153: Theo's Music Class

Theo's Music Class

While the candidates spent half of the day working hard to finish their projects.

Theo spent it working hard to finish recording all sections of the song that he chose to produce.

He didn't manage to finish yesterday, so after he did his morning routine Theo immediately went to his studio to continue working on it.

After working for a couple of hours, Theo just needed to record the last vocal section.

Theo entered the recording room and stopped in front of the microphone.

He motioned to Sylph to start recording as he tried to find the emotion that this song needed to sing.

Shortly after, Theo's voice came out of his mouth.

Theo didn't notice yet, but with all this singing, his singing proficiency was increasing.

When Theo finished recording and was walking out of the recording room, he saw Aurora looking at him with shining eyes.

"Good morning, cupcake!" He smiled at her.

"Good morning, big brother!" She said with a sweet smile.

"Did you have breakfast already?" He asked as he walked to his working station.

"Yes, it was delicious as always!" She replied.

"Great! I thought you would study today?" He said as he looked at her.

"Hmm, I was thinking if I could study here, but only if I don't disturb your work, big brother." She said with a hesitant voice.

"Sure, you will not disturb me. Grab your things and you can study by the side." Theo said after thinking about it.

"Thank you, big brother!" She replied as she toward her room to grab her study materials.

Theo shook his head and smiled when he saw that.

Theo started looking through all the recordings he had so far, he had just finished recording all sections.

Now he had to inspect all recordings to find any mistakes that he might have done.

While he was inspecting, Aurora came back carrying her school bag.

She didn't disturb her brother, so she sat down by the side and started studying silently.

She was super curious as she heard all types of sounds coming from the speakers.

After a while, Theo heaved a sigh of relief when he noticed that there weren't any mistakes in the recordings.

"Finally!" He exclaimed.

"What did you do, brother?" Aurora couldn't help asking when she saw his happy face.

"Oh, I finished inspecting the recordings and everything is fine. Now I can start editing the song." Theo replied with a smile.

"Come here. I can teach you some things with a practical example." Theo said after thinking for a while.

Aurora quickly took a seat beside him with shining eyes.

She was too curious.

"The editing process is a complicated step of song production. The editor needs to be knowledgeable in musical theory."

"For example, the Melody is a succession of musical notes; a series of pitches often organized into phrases. It may sound simple but it is the crucial framework of a song. If the melody is messed up, the song will be ruined."

"Look here when I put together these two sections, they work seamlessly, right?" Theo said as he put together two sections of the recordings.

"Yes, they do." Aurora said after analyzing the sound with trained musical ears.

"Looks what happens when I mess with the melody." Theo said.

Suddenly, the sound became much worse.

"Wow! It's so different!" Aurora exclaimed.

"After the Melody, the editor needs to know how to work with the Harmony. Which is basically the simultaneous, vertical combination of notes, usually forming chords."

"This one refers to the synchronization between the instruments and vocals. As you can already imagine this is another feature of the framework of a song."

"If one of the instruments is not synced with the rest, it becomes noticeable for the listeners."

"Let me give you an example." Theo said as proceeded to play a piece with one instrument not synced.

Aurora listened with her full attention.

That was why Theo had her train to acquire a musical ear.

In times like these, she needed to know what she was listening to.

And the results were evident, even though her ear was not as good as Theo's, she acquired a novice trained ear.

She already could identify most things she heard.

"The piano is not synced?" Aurora asked with hesitation.

"Exactly! I see you did not slack off in your ear training." Theo said with a proud voice.

Aurora blushed a little when she heard that.

"Now that you have a basic understanding of Harmony. I can talk about the Rhythm, which is the organization of music in time. Also closely related to the meter."

"If the Harmony and Melody are the frameworks of the song. The Rhythm is how the framework is divided."

"Imagine I'm building a house. The Harmony and Melody are the foundations of the house, but the Rhythm is how the rooms of the house will be organized. Can you understand?" He asked.

"A little bit." She replied with a thoughtful face.

"Let me play for you the same song, but with different rhythms." He said.

Aurora listened with attention and said afterward, "Oh now I understand. The two pieces had the same chords and notes but they were different because of how they were organized."

"Exactly! Now that you learned the first three things."

"Let's move on to Texture, which is the density (thickness or thinness) of layers of sounds, melodies, and rhythms in a piece."

"It may sound abstract, but imagine with me three houses. The first has one floor, the second has two floors, and the third has three floors."

"Now think about a song that only has the vocal, this song can be compared with the first house."

"Now imagine a song with only the vocal and a guitar, this song can be compared with the second house."

"And lastly imagine a song with a vocal, a guitar, and a piano; this song can be compared with the third house."0

"Do you see it? The first song has a thin Texture while the second and third songs had a thicker Texture."

"Let me play some examples for you." Theo said as he played three examples for his sister.

Aurora absorbed Theo's knowledgeable words as if she was a smart sponge.

She asked some questions and understood in the end.

"And the last aspect is something the Editor needs to know, but a singer needs to be an expert at it. It is the Expression of a song."

"The Expression can be divided into three things. Dynamics, Tempo, and Articulation."

"Dynamics is the volume (amplitude) of your voice. Basically, how loud, soft, medium, gradually getting louder or softer (crescendo, decrescendo), the voice can assume."

"The Tempo is the beats per minute; how fast, medium, or slow a piece of music is played or sung."

"Articulation is the manner in which notes are played or words pronounced: long or short, stressed or unstressed such as short (staccato), smooth (legato), stressed (marcato), sudden emphasis (sforzando), slurred, etc."

"It sounds abstract I know."

"But let me show you a few examples."

"See at this section how soft my voice is? This softness is the dynamic expression of this section."

"Look at these two examples. In this one, I sang really fast and in the other, I sang very slowly. This is exactly what a Tempo should be portrayed by a singer."

"Look at this section. Do you see how I stressed the letter 'A' when I sang? This is the Articulation."

Theo gave Aurora multiple examples as he worked on editing his song.

They discussed music until the time to go to the Tokyo Studios arrived.

"I have to go, cupcake." Theo said suddenly.

"Okay, big brother." She gave him a sweet smile.

"Good luck there! I hope there have some talented animators there!" She smiled.

She knew where her brother was going, she couldn't wait to watch her brother's anime.

Theo bade farewell to her and left the recording studio.

A while later, Theo drove his car out of his house.

'I wonder if I will be able to find talented people.' He thought.

The boss of the studio was looking forward to seeing their projects.

But would there be any good projects?

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