Other Stuff
Hey, another actual video today! It’s been so long. I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about this camera, I don’t think it looks particularly good, but it does at least record in a viable frame rate, so it has that going for it. And, as of today’s experiment it has another thing going for it as well: since I’m recording directly on the computer, I am able to actually record the audio with my good microphone. Before I would have to record the video and audio separately and go through the hassle of syncing them up in post, throwing out the comparatively crappy audio that came with the video and replacing it with the track recorded on my mic unit. Now I can skip all of that and have the nice audio already integrated into the video, while also keeping a consistent frame rate and having the result already on my computer for editing without needing to transfer both the video and audio files over to it. So for the moment I’m thinking that the time and trouble it saves me might be worth a small dip in video quality, at least for the sake of these Journey videos. I may need to come up with a different solution if I need to record myself for something else.
But, regardless, on to the meat and potatoes.
Music 30/30 – Day 5
Today the music theory course finally starts getting into some of the stuff I’ve been waiting for: note and chord progressions, and minor keys. It’s just getting started, and I’ve been really enjoying everything leading up to this point, music is a fascinating subject, but this means that I’m starting to get into the stuff that’s potentially going to help me write a decent tune. Here’s hoping.
In preparation, I took the time to finish transcribing my Final Fantasy selection into Musescore so that I’m ready to sit down and do a full analysis once I know what I’m doing. I’m hopeful that if I can work out what is in the piece I’ll have a better understanding of how I might go about making something similar myself. For added measure, I also started a second one, the main theme to Final Fantasy VII. More complex than “To Zanarkand”, but still with a very recognizable and memorable melody while maintaining a haunting and wistful tone throughout. The beautiful thing about that one is that, being the main theme, the melody line makes repeat performances throughout the soundtrack, even shifting tone to become triumphant and hopeful at times, so understanding its construction could go a long way toward reaching my goal.
I also found a handy app for Android that lets you practice reading musical notation, and I already feel like it’s helping me get a better grip on things. At this rate, I may actually be a mildly acceptable musician by the end of this challenge.
Somewhat.