Post Talk

Whoa. It's all over...
I've spent seven weeks working hard on creating an EP and POOF after ten minutes of talking, it's all over. Not entirely, since I'm still writing this blog, but I'm no long presenting and I don't have anything to worry about except not being embarrassed by my own music...

-       Four to Five Minutes: More like seven... 

-       Visual component

o   PPT, Prezi, other? I did use a Prezi that took forever to make. I spent a good two days just creating this Prezi that whizzed and whirled as I made my speech. 

o   Creative and supplemental.  You drive the presentation, not the visual. I surely hope I did... Even jumping up and down while screaming "I know what I want to do in life" kind of scared me.

-       Content:

o   Inspire through your passion This is where I wanted to focus most on my project

o   Show your product I barely showed my product and I somewhat felt like I was focusing too much on my message while somewhat ignoring the project itself. 

o   Explain your process Oh. I mainly talked about my message and only briefly explained my process through my anguish. 

o   What is your purpose?  What should your audience take away from your project? The  whole purpose of this speech was to send a message to my fellow peers to follow their dreams... which is what they also should take away from this speech. 

-       Organization: hook, transitions, logical order, effective conclusion I tried to write in a way that one thing flowed into the other, i.e. how my song about not giving up flowed into the part where I talked about my failures.

-       Delivery: refined, poised, and enthusiastic I definitely felt enthusiastic, although I recall stumbling at multiple points and even choking once... which probably took away a lot from my presentation. 

-       Dream big. My TED Talk was about dreams!

-       Show us the real you. I tried to show the real me during my intro and when I started to sing. 

-       Make the complex plain. Does explaining my deep inner conflict through small stories count? I think so. 

-       Connect with people's emotions. I heard some giggles... I hope.

-       Don't flaunt your ego.

-       No selling from the stage! Oh. Oops. -1

-       Feel free to comment on other speakers' talks, I didn't really have a chance to do that. 

-       Don't read your talk. I think this is the reason why I started to choke up. I actually had note cards but I don't remember looking at them at all. Maybe my self-confidence took the better part of me and caused me to trip.

-       End your talk on time. I'll admit I went over time by a lot. Which isn't so great. 

-       Rehearse your talk I'd like to give a shout out to Brooke and Sam for listening and critiquing all my drafts of my speech. You guys are awesome. 

OVERALL GRADE: 27/30. I actually pondered over that for quite a while. I realized that I didn't really explain my process in depth and in detail. I kind of just flitted over the seven weeks time and jumped right into the main message. With that in mind, I also stumbled across words a couple times which made me a little frustrated and kind of caused me to derail for quite a while. 

I'm actually happy to have done this project and honestly I felt like this is one of  my favorite  projects that I've done (not my work but the whole idea of this project). It was fun being able to flex my creative and musical muscles for a little time and although I'm not happy with the editing, it was still cool to put a CD-R full of burnt music into a radio I had as a little kid and hear my own music come out of it. 

Most importantly I'm happy that I'm able to have a good 8 hours of sleep now... 

hehehehehe. 

Eat Sleep Chill Fly.

Quick Link to my Bandcamp

Directions: Click Read More then click on the picture.

Finished. Finally.

I have finally finished editing.

In all seriousness though I am so relieved right now. It's not that I didn't enjoy this or that this was extremely tedious, but it was more as of the stress level that recording gave me.

Which gave me an opportunity to flex my meditation techniques once again. I used this technique to keep my head from exploding all over the place.

Which led me to another thing. Was I really cut out for this? Was this the life that I really wanted? After much debate, I realized that no matter how stressful that this was, my brain releases an unnatural amount of dopamine each time I listen to the completed product. No, it's not because I'm extremely happy with the way I sound, but it's the idea that I'm am that much closer to the real deal. Yet, I am so far from it, and I want to someday achieve the goal of having my music heard everywhere. It's a dream that seems so far fetched, and as I mentioned before in "chasing dreams" there's still that tiny tiny window of a chance.

After hours of creating the design for my CD (which will be revealed at the TED Talk, although the album cover is on my bandcamp), I started to write my TED talk.

Like my music, I wanted my speech to be a little more than just explaining what went wrong and what was right. I wanted to make my speech count for something... or at least make the slightest of impacts. Yet, I was also wondering why I was so interested in music. Why couldn't I have been scientifically adept? Why wasn't I able to calculate trigonometry in my head like kids from mainland China?

