Ideal costumer: Dude's theme

     On this post I am creating the ideal costumer to my final work, I used Venngage to carry out this task. My final work is a soundtrack for a videogame so I am target someone that is into the geek culture and appreciate listening to music. 

Dude's theme ideal costumer 

Final project Research: Wave Tom Jobim

     In today's class I will be researching  about the Brazilian musician Tom Jobim  and also I will analyse one of his  music piece called wave.

    Tom Jobim influenced many artists around the world and he is considered one of the best composers of all time. "Rare for a South American composer, he influenced American jazz and pop at least as much as anyone else in the second half of the 20th Century. His passing has a special impact upon artists in the jazz and mainstream pop communities" (Heckman, 1994). 

    Tom Jobim were responded to  popularize Bossa Nova around the world, a genre he helped to create by  mixing  influences from samba and jazz. "Garota de Ipanema" also know as girl from Ipanema is Jobim's most recognizable song. It's the second most recorded song in the world, only behind Beatles' yesterday. The most famous version of this song is the one Jobim recorded with Frank Sinatra in 1963. 

    The piece I will analyse today, Wave, starts with an introduction in D dorian (the second Greek mode), using a common dorian vamp going to the first chord Dmin7 going to the 4th chord of the scale G7. This song has a really interesting chord progression, there are unconventional modulation and great uses of borrowed chords.      After the introduction the song modulates to D major. The structure of the song is atypical and unique, unless most popular songs it does not have verse and chorus, it follows an ABAB jazz structure, which means this piece intercalate between 2 different parts.

    Beside all the modulations and borrowed chords another element that cast my attention is the great amount of chords used in this song, there's 21 different chords being used, which is totally unusual in popular music. For instance, songs such as something on the way and horse from no name use 2 just chords.

     I chose to research and analyse this Tom Jobim's piece because it has quite interesting chord choices, and an exotic chord progression that brings me ideas and takeaways to use in my own composition.  For the pieces that I 've been writing i intend to use long chord progression and Tom Jobim is a specialist when it comes to music harmony, so that I will try to incorporate some of the techniques used to write this piece into my own music vocabulary.

             Wave Tom Jobim

Wave 

Girl from Ipanema

Reference: 

 Heckman D. (1994). APPRECIATION : Jobim Was More Than the King of Bossa Nova. [online] Los Angeles Times. Available at: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-12-09-ca-7119-story.html.

Website Research: Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers

   On today's class I will make a research and analyse the Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers website. This website research will assist me in understanding how to create my own website so I will consider the overall design, colours, and typography, navigation, usability/user-friendliness, links and mobile view.    

I will begin analysing  the Foo Fighters website. The home page is very simple. There's  only the Band name on the left top,  different navigate pages on the right top such as their last album content, news, merch and tour. On the left bottom there's social medias link and on the right bottom there is privacy police and newletter. The website is quite minimalist and  easy to navigate. However, it is too simple and monotonous. There is not much information about the band. It would be more interesting if the website had a page with the story of the band. Moreover, it could be more visual appealing, it is too minimalist.  

Foo Fighters' website home page

 

    The merch  and tour page  well organised,  but are not interesting, everything on the website is visually monotonous and tedious. 

Foo Fighters' website merch page 

Foo Fighters' website Tour page

    The Red Hot Chili Peppers website is a bit more interesting, principally the home page. I did like the colors and the font used, it is much more appealing than the Foo Fighters website. The structure both websites are  similar, there are 4 different navigates pages and  there is the medias link on the footer. Although, there is not much information about the band story.

Red Hot Chili Peppers home page

The music page is really interesting and  well organised. I liked the fact that there are pictures of the cover albums, and clicking on the albums we can see the date of release and link of streaming platforms, which I thought really useful. 

Red Hot Chili Peppers music page

     When it comes to the mobile view both websites worked very well, they still having the same features, pages and tools.  They still very organised and clear. They might be the models I will follow for the mobile view.

    To conclude, this research was very important and useful, especially because now I am certain of what I would like my website to look, and what I would like to avoid. In my perspective it is important to have a "about" page and that was what I missed the most in both Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers. My website could have a bigger visual impact, so I will be working on the aesthetic of my website. 

Software Practice

 In today's class, I made a  techno song using Amped Studio. The song is in the key of Gm and consist in 7 elements tracks. I used a Drum track, Guitar, Vocal,, Bass, Flute and 2 piano tracks. The software did not have many varieties of chord progression, tones and keys. It would not be possible to carry out my final project using this software. However, the practice was definitely worth, because I learned to use a new software and worked out of my comfort zone, making samples and beats, which is something I am not used to. 

My work at Amped Studio

 This is the final result:

Software Practice Song

Software Practice Photoshop Portfolio Concept

 In today's lesson we are creating the portfolio page with the concept of my project on Photoshop.  I began by creating a blank canvas on photoshop. I created with a black background. I did this by clicking on new file and then I clicked  'Print' in the dialog boxes that appeared. I chose A3, orientation, background colour and  then clicked on create.

I chose a picture in Unplash, downloaded it and opened on Photoshop.  After that I clicked on show transform controls in the top menu and  I adjusted the size of the image 

After that I added the name of my project and my name using the Text tool in the left hand menu. For the projects name I used the size of 60 pts and 23 pts for my name. For both I used Arial Black font

 I created and added a logo using free logo design I customized the logo and added my name on it 

Then I wrote a text about my final project 

Then I used the text tool and changed the size for 20 pts and the font is Arial Black.

Eventually I saved the project as a PSD file in case I need to edit it later.

Creating a Website: About Me Page

     I am Pedro an musician and music producer from Brazil.  I started to playing drums when I was 7 years old due to my older brother influence, who used be a drummer in a punk rock band in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I was not truly passionate for drumming and music until I discovered Foo Fighters debut album which was entirely recorded by Dave Grohl, it pushed me as musician, and  I started play other instruments. I became interested in audio because I wanted to understand the whole process of making record. 

   I started working with music and audio when I was  17 years old in a record studio in Sao Paulo. At, 19 .I started getting more involved with bands and play live concerts more regularly.  At 22, I joined DMU to start a new chapter in my life and get involved in the British music scene.

I wrote the text above and copied and pasted it to the "about me" page, I changed the font to Arial Black

I started working on the mobile edit 

Then I added a picture of myself

Mobile view:

Creating a Website: Contact Page & Social Links

 In today's class we started  to work in the contact page and the social links

I changed the background color and the font of the text to "Arial" , so that the page it matches the other. I exclude some useless items and information such as phone, email ad social media.  

 After that I went to de settings and I added e-mail notification and then I set the notification to my own e-mail. 

Then,  I created social media links and pinned then on the bottom bar of the website. 

I excluded the ones that would not be useful and swapped to the preview page to check if the links were working 

Finally, I swapped to the mobile view to see if I would need to do any changes