Music Experiment: “Saturday In May”

UPDATE, 30 May 06: Since quite a few folks can’t play MP4, I’ve uploaded a MP3 version over at Archive.org.

I’ve been toying with Garage Band on and off since I had my Mac. I got down to viewing the Garage Band online tutorials over at Apple.co. Some 4 hours later, I created and uploaded this piece titled “Saturday In May” (well, today’s a Saturday and it’s in May…)

It’s a MEG4 file, 1.9MB, 3mins 48 secs playing time. Wear your headphones to hear the bass especially.

If you have some sense of musical timing, creating a musical piece using Garage Band is really easy. Gotta give credit to Apple.com for coming up with it. If you’ve listened to the audio file and you’re asking, “Wow did you really play those instruments”, sadly the answer is “No”. Wish I were that talented. The drum beats, instruments and the melodies were provided as part of Garage Band. If you watch the Apple online tutorials, you’ll know how it was created (using the sound loops etc).

Here are some details of the loops I chose, and how I arranged them (click on the flickr image to view the notes):

• After I listened to the various instruments and melodies, I settled on the “Strummed Acoustic 04″ loop as the underlying rythmn for the entire piece. The Track Volume was lowered for the most part, so that it didn’t drown out the other pieces.
• I chose “Classic Rock Beat 01″ for the drum beat. The volume track was lowered for the piano solo portion.
• Bass was “Classic Rock Fretless 01″, and just before the piano solo, I inserted “Classic Rock Fretless 02″ for about 2 measures to give the bass melody some variation.
• The piano piece was a combination of the range of loops from the “Delicate Piano” series. Combining each loop from the same series effectively created a full melody.
• The guitar portion was a combination of several loops from the “Classic Rock Steel” guitar series, with a small repeating end part from “Modern Rock Guitar 01″. I experimented with superimposed loops to see what sort of effect it created.

Once I was satisfied with the final result, I saved it as a MPEG4 file (’Share’ from the menu) and uploaded it to Archive.org. Next, I’ll probably try to record using a real instrument along side the pre-recorded loops.

Cynthia Padilla’s ‘How To’ Flickr notes

Cynthia Padilla used the ‘Add Notes’ feature in Flickr and made her artworks into instant “How To”s. Click on the images below:

Granada, Spain. ‘Alhambra Gardens’

Iris Study

Apricot

Technorati Tags: art, “how to”, “art tutorial”

My SSEAYP memories

Blue waters rolling beneath white crests.
Liquid landscape broken,
Dreamers floating on a whim.

Tomorrow never comes,
Only the music of laughter abound.
Too tired to care, too happy to worry.

Sailing into foreign lands,
Leaving with second homes.
Fostered kinships sealed with ribbons and tears.

A moment of waiting
Turns into an eternity of regrets.
Pain, confusion; anger, resignation.

When acceptance finally comes,
Laughter echoes through carpeted halls
Once again.

Sorrow greets the grey morning.
Strangers no longer
But leaving just the same.

Rapturous moments recalled.
Sparks among the stars,
Eternal in our own cosmos
Ivan Chew, 16 Oct 2001

Originally posted at the 28th sseayp Amateur Poetry Club. There was a tragic road accident for the batch of 2001. The first time in the 28 years that any major accident like that occurred. Our voyage was cut short and well, it was sad and frustrating but that’s life. It’s been almost 5 years since the trip. Half a decade — imagine that.

Lily

I didn’t take this shot. Dave Watts did — I discovered it from randomly going through Flickr. Showed this to my wife and she said, “I like this.” She also said “It’s a Pink Lily” and I asked if it was its name. She said, “Well it’s pink and it’s a lily”. OK, I can’t argue with that : )

View the larger image (at 1772 x 1178 pixels) and other sizes here:

Firefox Flicks

Learnt about this animated clip called “This is hot” via Pluit Solutions:

Good stuff. Lots more over at Firefoxflicks.com.

This one made me laugh!

Making your own kite, by Victor Koo

Victor posted this “how to” piece on making his own kite. Cost him next to nothing as the materials were either recycled or freely available. Reproduced his instructions with his permission (thanks, Victor!).

THE MATERIALS

• Tracing paper (purchased at provision shop for 20 cents)
• 2 “Sapu Lily” sticks
• Glue
• A pair of scissors
• Reel of string

Explanation:
“Sapu Lily” Sticks - Obtained from a sweeper’s broom. Victor wasn’t sure why it’s called “Sapu Lily”. He explained that “Sapu” is a Malay word to mean “sweep”. The sticks come from drying out the coconut leaf.

MAKING THE KITE

STEP #1

Cut out a 14-inch square of tracing paper. Tip: Fold diagonally before cutting.

STEPS #2, 3, 4 and 5

For the first stick, break off the thinner end to leave it about 2 inches shorter than the diagonal of the square (i.e. so that you have a 2 inch flap of paper at the corner).
Place one end on the corner of the paper, and put it diagonally. At the other corner of the paper, apply glue and fold over the stick.

Cut out two pieces of tracing paper (about 2 inches square), apply glue and use them to secure the top end of the stick as well as the middle.

Bend the second stick into a curve. The length should be enough to touch the corners when bent (trim the length by breaking off the thinner end of the stick). Bending the stick ensures the kite is taut enough so that it catches the wind when flown.

Apply glue at the corners of the big square paper and fold them over to secure the bent stick in place (as shown in picture).