So I did a little "research" (a.k.a. I was trying to find who I was on the internet).

I came across this quote by a very good friend of ours.

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”
 -Victor Hugo.

And I was stunned. First off, Victor Hugo looked like a complete macho-man. Moreover, I was stunned about how true this was. Especially for me.
 My mind's extremely complex, and it is sometimes extremely difficult for me to put myself thoughts into words. I get confused by myself extremely easily, which is because I don't think in words, I think in pictures. Art was always a way to put my thoughts onto paper/music without me having to actually talk about it... since as some people may know my thoughts may seem incoherent and occasionally inappropriate (that's when I don't really think through what I say).

Now that's why music is so important to me. It brings me back to my first few questions... am I cut out for this (emotionally)? Yes. Is this the life that I really wanted? Yes. How did I get those answers? I asked myself "What if"... which is actually the topic of my TED speech. If I go any further I'd just be typing up my speech.

With all that said and done, here's the finished product on Bandcamp (Click on the album cover):

Welcome to my little adventure.

I hope you all enjoy it.
Eat Sleep Chill.

My Road to Editing.

FINALLY

I've finally finished all my recording. Well... most of it. You see, as a musician who's recording, I tend to hold high standards for my work. Which is why during my editing sessions I seemed to enjoy cutting out snippets from my tracks and re-recording.

Before I could do any of that, however, I had to first learn what I needed to change and which preset/tool would change what.

When a track is recorded it may not sound the way that the artists want. Some artists like to add the notorious auto-tune. Other artists like to add the "basic" effects. When coming into this project I had absolutely no knowledge of these effects what-so-ever. Which is why I did some research. I soon discovered that there were three main effects that all artists used:



1. Compression: When audio is recorded, the raw format is comprised of different volume levels. This may be a result from different stresses on different notes/words, the clarity of the diction, or even the distance of the vocalist from the microphone. According to this site the compression unit (either as a machine or as a preset in the Digital Audio Workstation) equalizes the volume. This helps keep the volume be more consistent and neutralizes most of the annoying thuds from over-exaggerated "b"s or "p"s (trust me this problem is a pain in the neck). I also had to learn about what to adjust when working with compression. There are five main parts to compressing audio: Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release, and Gain. All compression units will have these as knobs in that exact order. Threshold basically allows the user to set a level at which the compression starts: any decibel under that level will not be changed and everything above that level will be equalized. The ratio sets the degree at which the compression takes place: certain levels of ratio can make the volume higher or lower. The attack and release control the beginning and end volume of each sound. The gain just controls the overall volume. Here is a site which explains the whole process in a little more detail.

This was mostly "Lemme crank this up/down to see what happens"

2. Equalizer: The equalizer, oddly enough is somewhat similar to the compression.  When recording there may be sudden bursts of sound (i.e. when a person yelps on purpose [I don't know why someone would do that, ask Marcus Mumford] or some random note that's just so happens to be clearer). A person would use an equalizer to bring down all those random noises and create a over all even volume level. The difference between this and a compression is that the compression controls the whole sound itself from the beginning to the end and helps to control the overall volume of the track. Equalizers, however, keep the whole track smooth, so there aren't sudden bursts of random noises. It also more specific than a compression: as shown in the graphic, the user can control the levels of certain decibels (read that a couple times it makes sense). Here and here are two sites that I used to understand equalizing (I didn't really understand the concept until I came upon these two sites). As shown in both sites, there are many types of equalizing tools. I so happened to use a graphic equalizer, which I found easier to use. I used to have Ableton Live, which used the freeform equalizer, and trust me, playing around with what seems like a basic line mountain is terribly frustrating...

WOO! Pretty colors!

3. Reverb: Sometimes, tracks can sound boring and bland. Trust me, my original indie song (there is another story I'll explain later) was terribly bland until I got frustrated and opened my iTunes to listen to music (bear with me). I clicked on a Mumford and Sons song and started to listen. Yet, this time was different, since I started to note what made their songs so great. I noted a certain amount of compression but... there was something else I could quite put a finger on. But it kept coming back... and I realized that there was the tiniest hint of an echo to Marcus' words. So I went on trusty ole' Google and typed in "echo in music". Nothing. I kept searching. There had to be something out there that made this magical echo come to life. Quickly, I was exposed to the word "reverb". This was a new concept to me. I pulled up my trusty friend, Musicianself, and started to read this article.  I learned that reverb was just a series of delays where the end of the track itself as repeated in a quick consection. The echo was repeated with a less volume and a little bit of distortion. I happily obliged and added it to my track.

