I created my loop project using garage band. First, I knew I wanted to highlight a variety of different percussion instruments. I ended up picking “African King Tsonshi” to start the piece. Then four bars later, I added “Tambourine 2” and four bars after that, I added “Brazilian Ago-go”. As a woodwind player, I knew that I wanted to incorperate some type of woodwind loop that was available. I was between a flute loop and the oboe loop that I ultimately chose to use. Then as I got to the chorus, I added a 3 second sound effect to add anticipation and then I cut small portion of the oboe loop to lead directly into the chorus. At the chorus, I added “Action Synth” to add energy to the song.
When it came to musical form at the beginning of the song, I gave each percussion instrument a 4 bar intro. Then I added the oboe loop into the mix and thats what I consider to be the first verse. After the first verse, I have a small percussion break and then the oboe loop comes back in for the second verse. As the oboe loop is ending in the second verse, the 3 second sound effect plays followed by a cut piece of the oboe loop to lead right into the chorus. The synth comes in at the chorus and I end each 8 bars of the chorus with a cut piece of the oboe loop. I repeated this process until I got to what could be called the bridge. I took 8 bars of the synth and added two different cut pieces of the oboe loop on top of it. For the outro, I let each instrument play for 4 bars and the last four bars feature the oboe loop that most of the piece is based upon.
I feel this is a valid way of creating music because it really makes you think about the structure of the song and what you are adding to it. Without the form of the song, you would just have noises put together which some people would still argue is music. Before this project, I didn’t think that creating music this way was a legitimate way of making music.
Alex Lemma 