Music: An Invention vs a Discovery (Pt 1)

Hey guys,

Sorry I haven't been blogging for a while. I've been (and still am) dealing with a family emergency. I'm actually writing this blog from a hospital room. Anyway, the guys of N.A.D. are almost finished their first mixtape, which we will release to you guys soon! So we're about to exit out of the phase of recording and entering into the phase of establishing our social networking bases, then into the phase of promoting, which we will also make you all a witness of! They performed another freestyle session, which is in the video below (they had no idea I recorded them). Otherwise, continue reading below the Ustream screen on what this blog is really about!


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I wanted to focus the next few blogs on a music topic that I'm pretty passionate about. In fact, I'm so passionate about it, that I wrote a research paper about it (and may even write a book on it). It's really a two-part topic actually. The broader topic addresses the argument of whether or not music was invented by humans, or if the idea of music already existed and we just discovered it. The "other" topic that somewhat connects to the first one addresses the relationship between music and the human mind... in terms of finding out how our brain processes music on a chemical level that makes us respond to it the way we do on a physical, mental, and spiritual level.

I merely state my opinion in this blog, and I really want you guys to chime in and comment with your opinion, as this blog is more focused on discussion than stating the "facts" (you may put the tomatoes away now). For the sake of time, I'm going to copy and paste part of my research paper so you guys can check it out, comment your opinion, and I'll join the discussion as well. Enjoy!

           "One of the other propositions in the World Music book, which we challenge this essay, states that music is a human-invented idea, “For our present purposes, however, it is proposed that music, understood as such, is essentially a human invention. It is something that either people make, hear, or assign to other kinds of sound,” (Bakan, Michael B, pg 4). Sound, as a component of music, existed before animals began to walk on land. We can all agree upon the one rule of biology that life evolves based on the conditions of the environment. When animals started moving from water to land, specifically before mammals evolved from reptiles, ears did not exist, until evolution realized that there were frequencies already occurring in the air that the new land-walking animals could not pick up. Then at that point, ears evolved. The article “From Jaw To Ear: Transition Fossil Reveals Ear Evolution in Action” talks about the discovery of one of the first mammals to form the ear. A man named Zhe-Xi Luo and his team discovered a mammal in China, one they named Yanoconodon, which had features of similar fossils dating about 250 million years back when dinosaurs still lived and mammals started developing. This fossil showed an “incomplete” separation between the jaw and inner ear bones. The article admitted, “This means Yanoconodon not only picked up the high frequencies associated with modern mammal hearing but also the vibrations transmitted through the ground,” (Biello, David). Luo stated in the article, "It has not completely lost this ability to sensitively detect ground vibrations through the jaw but has gained some of the modern mammal ability to hear airborne sounds," (Biello, David). Another article, “Evolution of Hearing,” confirms the development of hearing from amphibians to reptiles to mammals, “One of the defining characteristics to develop that separated true mammals from mammal-like reptiles was the development of the three-ossicle middle ear. This advancement allowed mammals to hear a vast range of frequencies that would prove tremendously significant for the development of auditory communication (Manley, 1998). It was also during this period that the tympanic membrane or ‘eardrum’ developed independently in each branch of the amniotes (Manley and Köppl, 1998),” (author not listed in article). It then goes into specifics of other auditory evolutions for mammals to better process frequencies in the air and to use it to communicate with other mammals."

Copyrighting

This will be an extremely short read, because there are two very small, but VERY important things to know about copyrighting

1. It protects all of your material from those who try to take credit for it;

2. Registering your copyrighted material is one of the first things you should handle before you perform or share a single word of your material to anyone else (aside from registering with a performing rights organization, which I will cover in one of my next blogs).

The reason why I created this blog for copyrighting is because a lot of people come to me about how/where to register their material, so for those who want to know, I'm providing you all with the link below:

www.copyright.gov

It's cheaper to submit more than one material at once because it will be covered in one bulk price of about $35, as opposed to submitting them individually for $35 each. I'm not sure if the price has changed since I submitted my material but that's how much it was for me. This website allows you to electronically submit your material and will walk you through everything. Hope this helps!

How I Make Beats From Scratch

Hey everyone,

The guys from N.A.D. (New Age Dynasty) should be here on Sunday so I'll see if I can get them on Ustream to give you guys some entertainment.

