the stories behind our sequences

[KatieMakesThings]

Ok so, I'm kinda messy with my composing process and most of the time inspiration hits me out of nowhere when I'm not doing anything in particular, or when my brain just comes up with a random melody, but this was a different case with my sequence Pop Culture.

It all started with just a random test that I would never have thought of using, since I got really excited that my old Macbook could run all of OS's sequence settings on google (my Ipad that I was using wasn't as laggy, but couldn't stand volume changes, EQ, and even reverb). This was where I fell in love with the flute, and even though I like its melody in the original, it didn't quite fit in somehow with the newer versions.

Then the second version came. I didn't end up liking this one over time because of the 8-bit triangle, and how the melody was kind of stiff with it. This was when I established that I should make a longer version of the test since I really liked it, and I wanted to add "vocals" and lyrics eventually. I feel like this was the start of where I wanted to make the song more poppy, and go in another direction with it.

This was another failed version where I tried to include the flute; I was getting closer to where I wanted to, but I ended up dropping all of these versions entirely and started from scratch again. I really liked the sound of the pop synth, and I think it definitely deserves the name it has. I'm not sure how I didn't reference these and end up with similar instruments, but I think the final sequence of the four was worth it in the end, even though it seems a little bit lower quality and repetitive compared to my other sequences.

Here's the final product, and where I started to get outside inspiration for the sequence. I was listening to a lot of K-pop at the time, and I have no idea if it shines in there but this was certainly inspired by it. I also wanted it to be a song that one of my original characters helped "create," because he is a songwriter/singer. I also had a lot of ideas if this were to be produced as a music video, which were also drawn from eye-catching K-pop MV's. I even got some inspiration for the comic I was- and still am- working on, and how the universe I made up would work with people from it listening to the song and even watching the MV themselves. As for the lyrics and vocals from earlier, the vocals are present in the flute and s. piano, and I wanted to give the song a generic pop feel, but make the lyrics dark and about some kind of cultural revolution with two extreme sides going on in the history of the universe I created. I feel like this was possibly inspired by the dark practices in the K-pop industry, and how most music production companies don't really allow the singers basic human rights. This "occurrence" also shows up in the MV storyboards and ideas I had, where extreme censorship was present in the world I built, but the character I mentioned changed how censorship would be viewed.

I had a lot of fun with this, and it helped change up the creative flow in my brain, and give me new perspectives on working with a song! It felt as if I was producing Pop Culture with someone, maybe even the character I created. Pushing my creative limits is something I never even really thought about until now, and it was a nice experience going back through and reminiscing with all of the memories that helped me create this piece.