This made me sound cool

After cramming all that information into my tiny noggin I felt like this:

About the Indie Song:
Unfortunately I will not be including my indie song. For a few reasons, some personal (mostly) and some technical.
I actually had to find out the hard way that my voice isn't cut out for indie rock. Which is fine, because if you have ever heard Pavoratti sing rock, with all due respect, it sound's terrible. Yet, I came into this assignment with excitement that I might finally be able to sing a little like Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons. Nope. Guess not.
I mean it was a little disappointing but afterwards I was kind of glad I didn't do it... I don't want to end up embarrassing myself. The technical aspect was that the microphone didn't pick up the low-ends of the instruments used well. Even with all the compression, the bass ended up just sounding like a low buzz. Not good.

So I replaced it with a generic classic.
Good bye indie, hello musical theatre.
Yes I've replaced it with Stars from Les Miserables, a song that I am extremely familiar with, and something I could whip up in a couple minutes since I've already committed the song to memory (no it's not because I'm obsessed with Les Miserables but it's because of the endless amount of recitals I've used this with.). It's a song that utilizes my bass range which has really developed in the recent years.

With that in mind, I shall also be changing the album name. IF THERE IS ONE MUSICIANSHIP LESSON YOU WANT TO LEARN FROM ME, it's don't name your album before it's done. As I mentioned in the vlog, I wanted to do an EP on the idea of being relaxed. Yet, as time passed, my songs became deeper and a little more emotionally charged.

So another here's another good-bye to Calmbone, and hello to Flying.

Eat Sleep Chill.

My Vlog

My Movie from Eric Huang on Vimeo.

FUN FUN FUN

Recording Recording Recording

So now I start to get a little more technical. Though I'm not fluent in "recording" language, I still have a lot of jargon up my sleeves.

After acquiring the studio set from a good friend of mine, I sat down to do a little bit of research. I spent the next couple of days learning about the correct body posture of when to record, how to set up a microphone correctly, the do's and don'ts of a recording, and what to tweak when editing.

When a person records, they must have an aligned body posture; the point of recording is to capture the sound made by the human (in this particular case). If the body is cramped up or the head is compressing the vocal chords, those chords will not be able to vibrate as freely as they would if the body position was correct. As demonstrated here, the body must be aligned to a perpendicular line to the floor. While practicing a couple of my songs, I remembered how the author specified that my chin must be parallel to the floor. This allows my vocal chords to vibrate in their natural position without being stretched by lifting my head up or being compressed by tilting my head down (according  to my voice teacher).

Another thing that I kept in mind when I started to record was the usage of diaphragmatic breathing. Breathing correctly controls the amount of air used which then results to what most singers call "controlled breathing". Most people breath by lifting up their shoulders and putting them down; however, educated musicians who utilize their lungs often know that using the diaphragm to breathe is way more useful. The diaphragm expands the lungs down and out instead of up, which creates more space. I found this source to be extremely helpful since the author writes the anatomy of diaphragmatic breathing (second to last paragraph) . Here's another article I found on diaphragmatic breathing and I was actually surprised! I've read through a couple of science-y type articles on the benefits of this way of breathing and I was quite surprised (Some examples here) Not only did I learn about how to use diaphragmatic breathing but I also got sweet info on some other effects of diaphragmatic breathing. As I delved deeper into the topic (I know I sort of led myself off tangent a little) I found out how diaphragmatic breathing actually helps to clear my throat. According to the "normalbreathing" website, the negative pressure that is created from drawing the diaphragm down helps to pull all the gunk away from the vocal chords.