In the meantime, I know I promised you guys I would cover EQ in my next blog, so I'm going to skim through the channel EQ on Logic in today's Ustream session so you guys can see what it looks like and what it can do. However, I want to center this post around one of the most essential moments in my musical life, aside from singing, songwriting, learning songs on piano, recording, etc: Making Beats!

Now I'm aware that everyone has different ways of making their own music, so I just want to show you guys, from beginning to end, the process that I go through when I make a beat from scratch. In my live Ustream, you will get to see the mechanical process, as well as the "judgement" I use to put beats together. Sometimes, especially when I make my own beats, I have an idea in my own head of how I want it to sound, while at other times I would need inspiration from another song. For sake of demonstration and time, I'm going to use an existing song to build from so you guys can compare. I will also do my best to break down certain details of beats that (to me) makes certain genres sound different than other genres.

I will be Ustreaming live today March 22 at 12pm EST to give you guys the breakdown. There will also be a chat/social stream window below the Ustream screen below where you guys can talk to me, ask questions, share ideas, etc while I'm streaming. Again this will be recorded for those who may end up missing it.

For you other producers out there who are reading and watching, I encourage you to comment on the blog and share with the readers on here (and me) how you make beats. Come back and Enjoy!



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So What Exactly is Sound Anyway?

Hello Again everyone,

So hopefully today we'll get our first Ustream on the guys from New Age Dynasty giving us a glimpse of their free-styling skills. In the meantime, I'm going to give a breakdown of the energy we define as "sound".... for the purpose of a better understanding of the info I'm going to give in the next numerous blogs. This information will be necessary because a lot of these terms are used in producing, recording and mixing.

So what is sound and how is it produced? Let's look at the physics: Generally, "Sound" is used to identify a shift of air molecules that is created by some kind of impact and picked up by our ear drums. Specifically, think of it like a ripple in water. You touch it with your finger, a ripple occurs and expands. Sound is the same way. When an impact is made that causes "sound", air molecules at the source of that impact are shifted and cause high-air-pressure/low-air-pressure "waves" that expand away from the source, such as ripples in water. The image below gives you a visual example of what the pattern looks like. The parts where there are more air molecules are called "compression" (or condensation) and the parts where there are less air molecules are called "rarefaction". Non-impacted air molecules would have a more even distribution as opposed to a wave, resulting in lack of sound.

Remember in my previous blog "How To Build a Home Studio (Part 2)" (http://yungsolomon.blogspot.com/2013/03/how-to-build-your-home-studio-part-2.html) , I was explaining why cork or a soft-surface wall is important for your home studio? These were the sound waves I was talking about that bounce back and forth in a room with hard walls and floors.

Now let's break down the basics of what kind of information these "sound waves" hold. Well, there are two things: "Frequency" and "Amplitude". So for my "super beginners" who are reading this:

Frequency = pitch

Amplitude = volume

Let's look at Frequency. Frequency, in a nutshell, indicates how many of these waves are produced in one second, particularly in what we call "Hertz". One full wave is considered one Hertz. The more waves there are, the higher the number of Hertz, thus the higher the "pitch", (and every pitch/note you hear in every octave is assigned a specific frequency that produces that note). Check out the waves at the bottom of the image.

Now Let's talk about Amplitude. Amplitude is the level of "intensity" a sound has, which is shown in the vertical height of a sound wave. The "taller" the waves, the louder the sound. Normally amplitude is calculated in decibels (dB), and for those of you who are like me and are not mathematicians, all you need to know is, the higher the dB, the louder the sound. For the nerds out there, here's a link that further explains how amplitude is calculated: http://www.indiana.edu/~emusic/acoustics/amplitude.htm

Anyways, here's the last important piece of information you need to know about sound. This is what makes the trombone sound different than the piano when they both play the same tune. There's this thing called a "tone" that represents just one frequency. Normally, a sound that's produced is made up of a group of different tones (or a group of frequencies) that happen at one time. This group of tones, or what I call an "overtone", has tones that occur at different frequencies and at different amplitudes, which makes that sound, or "timbre", unique. So in terms of the trombone vs the piano, they both are playing a note where most of their frequencies and amplitudes are in a similar area, but the exact number of tones, their frequencies, and their amplitudes are different, which is what makes the piano and trombone sounds distinct from each other. So, sounds with multiple frequencies and tones would look a little more like this dysfunctional-looking guy below:

OK I think I've picked your brains enough for one blog. We'll be Ustreaming below LIVE today March 17 around 12pm EST so check back in at that time for some good music production in action, some more valuable information, and even send us an instant chat message below the Ustream screen! You can also watch the previously recorded videos until then. Enjoy and comment! :-)

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What MIDI Is and How to Create a MIDI File

Four words:

"Musical Instrument Digital Interface".

