danbarnettmusic

[danbarnettmusic]

Social Media for Music Teaching

I regularly use Twitter for building my learning network of other teachers, composers, and lovers of music tech. Twitter is a great space for quickly promoting work, especially short clips and pictures of students. Our district has a very active Twitter and social media program where much of our district music events get retweeted or uploaded through official channels or our admin team in attendance. Quite a few times we've had building principals and our superintendent share what we're up to which has been a fantastic PR boost for out music program. I am also a regular user of Discord and have a separate business account where I am in several servers with other musicians, composers, and educators to share our thoughts through instant messaging. I'm quite a fan of the Scarlett Moon server, hosted by video game music label Scarlett Moon, which has a huge community of music-minded people that I chat with weekly.

[danbarnettmusic]

Technology Assessment

Technology in a small-group instrumental lesson setting can be challenging, as we are already quite "hands-on" with our instruments and figuring out our first sounds and steps. But, there are ways I do and plan to incorporate this into my classes. Regarding assessment, I'd love to include video assignments using FlipGrid or OneDrive to upload videos. I have tried using SmartMusic in the past for this, and I find there are certain pitfalls, such as the time it takes to create an assignment (this adds up when you have 140 students tackling different etudes in both string and band method books). In return, video assignments and providing video feedback can net me greater returns for individual assessment since I can both hear and see what the student is doing. Then, if needed, I can provide video feedback in return and even model if necessary.

I regularly use Sibelius to write out various parts for differentiation for students. Many times I'll have a student working at a slower pace and needing a part that fits their skill set during concert time. It's very quick for me to write a quick "second" part for these students on Sibelius so we can all play ensemble repertoire together and provide a comfortable challenge for each student. Finale, NoteFlight, and MuseScore are great alternatives to this, and it becomes significantly faster when you incorporate MIDI input and keyboard shortcuts.

[danbarnettmusic]

Sampling Ethics

Sampling without the consent of the original artist can be morally acceptable or unacceptable. The line is drawn depending on how much of the original material you are sourcing. We musicians commonly take inspiration, borrow, and steal (yes, steal) from one another to create. You would not call using the bVI bVII I chord progression stealing, as it's used by many songwriters. The same could be said with the drumset backbeat, of which there are only so many variations before we start getting a bit rhythmically "weird." If you use a sample to create the backbone of your song in terms of harmonies, melodies, and beat, you should seek consent and list the sampled artist as a songwriter for royalties. This was done with Kid Rock's "All Summer Long," where Lynyrd Skynyrd was accredited as a songwriter due to the extensive sampling of "Sweet Home Alabama." Or, you can do what MC Hammer did with "U Can't Touch This" and settle out of court with Rick James for songwriting royalties! If you use open-source synth patches or other well-known samples in the production industry (such as the Amen break) that are not a "backbone" in your production, I think this is no different than borrowing a chord progression from a colleague. Giving credit, however, is always a plus.

[danbarnettmusic]

Analyzing Green Day’s “Basket Case”

Hey ya’ll, I chose Green Day’s “Basket Case” to analyze the song structure. You can find the tune here if you don’t know it: https://youtu.be/wZ8eZRxFA-0 A quick analysis of the song structure is as follows: Verse 1 0:01-0:23 (measures 1-16) Chorus 1 0:23-0:43 (measures 17-30) Break 1 0:43-0:48 (measures 31-34) Verse 2 0:48-1:10 (measures 35-50) Chorus 2 1:10-1:30 (measures 51-64) Break 2 1:30-1:40 (measures 65-72) Build 1:40-1:46 (measures 73-76) Bridge 1:46-2:08 (measures 77-92) Chorus 3 2:09-2:27 (measures 93-106) Outro 2:27-3:03 (107-124) Definitely a punk rock classic, and I like that they incorporated some different phrase structures. Often you’ll find a two bar phrase that moves the chorus quickly to the break, or helps make a section longer like the outro. The breaks and builds in between also help set up each section and clean your palate, which really helps sell this common song structure.