With all the anatomy behind me, I sat down to do some technical work.
Whenever a person wants to record in professional quality you need a couple materials:

1.) Microphone (with XLR chords and Filter)
3.) A Recording Program

I had to learn the importance of a good microphone. There are many types of microphones and I had to sift through all of them to pick which one would suit me the best. I had a stage microphone that I used to use on my Youtube videos, but I quickly realized how little it would help. Stage microphones, or dynamic microphones, are built to be resilient and resistant to moisture (according to here and here [these two provided easier to understand information then other sources]). Condensers, however, pick up more details and clarity.

So I picked up this:

This is an Audio Technica AT2020 Condenser microphone that my dear friend lent to me. There is an outside screen that protects the inside diaphragm (not the body part but the circular apparatus that catches sound) from damage. The filter helps to keep out a lot of moisture.

As you may see, I am not in a professional studio editing. As time drew closer to the recording dates, it became apparent to me how expensive it was for me to go to Morning Stars Studios and actually record. Therefore, I concluded that I would be able to use similar tools and still get close to the same quality by  just borrowing the equipment. In addition, borrowing the equipment would give me a more hands-on experience with the whole situation; if I had gone to the studio there would be someone on the other side of the glass working the mixer for me... I wouldn't have been able to learn anything.

As you may see, these are just images of what I look like when recording. And no, I am not touching the filter with my mouth.

Eat Sleep Chill.

Chasing Dreams

The musical is over (assuming that you're reading this after 3/9). Although there are serious pangs in my heart after not being able to sing with these cast-mates anymore I'm on the road to immediate improvement.

During these past stressful weeks I've done nothing butwrite my music. Along this way I started to discover myself as a musician. Thought's like "Who am I?" and "What is this I've created?" have been raking my brain ever since I started. 

Then, a few days ago when I was writing my final song, it became emotional. Overbearingly so. 

I found myself craving for the success that so few have gained even though I knew that the chances of me getting to that point would be close to impossible. 

Close. 

So while I was writing a slightly heart wrenching song about a heart-breaking girl I thought about what would it be like if I became famous. Then I stopped. 

WHAT AM I DOING? I'm drooling over a dream that I can only sleep about. I slapped myself, then told myself this:

If this is my dream I should be chasing it, even if the door is only the size of a pinhole. I should at least try to push through to get through.  

I'm about to start recording, and I'm getting really excited about this. 

So much for writing music. 

Eat, Sleep, Chill. 

Step 2

I've finished writing my rap songs. Now I have to write my indie pieces... which means literally sitting on a chair with my guitar cranking out chords until something fits together... I guess.

The tracklist will go something like this (and this is totally subject to change since I have other songs I can put on the EP)

1.) Breaking Barriers
2.) Consensus

Any who. So today after I came home, it struck me weird that I haven't heard myself sing in a long time. If I wanted to record some good sounding tracks, I at least need to sound good at first.

So I wandered about, pulled out my camcorder, plopped down on a chair and recorded a short and sweet song to put on my shriveled up youtube account.

Here it is.

Youtube (The file size is too large for basic Vimeo):

I can't say that I'm proud of this. My support sort of dwindles and dies towards the end of the song, but compared to last years videos this is surprisingly descent (since last year my voice hadn't settled yet and basically I was wailing at the camera).

Have fun judging me.

I've finished all my reading and boy, do I feel different.
I've never actually meditated before, but with this new book I actually discovered myself... as close to "enlightenment" as I will ever get.
I have a new technique to deal with stress, especially since it's musical season. This technique helped me focus and got rid of all the nervousness I have during these musical runthroughs. I can then transfer this over to my album making.
It's called the Candle Technique. Basically, I started off today by watching candle flicker. I let everything out of my mind as the flame danced in the darkness. After a while, I blew the candle out, and then envisioned the candle in my mind, allowing my mind's eye to zoom in and focus on the flickering flame. I was strangely calm but aware of my surroundings. Everything seemed fine and as soon as I was done, I finished my indie song's chord progression. Cool right?

Eat, Sleep, Chill.

The Journey of a Mile Starts With One Foot

I got it guys. GUYS I got it!
My first instrumental is found and I'm almost done writing it! I can't really show you what I have so far because... I mean that's spoiling the song.

Otherside, by Macklemore originally was a song about getting sober and fighting through the hardships of life (if you want to go listen to it, go, but there's profanity in the original song itself so listener discretion is advised), so I thought it'd fit perfectly into my theme. The instrumental itself is not harsh like a Waka Flocka (-shudder-) song, but instead carries a mild guitar background sound track with the beat. (I'm using this as my first instrumental)

In this song (so far) I've been writing about the harshness that sometimes comes with life.