Punch small holes in the kite (at the positions indicated in red).

STEPS #6 and 7

Thread a doubled-up string through the holes and secure the string. Tie the string such that the front end is slightly shorter than the rear section. TIP: If both sections are of the same length, the kite wouldn’t fly. If the rear section is longer than the front, your kite would fly backwards.

Cut the remaining tracing paper into long thin strips. Use glue to join the strips and attach to the tail end of your kite. TIP: The tail makes the kite more stable in flight.

Paint the kite if you wish. Attach a reel of string to the kite and you’re ready for your kite to catch the wind.

Original posts at Victor’s blog and also Yesterday.sg.

Tag: creative learning

“Ang Mor” Potato Pao

Discovered this post by Insaning on how he (she?) made an “Ang Mor” (i.e. Western) pao using a hollowed-out potato. Pretty creative.

Tag: creative learning

Mouse (Jan 2006)

A mouse I drew during a course earlier in the year. I discovered it lying around at home. The course trainer said, “Draw a mouse” and we all did. Then they attempted to psycho-analyse you (in jest, mostly) from the type of mouse you drew.

“Mouse”, 3 Jan 2006, Pen on paper

My mouse had big ears (i.e. I’m a good listener), feet firmly planted (i.e. I’m a “steady” person), and a long tail (I can’t remember what this meant). Hmm… really? You can tell a person by the mouse they draw?

“Life Finds A Way” - Part 1 (May, 2006)

After my previous posts on the Cybernetic hands (#1, #2, #3), I wondered if I would be able to draw a new one, since the last time I drew them was in the early 1990s. Today I attempted to draw a new one using my left hand and forearm as reference.

“Life Finds A Way” (May 2006), Pencil/ Ink on sketch paper. Lower res scan 600 x 954 pixels

Initially I planned to do just a sketch of a cybernetic hand and forearm. However, for some reason, I felt it was a bit boring and lost interest. After leaving the preliminary sketch aside, about an hour later, it occurred to me that I could do a Sci-Fi piece. Sort of like a post-apocalypic scene — where a severed cybernetic hand protruding from the groun starts sprouting life, where the cybernetic morphs into something organic. “Life Finds A Way” indeed.

How it was done

From the rough sketch of my own left hand, I added some flowers (using real flowers that my wife grows) and they looked kinda OK. But not great.

At this stage, I am still formulating how the drawing should proceed. Frankly, I wasn’t confident that it would turn out nice but I didn’t abandon the sketch.

At this point, I required greater precision so I switched to a mechanical pencil to outline the main parts of the drawing — the flowers, the section joints, the stem of the plant that’s snaking around and embedded in the hand, the metal/ plastic parts of the cybernetic hand.

Next, I started to ink over the main pencil outlines. I used a Uniball pen (0.5, I think) with permanent ink. I’m rather careful at this stage to ensure that the correct overlaps (for the cables and parts) are drawn. I can amend it digitally later but I’d prefer to keep them correct as much as possible.

More inking of the main lines. I continue to establish the cables and parts of the biotech hand, which will help me establish the areas for fills and finer details. At this stage, I’m still a bit more careful not to overdo the details or else it might get too cluttered later.

Here’s a close-up of the cables. It’s not as hard as it looks. Takes a bit of patience and good eyesight though : )

I’m almost done by this time. I switch to applying Indian Ink using a calligraphy nib/ pen. Indian Ink has a darker and more robust quality compared to the pens’ pigments, hence I used it to give the required areas more depth and as a contrast to the other dark lines.

Finally I shade the drawing with the mechanical pencil. I intend to try using the layering technique in photoshop to put a fill layer underneath (or maybe it should be above?) the shaded areas. Not too sure how I’m going to do it though. Will have to experiement. Here’s the close-up of the pencil shadings.

Compared with the Cybernetic Hand which I did in 1990…

… mmm, there’s certainly more details in the earlier sketch, primarily due to the larger drawing area. But I have to admit that I was a lot more inspired then!

Well, next part — attempting to paint this digitally using Photoshop.

Photo references for “Life Finds A Way” - for the finger tips and thumb that’s being transformed from metal/ plastic to something organic.

American Society of Botanical Artists

Thanks to Jean (paintingflowers.blogspot.com) for the heads-up:

The American Society of Botanical Artists, Inc. (ASBA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting public awareness of botanical art and to encouraging the development of this continuing artistic tradition.

The botanical art tradition combines science and art. Botanical artists seek to understand the structure of plants and to communicate this knowledge to their audience in an aesthetically pleasing manner. While botanical art encompasses a range of styles, the focus of the ASBA is on work that conforms to the above definition, whether it takes the form of scientific illustration or realistic flower painting.

Incorporated in February 1995, the ASBA is open to all artists and others interested in furthering the development of botanical art. Annual participation, is open to individuals and institutions worldwide. To join, please see our Membership page. [Read More]
Last accessed: 2 May 2006

ASBA is at huntbot.andrew.cmu.edu/ASBA (hosted out of Hunt Institute, which I found to be quite an interesting site).

Check out the Exhibitions page (I found it interesting to read the thoughts and write up behind the exhibitions), the Members Gallery (where there are links to works by the artists listed), and the newsletter (WARNING: the newsletters are in PDF, up to 1MB. Last time I tried to assess, I got an error message and caused all my browser windows to close…)

I didn’t find a lot of artworks on the site itself. What’s useful are the links to the artists and its newsletter.