Learning a second instrument: drums

At the moment I'm trying to learn to play drums, I'm currently collaborating on a coupke of tracks with my very good friend Tom who is a extremely talented drummer.

One of my favourite things to do when producing a track is to programm the drums, not just accoustic and/or electronic but also epic cinematic percussion. My hands and feet are usually tapping on something in a rhythmic way (I'm very bad at sitting still) and because of all this I figured: why not just try playing drums?

Three days ago I was in the studio jamming with Tom and he taught me some basic drumbeats which I picked up pretty quickly, I really enjoyed it....
So yesterday I went to the drum pods and booked one for 1:30 hours and just jammed along to tracks that I liked and it was so fun! So today I bought some used drumsticks from Max and I'm going to try to practise at least 3 days a week to hopefully be mediocre by the time of christmas. Atleast that is my goal.

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Project 4, Session diary 7: Mick Gordon's DOOM soundtrack

Week 3, Monday 15th of May Goals: Optimize workflow, continue working on the instrumental, practice sound design in serum and with the Korg Volca Bass, write notation for instruments to record Resources: DAW (FL Studio, Logic), instruments (guitar, piano, etc.), leads, mics, Diary: I completed 3 of the 4 goals I set myself this week, I practiced sound design and wrote a blog post about how I jammed with the Korg Volca Bass. I continued working on the instrumental and have nearly completed it now. I tested the mix in MIT 3 through the Genelec speakers and wrote down some things I need to focus on and change to make it cleaner. I also restructured my room to create a more comfortable working environment, I moved my bed to the window to create more space to sit at the desk and removed equipment I don’t use to have more desk space. This really helped me optimize my workflow because I didn’t have things lying around and distracting me and additionally I could easily get t...

Project 4, Session Diary 10: Feedback from friends and tutors

Current version of song which I showed the people giving me feedback: https://clyp.it/dvawbtpy Today in Professional Industry Practice I approached a couple of my friends and my tutor Colin Doran to give me feedback on my song. I received very positive feedback overall and the main improvement points from my friends, Callum, Chloe, Alex, and Christie were to record some harmonies with the vocal, add some toms to the buildup before the chorus for extra tension and to make the vocal a bit louder in the parts where Lauren is singing quite low. Colin was very critical about the track but he said it is a very good song and has incredible potential. He suggested to rethink some parts of the arrangement because I the piano melody is very strong and needs to show a bit more sometimes, this could be achieved by some volume automation. The vocal sounded a bit muddy to him and he told me to experiment with different microphones and possibly record some counter melodies and harm...

Project 4, Proposal feedback reflection

Grade I'm working towards - Distinction I have received very positive feedback with which I'm incredibly pleased with, this motivates me to keep going on the path that I'm already on and putting more hard work into the tasks in order to get a distinction for my final grade. Chalie did not give me any points on which I can improve so I will try to list a few things on which I can focus on: Including more evidence such as audio, video, and pictures in my session diary blog posts and my research tasks Sticking to my deadlines, I have done quite a good job of this so far but there is still room for improvement. I will attempt to analyse why I wasn't able to hold in the deadline for a task I set myself and write about it in my session diary to reflect upon it so that it won't happen anymore in the future I should proof read my blog posts and research tasks and check for grammar, spelling and content mistakes

Greg Lester

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