The most recent Project as Action in my Soundtopia class was to create a mashup, which is a song that is comprised of at least 2 songs that can be combined together in some way to make them sound like one cohesive piece. The unit we have been studying is beat so creating a mashup went hand in hand with this project in that we had to find two beats that could match each other so the song was able to flow instead of be choppy and awkward. For me, this project was incredibly challenging and involved an enormous amount of trial and error. It took me so long to find two songs that I could put together and do my best to make sound like a good, flowing song. Even though it was a stressful process for me, I’m proud of my final product and hope you agree it flows as much as I do! Check it out below!
HM
JUICE
May 2013
133 seconds
The purpose of this project was to create a song that incorporated at least two different songs that were able to flow together and make the final product of a mashup. In order to achieve this purpose, I had to learn a great deal about beat and how two beats can be combined to make one smooth, cohesive song. We were also fortunate to meet with a DJ named Carlos who was able to create a live mashup and teach us about matching up the sound waves and speeding up and slowing down the tempo to better match up songs if they don’t quite go together as is.
The two songs I chose are Ghostwriter by RJD2 and Juice by Chance The Rapper. The vocals of this mashup are from Juice and I only chose the key parts of the song so that it was more recognizable to people who would be listening. Although I didn’t use the entire track of Ghostwriter I use it for the beat completely untouched and the entire way through until about two minutes in. It’s hard for me to decide whether the final product is utopic or dystopic because I love the two songs separately but the process of mashing them up together was stressful and it still feels like they could flow just a little bit better, however I still do like it. The beat is so fun and just easy to move to which for me makes it much more dystopic.
I created this mashup by beat matching and using Audacity, a file editing software. I began choosing one song that I found to be either utopic or dystopic, which I chose to do utopic and from there tried to find a song that would be able to flow with it. This process took me an incredibly long time and I had to start over and choose a new pair of songs that I could hopefully make work together. Finally, I found the two that are in this one, Juice and Ghostwriter and I’m happy with my final product!