is possibly a musical genius. His work has its own distinct flavour, a flavour which I have not heard anywhere else. I feel like I’m derailing from my original topic… To end, this discourse (or is it a digression?) take a listen to Aurora 2 by Susumu Hirasawa. Can you hear this type of work fused with an orchestra? Eventually, I’ll have to stop arranging and reorchestrating others’ music and start composing my own, but one must start somewhere, right?

–Peace!

Introductory Whatnots

Slur — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 00:40:17 +0000

Ah, here I go, jumping off the dock into the ocean of information, technology, and porn–I suppose–that is the Internet! I actually considered starting out my first blog post like so as a joke:

We’re all human beings. We’re all connected together, connected by an intricate thread of life. My goal with this blog is to connect with others and make a global community of leaders, activists, and dedicated workers. Together, we’ll make the world a better place. We’ll promote peace and end world hunger. With all of my readers, this will be possible. We’re all one. Life is a sine wave.

However, I was afraid that I would immediately turn away and repulse all of my prospective readers; that would have been terrible to say the least!

How rude of me though, I never introduced myself. My name is Spencer, and I’m new to the blogging community. I actually just turned sixteen yesterday. Getting the blog and domain set up was part of a birthday present from a friend of mine. As you may be able to tell, I am quite fond of maths, hence the name of the blog, The Sine Wave; however, that does not mean that I will be writing about maths. Nono, that is not the case at all. I will be writing about a wide variety of things that strike me as interesting, be it religious and political ramblings, music, food, gaming, computers/technology, or whatever life seems to be throwing at me at the time. Additionally, I’ll use this blog to update the status of my projects and share them. As for today’s discourse, I’ll talk about the upcoming summer and some projects of mine.

If you look off to your right, you’ll see a page entitled Projects. Please, do click there to see what I’ve got going on. My main project for right now is a website that teaches beginner Japanese (writing, grammar, speaking, etc.). If you’ve ever been interested in learning about Japanese, take a peek. I’ve only got one lesson up right now, but check back often; I’m working on adding new pages, lessons, and exercises every day and week. The things that I believe will distinguish this website from many others are the number of thorough exercises, quizzes, and examples that I’m providing. I would love feedback and suggestions for as to what direction I should take the project in. Also, in the near future, expect to see other projects spring up involving music, among other things.

I do plan on watching the World Cup...

As for my summer plans, I don’t have any major plans set in stone. Perhaps I’ll go on a few short day trips, but that is it. In order to avoid boredom, I’ve partway written a list of 100 goals and things that I have to do by the end of summer. Of course, I’ll be blogging about my various adventures in cooking, exploring, learning, and whatever else I happen to do. I’ll elaborate on my list in a page called “Summer Plans” under the pages section on the right.

I’ll close this up with one last thing. To my prospective readers: if you choose to read this blog frequently, I thank you very much. I promise to always find something interesting or helpful to write about. Have a great summer (or winter I suppose, if you’re Australian), and I hope that you stick around here and make yourself at home!

Peace!