So as of now, I'm just working to get all my music aspects done so I can work on the technical aspects. Basically just a "meh".

All in all, I've finalized my idea for the EP.

Eat, Sleep, Chill.

Progression:

The Logistics

I guess I had already forgotten to write about my plan for this EP.

To be perfectly honest, I'm probably not going to start the inner depths of my project until after the week of March 6th, since I'll be depriving myself of sleep for the Musical.

When I get started I will do the following in order:

Find two instrumentals for my raps.
Write 2 three section (Verse, Bridge, Chorus) chords for my indie songs.
Beg my parents for a recording studio.
End up borrowing my friend's recording equipment.
Record the four tracks.
Edit.
Graphic Design the front and back cover
Make copies

the first five will happen in the first five weeks of the procees, in which ever order.
The last 3 will take up the last two weeks, which will result in endless nights with no sleep.

I also realized in order to make this somewhat of a unique progress, I decided that part of the proceeds from this EP will go to peace-making groups and anti-violence funding programs, since my central theme is revolved around relaxation.

Heh. Fun.

Eat, Sleep, Chill.

Chill Out

People who know me back in the day have told me I "sing way way too much" or I "need to stop singing" because they "need to copy down these science notes" (Like really? Are notes anyway more fun than listening to a wonderful rendition of McHammer's "U Can't Touch This"). I always keep those comments in the back of my mind and never really spent too much time thinking about those words. Until recently that is. I've been getting more and more serious about vocal performance. I've sat down and talked to myself in the mirror (and my sanity is still somewhat in check) and asked myself "Is this the road to take? Is this the path I'm willing to stick with until the day that I retire?"

I only find myself nodding after each question. 

So why make an EP?

Why would I want to exploit myself in a situation where people could potentially slap my CD on a table and point and laugh at it?

All because I want to. I don't want to live in a world of "What if's" in life. I don't want to live in a world of complete regret and denial. 

So in the next seven weeks of my life, I will be ripping my hair out trying to slap together a five song EP. Of course I'll be digging through my hundred-page long song archive to find some calmer school appropriate songs to record if not editing the ones that aren't so kid-friendly so I will be able to advocate my performances in school.

After days and days of pondering I finally came to the conclusion that I was to write an album based off of the idea of being "chill". Not "relaxed" since that word has a strong mature connotation and I want my music to be able to be tolerated by kids my age yet still contains the idea of calmness. 

Of course many close friends might snort after reading the last paragraph and think to themselves "When is Eric ever calm". If you're one of them, I'd like to say this: 

I am calm when I'm...

1.) Asleep

2.) Meditating

3.) Making music

I know this might be a change from my normal everyday behavior, but please don't go into any shock or anything... just understand that I'm exploring the Buddhist Monk side of me.

This EP is also to show anybody what I had changed from in the past. If you had known me freshman year you would have noticed the inability to focus and the lack of determination that I had. Yet this year, I have attempted and somewhat succeeded in fixing those problems. This EP is only here to show anybody how much determination I can really put into one product and how my passion for music can help me focus on completing the tasks at hand. In addition, I will be learning a few meditation techniques that will help to rid of all distracting thoughts while working on this EP. Though it may seem insignificant, if I am constantly distracted by outside stimuli, I will never be able to finish this. Also, my whole album is rotating around the idea of relieving stress, getting rid of stress/experiences of getting rid of stress, and being calm I want to see if meditation will help me. I will then be able to transfer that to everyday assignments, like studying or even fixing a technique in water polo.

With that in mind, here are the reasons of why I chose to do an EP (some reasons have been mentioned, others have not)
1.) To be able to keep a central focus (resource: Deep Meditation-Pathway to Personal Freedom by Yogani)
2.) To be able to rap with "flow" (I've had trouble in the past to keep myself on tempo when rapping)
3.) To be able to write songs and record songs.

Yet, after all, the main reason why I want to make "Calmbone" the EP, is because I want to spread my music and my abilities. That's all.

In order to keep track of where I am at, I will be creating a timeline/schedule that will keep me on task.

So welcome to my little adventure. 

Eat, Sleep, Chill.