[danbarnettmusic]

Real, Hyperreal, Unreal

Great example of a very "hyperreal" studio recording is Huey Lewis's Hip to Be Square. The studio recording was very well done with acoustic instruments and very minimal effects beyond some stereo delay. The panning is done extremely well with each instrument taking up different points in the stereo field, really making you feel like you're in a studio session with them, but everything is tight and synced perfectly. Backing vocals from the San Francisco 49'ers at the end just make it more fun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbF1g3k2mtw This can then be compared to the live or "real" recording they did a few years ago. Since you're hearing this from the audience perspective, everything is fairly summed up in mono. Gone is the stereo delay that helped widen the field, especially when you listened with headphones. The horns are mic'd up, giving them a powerful punch along with the saxophone soloist with a wireless mic system. Most notably, the guitars in this mix are turned WAY down and thinned out since they are effectively single-tracked. No backing vocals at the end also lose the "grandness" of the open, but the band makes up for it with their improvisation leading up to a huge fermata at the outro instead of the studio fade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZwmq7trZsU As for a "surreal" recording, I happen to love ADFX-10 off the Ace Combat 7 soundtrack. While there are live instruments to be had here, there is so much synthesis work underneath it that drives the nature of this boss fight. Brass is doubled with saw synths along with driving electronic and taiko percussion. Stereo effects like ping-pong delays and auto-pan are critical to the sense of unease as elements go around the stereo field, which can never be done live from a stage. Even the opening and closing vocals sound haunting and unreal, with EQ used to significantly thin them out. Fantastic for a boss fight against a literal computer! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVTGwyCfiU

[danbarnettmusic]

Peer Remix

As a forward: I am a huge fan of Nik Nocturnal's "Anything Can Be Metal" shorts which inspired me to go in this direction. You can find a great example here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0pmJ3EkfwCI I took Heather's Loop Song from Assignment 6 and did a few things differently...some a little more on the nose than others! 1. The intro has the original mix played on a tape machine, slowly fading in over some pads and ambient guitar that become more chromatic. This does a spin down as the opening drum fill kicks in. 2. Lots of heavy metal guitars in Drop A, drums, along with a Moog bass covering the low end. I actually high-passed everything around 200hz on the original song to provide my own basslines and let the kicks stand out without subs clashing. 3. Sections are repeated, such as Heather's A section happening once with blast beats and replayed immediately again as a breakdown. 4. Didn't do much to the B section other than a riser with some more glitchy MIDI gates and a crash. The end returns to the ambient opening with a bassline I wrote, and spins down before coming to an end. https://danbarnettmusic.bandcamp.com/track/peer-remix

[danbarnettmusic]

Found Sound Song

For my Found Sound assignment, I took a 1 minute recording of my wife using the hose in our garden. From there I worked this sound into my song two different ways. First, I had the sample playing over a tape machine with a MIDI gate and some stereo delay set to an eighth note. Second, I used a partial of the sample as a second wavetable for the synth pad you hear played throughout. This gives the pad a little color since I use it to color it with white noise, making it sound like water is subtly moving and flowing. Other instruments featured include some Casio CZ brass, DX7 keys, some MiniMoog bass, and a sine lead and drumkit from the Korg Triton. Check it out here: https://danbarnettmusic.bandcamp.com/track/water-found-sound-song

[danbarnettmusic]

Hey ya'll,

I made a simple loop track using some octave guitars, shakers, crash cymbals, a rhodes keys progression, a drum sequence from VPS Avenger, bass guitar with a little slapback delay, and a bass synth.

It's a brief ABA form and something I might expand more in the future.

Looping is absolutely a creative way to solve problems and speed up your composing workflow. I don't use it often, but when I need ideas down quickly (especially things like world percussion grooves with big ensemble textures), I'd gladly go for a loop if it means I can get work to my client faster and with great quality. That said, this is not my primary way of going about things as a desktop composer working with MIDI and coming from a conservatory background, but there's a lot of crazy stuff I've seen with turning samples on their head and playing with them.

