The Great Giana Sisters - another experiment

(if you won't see the flash, just hit F5)

Today I was trying to learn something about distortion, tone and other stuff that I might need. I was exploring how guitars can sound...

Here's what the experiment brought -> The Great Giana Sisters

(Again don't even ask me about percussion....)

This was originally composed by Chris Hulsbeck for the game named The Great Giana Sisters.

My melody - Ableton Live

After doing my piano version I tried to come up with the version I had in my head. For that I used Ableton Live. ^_~ Here's the result. Hope you like it.

Utopia by KaW experiment

My teacher suggested that I should try out Ableton to work with music. We had few sessions and a workshop about the software so I know what it can do, but I could never imagine myself working on it. So to try it out and see how it works I decided to 'transcribe' a song of a choice. At first I thought of NeoMax by DM Ashura but that would take me ages to transcribe so I tried Utopia - a song I was already capable of playing to some extent on the piano. Knowing the notes helps^^.

So here's my experiment. I had to stop somewhere in the middle of the song because I have no idea what the scales KaW has there. I'll try listening to the song a bit more or watch lin nan playing the song later and I might change it. For the time being there's just the 'melody part'. I might try to do some kind of percussion and add some effects next time. I want to explore that as well but for the time being I have no idea how I would even approach percussion and effects. So Utopia version 1. Hope Kyle won't kill me for it^^

EDIT: I added some percussion. I'm not really proud about it. But it more or less works. The major problem is in the goddamn part I can't make out rhytmically or well in other way...

Exploring patterns/samples

Just meddling with some patterns...and exploring what that could be used for. ^^

Melody - this time on piano

Piano version^^.

Tribute to Avon - sprays on wall

Small Exhibition

My wall at school. There's a bit more to see but well...couldn't manage ti fit everything in the photos. I'll try to make better ones with my camera later.

Realism in fantasy art

Disclaimer...I haven't slept for like 32 hours and I'm ill....so the text might not be coherent or easy to understand.

After receiving feedback about the first submission draft there were two issues addressed. One was realism in fantasy art and the other one popularization/commercialization.

Few minutes ago I wanted to listen to Mitternacht by E-nomine and the video I clicked on youtube was actually a music video for The Lord of the Rings featuring a scene that does not even happen in the book. (LotR MV - Mitternacht). Quite a coincidence because I was trying to figure out why fantasy art is getting so realistic. A new set for the Magic: The Gathering game is out today and there are illustrations by an artist named Slawomir Maniak. These paintings look photorealistic even though there are undead creatures on them. After staring at Elgaud Inquisitor for some time I was wondering if this level of realism makes me believe that those skeletons could be real. This image reminds me a lot of The Lord of the Rings trilogy by Peter Jackson. When I was watching the video there are scenes from battle at Osgiliath that look pretty realistic, the very same way as Slawomir Maniak paints. I have no idea how real battle could look like but this looks real to me even though there are nazguls, orcs and other otherworldy creatures.

The problem with so realisticly done scenes is that they don't give any space for one's imagination. I've read The Lord of the Rings when I was about 9-10 years old and for me the creatures looked different and they looked more 'fairy tale' like. And Gollum was completely different! I wasn't imagining that world or creatures from it to look so realistic. Imagining a battle for me had certain limits. After reading tons of fantasy books where battles were fought I can finally make my own visualization of similar battle. After seeing the Lord of the Rings Trilogy whenever I think of the book I have the images from the movie in my head. All the illustrations from John Howe, Alan Lee and Ted Nasmith just disappear...no they don't disappear, they transform into the movie's realism. When I think of a battle, movie's battle scenes come to mind.

Is this the companies' intent? To strip us of the imagination fantastic elements can evoke? Well, showing us something that looks real makes it more believable. Less alienation happens nowadays and more people are willing to accept that there could be vampires and who knows what.