Generally, MIDI is a way that computers and musical devices "talk" to each other. Specifically, MIDI is a way that devices such as keyboards, DAW's of other computers (Digital Audio Workstations, or "music softwares" for you super beginners out there) transfer specific information about a recording, involving information about each note that's been recorded:

1. What key is each note;
2. Length of each note;
3. Placement of each note (where that note is in the recording);
4. If there's a chord, what are the notes of that chord, how long each note is in that chord, etc

So if I have a Keyboard, and I record a bunch of notes in that keyboard, and if I want to transfer all those notes from that keyboard into my computer using, say, Logic Pro. I would transfer it via MIDI format (I will show you how to transfer MIDI data in another blog).

So why is MIDI even necessary and how is this different than a regular audio recording? MIDI is mainly important because once you transfer that data from one device from another, you can use that second device to make changes or edit that MIDI file from it's original format in the first device; you can change the notes around, change how long or short those notes are, change the placements of those notes, and even change the instrument used to play the recording. So, say if you're not a fan of recording songs using a DAW and want to record a song by using the keyboard instead, but you can't stand the lousy instruments that came with that keyboard (and would prefer an instrument from your DAW), you can still record the song on that keyboard, then transfer that data into your DAW via MIDI, and then use one of the instruments in that DAW's library to replace that ugly instrument your keyboard used.

If you were to record that song via Audio recording, your DAW will record everything "merged" together as is. So not only won't you be able to change the notes around, but your DAW will also record that ugly instrument from your keyboard and you won't be able to change that either.

Let's take a .doc format (MIDI) and a PDF format (Audio recording) of a Microsoft Word document (Device), for example. If I create a document using Microsoft Word (Device #1) using one computer, save it as a ".doc" format (MIDI), then open that file from another computer using Word, or any other software that takes .doc files (Device #2), I can add words, take out words, change the font color, and pretty much anything else I could do with Device #1. However, if I took that original .doc file, saved it as a PDF (Audio recording), then tried to open it up using Word or Preview (mac software for opening JPGS, PDFs etc), I can't make those same changes because everything has been merged or "glued" together. That's pretty much the difference between a MIDI file and an Audio file.

This video shows you how to use one device to create a MIDI file (Logic Pro), and how flexible a MIDI file allows you to be in editing and changing your recording:

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How To Build Your Home Studio (Part 2)

Hey guys,

This is a continuation of the information I shared in the last blog, "The Beginning". The guys aren't here to record today so it's just little ol' me on Ustream showing you how a basic home studio is structured. Below the video is the rest of the list of stuff you will need for your studio:




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-Monitors: Monitors are built specifically for "monitoring" sound in a studio. There are specific effects in music that you will hear much more clearly in monitors that you may not even hear at all in speakers or in amps. Good monitors on the low side run about $200 each (mine are KRK Rocket 5 monitors and they ran about $170).

-Pop Filter: Probably one of the cheapest pieces of equip that you'll buy for a studio, but it's built to do two things:

1. It eliminates "popping" sounds from fast-moving sound waves caused by your voice that impact the mic and distort the recording. The material/pockets in the filter "break up" the air molecules caused by the sound wave before it hits the mic (for the other ladies out there, it's like a hair dryer with a diffuser... it protects your hair from direct heat produced by the dryer by "breaking it up" before it reaches your hair).
2. It protects the mic from spitting...

-Studio Headphones: The savior from what I call "double sound". Monitors (if they're in the same room as the mic) must be turned all the way down or off during a recording, because if your monitors are turned up while recording, the condenser mic will pick up the sound coming from the monitors and record it into the audio track, then the audio track plays it back into the monitors, then it gets picked up again, and the cycle continues infinitely, causing what's called "feedback". So, headphones allow you to hear the recording and instrumentals while recording without having the monitors. Of course this is one of the main reasons why studios have a separate sound booth and control room. Good quality studio headphones start at about $100.