[danbarnettmusic]

Favorite Sounds

Guitar tone is something I feel everyone has different tastes for. Some like it crunchy, smooth, sweet, silky, or any other flavor and texture you can think of. While I absolutely love swaths of distortion and heavy compression, I have to give it to Tim Henson (and Polyphia, again) for creating a crazy unique tone that I had never heard before. His song “Rich Kids” (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=RDQ7AAcVX5ONs&playnext=1) uses “vocoded” lead guitar through the use of a multivoicer plugin. The resulting sound is rich and interesting filled with thick harmonies through the stereo field. Tim has a video tutorial using his own Native DSP plugin “Archetype: Tim Henson” that you can check out (https://youtu.be/XdOYL8ClK7I). I’ve also seen a few tutorials using Ozone’s vocal processing software Nectar which has a very similar multi-voicer as Tim’s. As for synths, I absolutely love Yamaha’s DX7. Renown for being so complicated that nobody could program it, the stock patches have been featured on countless 80’s records such as A-Ha’s “Take on Me” (https://youtu.be/djV11Xbc914). Using FM synthesis, the sounds in the song are bright and lively, while the FM bass is round and full. You can check out the synth’s vast amount of sounds and where it’s used here (https://youtu.be/WiYa4oUxKR8). I own the Arturia emulation and frequently use it in my work, especially for keys!

[danbarnettmusic]

Favorite Song? Least Favorite Song?

Not an easy question!

I have many favorite songs, especially if we're discussing things from multiple genres. However, one album at the beginning of this year was on repeat for much longer than I'd like to admit. Polyphia's Remember That You Will Die, while grimly named, is a virtuosic display of compositional and playing technique in a pop music medium that I have never heard before. The hooks are solid, with interesting instrumental parts, fantastic mixing, and a slew of guest artists to compliment their genre-blending writing. I particularly loved their track, The Audacity (feat. Anomalie), a chaotic yet groovy blend of guitars, bass, driving percussion, and a fantastic synth solo. The song reminds me a lot of the jazz-fusion work of Kohta Takahashi, composer for Namco's Ridge Racer: Type 4. I played RRT4 for hours as a kid, and my love for J-pop and J-fusion was seeded from those hours racing around to Takahashi's songs. The Audacity is a nostalgia trip that brings me back to this with its energetic mood and utterly absorbing part writing. What's harder is finding a song I genuinely dislike. I strive to be an open-minded musician and find something I can like in everything (yes, even atonal Schoenberg). I actually had to do some research for this after sitting here for almost 20 minutes and coming up with nothing. Then I remembered I performed Smokey Joe's Café a few years back and had to perform D.W. Washburn about fifteen times. I can certainly appreciate the song and what it's trying to do, but in a show with such iconic and fun numbers, you could feel the mood of the pit sink every time we get to this number. Such a fun show, yet the number felt like an absolute buzzkill that dropped the energy substantially. Multiply that over a month of performances and rehearsals, and even listening to this song became tiring by the time we finished our run.

[danbarnettmusic]

GCSU: Personal Introduction

Welcome! I'm Dan Barnett, a composer, drummer, and music educator based in Central New Jersey, USA. I hold a Bachelor's in Music Education from Kean University in Union, New Jersey. I've been an educator at Old Bridge Public Schools for six years as an instrumental music teacher for 4th and 5th grades. During the day, I teach a variety of instruments from brass, woodwinds, strings, and percussion to three buildings and over 120+ students! By night, I am an avid composer of video games and visual media. I love incorporating different styles from rock, funk, jazz, and orchestral to create cool sounds for awesome projects. I also arrange percussion music for high school marching bands, notably my alma mater Woodbridge High School where I have marched and taught for over 15 years. I also find time to play percussion and drum set for high school and community theater productions! Outside of music, my wife and I enjoy cooking, traveling, ballroom dancing, and video games. I'm also a budding snowboarder and surfer looking to get out there and improve.

[danbarnettmusic]

Hello!

I'll be musing here about drumming, composing, teaching, or some combination of the three!