-Cork: As you see the room I have my studio in has NO cork whatsoever (and no carpet), which makes it by the far the least ideal setting for a studio, but I'll get that fixed soon. This is where the physics of "sound" come into play. When you have hard walls and hard floors, sound that is produced in that room is like throwing a beach ball anywhere in the room; it bounces back. Sound waves bounce back and forth continuously at a fast pace and the mic picks it up, causing that "reverb" or "echoey" sound. However, when floors have carpet and walls have a softer surface (cork, or egg cartons), those sound waves get absorbed by those soft surfaces, which makes them less likely to bounce back, as a beach ball being thrown on a bed. That gives you a "dryer" sound, which is what you want! Your best bet is to get a bulk of cork from home depot or like the roll below.

-Cables: Cables, obviously, connect all the devices to each other. There are different types of cables so I explained some of them and how they are used in my Ustream video.

Hopefully the next blog in a couple days will be our first recorded session with Yung Solomon and some of the other guys so you get to see them in action and I get to show you how all this stuff works! Make sure you subscribe at the right via email or google reader to stay updated!

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The Beginning!

Hey Everyone,

Ayana here from M Pire Magazine. I recently have taken up the job as an artist manager, and I wanted to use this blog to serve as an ongoing and informative "documentary" on whom I know are going to be major mountain-movers in the music industry. When I mean "informative", I mean you will be getting written, visual, and audial guidance from yours truly and the artists on here on a bunch of musical stuff, like how to produce your own music, how to mix your own music, how to operate a DAW (digital audio workstation) like Logic, Protools, etc., how to make it in the music industry as an upcoming artist, etc. And when I mean documentary, you will see all the information mentioned above manifest for our artists in our LIVE Ustream sessions, live podcasts, updates, upcoming adventures, all in our blogs.

I want to introduce to you Yung Solomon, who can freestyle rap like no one's business!

He is one of a new entourage called New Age Dynasty, which is s circle of artists who are working to bring back the old-school system of music using the new-school style, while expressing real-life situations that everyone can relate to. Once we get our first Ustream session of these guys going in, we will do our best to tell you in advance in our next blog when our live stream will take place, then stream it in the blog afterward. So make sure you stay up on our blogs and don't miss out!

While you guys wait, I'm going to get you started on your first line of 411:

How to build a basic home-studio!

There are a few things you will need: a mic (basically, a condenser mic is normally used in a studio, versus a dynamic mic which is normally used for stage performances), an interface, a pre-amp, a DAW of your choice, a computer, a cork board, headphones, at least two monitors, a pop filter, and the fancy cables that connect all this stuff. Let's break down what some of these things are:

-A Mic = outside of what I explained it was above, the cheapest one with really good quality are the RODE ones (I have an nT-1a), which run about $300 or so, but that's if you're on a low budget. In the meantime, you can get the cable below you will need to even use the mic (mics don't come with it):




-An Interface = in a nutshell, it's the "mediator" between your mic, the computer, the monitors, and anything else connected to it. Since you obviously can't connect your mic directly up to your computer, you can connect the mic to the interface, then the interface to the computer. I use a PreSonus firebox with an mLan cord, and interfaces also run about $200-300 on the lower budget.

-A Pre-amp = is the key between a crappy-sounding recording that sounds like it was recorded in someone's home, and what sounds like a radio-quality recording (that actually was recorded in someone's home). The pre-amp connects between the mic and the interface, and basically makes your voice sound much more "crisp", and less "muffled" as it would sound if there was no pre-amp there. It's not a requirement to actually record anything like the interface is, but it's HIGHLY recommended if record labels and radio stations are hearing it.

-DAW = as I said before, it stands for Digital Audio Workstation. Logic Pro and Protools are considered DAWs. GarageBand is too, but in my opinion it's a poor excuse of a DAW, which is why it comes free with a macbook. I use Logic, but a lot of the information I'll give you guys in these blogs on how to use it can apply to Protools as well, as they are kind of two sides of the same coin. These DAWs come with all kinds of cool functions, but in the case of recording, they come with plug-ins such as EQ, compression, reverb, and all the other mixing tools that make your recordings sound professional. Now explaining what these plug-ins are and how to use them will be revealed in future blogs via our Ustream sessions and in writing so stay tuned!

If you want some more details on how to work Logic Pro, check out the DVD below:



I will explain the rest of the stuff above in my next blog, as I don't want to turn this one into a novel and overload you guys with too much info. Remember to leave comments below and subscribe so you can stay updated on the next blog and tune into our live studio sessions. You will get to see the devices listed above during these sessions as well.

Until next time, remember to keep building your M Pire, and continue to watch as we build ours!


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